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Book Review: Unconquerable Sun

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Book: Unconquerable Sun
Author: Kate Elliott
Release Date: 7 July 2020
Source: ARC received  through employer
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I had meant to have this review up like two weeks ago, but life being life, things got in the way. So, my review for Unconquerable Sun comes out just in time for the official release. This book is available as of today! Read the review, and then go and buy it!

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott (perhaps best known for her YA series Court of Fives), is a massive space opera played out on an epic intergalactic scale. In this intricately-plotted narrative, ambitious Princess Sun of the Chaonian Republic, heir to the throne of a great galactic empire, must fight to survive the ire of her temperamental mother, the secrets of her foreign consort father, and the political machinations of forces within the empire who wish to remove her as heir to the throne, all while in the midst of a long-standing war with a rival galactic empire. 

The Chaonian Republic has long been at war with the Phene Empire for control of vast swaths of the galaxy, where FTL intergalactic travel is made possible by an ancient system of “Beacons” built by a long-dead civilization. Now, as the efforts of Princess Sun have given Chaonia a great victory in the war, and the Phene Empire readies for a massive counter-assault, Sun must deal with an attack from within her own ranks. Her mother, Queen-Marshal Eirene, is temperamental, volatile, suspicious, and under constant critique for choosing Sun’s father (a Royal of an enemy government) as one of her consorts, and therefore does not trust her own daughter. On top of that, someone among the Noble families is attempting to either kill or discredit Sun and the retinue of Companions she keeps by her side. Along the way, Sun allies herself with a diverse array of characters – including her secret lover, an unstable prisoner of war, a woman who may or may not be a spy, and the winner of a pop media Idol contest. Each of these allies, and many more besides, have secrets and goals and ambitions of their own. It is anyone’s guess who can be trusted, and who will betray the princess.

Kate Elliott is, of course, a highly respected writer of both adult and YA sci-fi/fantasy, and this novel may be her best yet. The world (or galaxy) building is detailed and immense. Because of this, the first fifty pages or so are dense and a bit difficult to push through. Elliott does not shy away from throwing a vast amount of information, terminology, slang, and names at the reader, and leaves it up to you to keep track of it all and connect the necessary dots. I personally have no problem with this kind of “throw them into the deep end and see if they can swim” kind of writing, but some might have difficulty with it. I promise, however, that the effort is rewarded by a intricate plot full of political intrigue and fast-paced space battles, which pulls much of its inspiration from the stories of Alexander the Great (indeed, one of the taglines for the marketing of the book is that it is a “genderbent Alexander the Great on an interstellar scale”).

In addition, many of the cultural details of the worlds and peoples in this novel are pulled from a variety of cultures such as ancient Greek and Roman, a few different Asian religions, and even a bit of the Romani — all mixed, combined, and riffed-off-of in unexpected ways. Perhaps my favorite aspect, however, is that the characters feature a diverse range of ethnicities, sexualities, and complex beliefs/motives. I think perhaps a good ⅔ of the characters are queer of some variety or another, and there are black, brown, and “Asian” people all over the place.

This novel is an unapologetic space opera (I saw someone calling it Space Fantasy, which I object to. Space Opera is its own genre and it’s not “fantasy” at all, even if some of the “science” is soft and unexplained). It is a grand adventure, political intrigue, and military scifi, wrapped in a space opera on an immense scale that rivals the works of James S.A. Corey, Kameron Hurley, and Lois Bujold McMaster.

I might be my favorite read of the year so far, and I absolutely cannot wait for the next one!

As I said at the beginning, this book was released today, so it is available everywhere books are sold! You can find it at any of these links (or at your local bookstore, of course – SHOP INDIE!):

Bookshop.org

Indiebound

Book Depository

Amazon

Also! Author Kate Elliott will be in conversation with N.K. Jemisin about the book tonight at 7pm Pacific, through the efforts of Mysterious Galaxy Books. (I will, of course, be attending!)

Book Review: The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

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Book: The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
Author: Zen Cho
Release Date: 23 June 2020
Source: ARC borrowed from employer
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The novella The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho, published by Tor.com publishing, packs a surprisingly emotional punch in its little body. It has been marketed as wuxia-inspired, and it is definitely that (though there are far fewer martial arts fight scenes and flying about than one might expect if you are at all familiar with Chinese wuxia books or films). Instead this slim book is about inner battles and emotional landscapes.

In a vaguely Asian-inspired country under oppressive rule, Guet Imm, a former nun of the respected monastic order called The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, teams up with a group of bandits who are more than they appear. These bandits are not merely criminals, but political outcasts and rebels, trying to earn money for their cause. The bandits begrudgingly concede to their new companion (when Guet Imm gives them little choice), and accept her help in protecting a priceless religious relic.

Over the course of their journey through forests and mountains, the nun becomes a part of their found family, and inspires one bandit to reconsider the faith he had thought dead forever. And just to keep things interesting, they also have to fight for their lives.

This book is a wonderful meditation on what it means to choose your family and your path, deciding for yourself who and what is important no matter what society has to say on the subject.  It is also a beautiful examination of the joys, pains, and contradictions of religious faith – what means to have faith, to lose it, and to regain it. As a lapsed Catholic with a very complicated and ambivalent relationship to religion, I really appreciated and resonated with this facet of the story.

It is full of fun martial arts film tropes, and also features a gay man and a trans man – and neither of these identities is in anyway questioned or rebuked by any of the characters in the book, which is refreshing.

I gave this novella a 4 out of 5 because I genuinely enjoyed it and I look forward to what this author does next, but it didn’t totally WOW me. It didn’t knock my socks off. (And honestly, I would have enjoyed a bit more of that great wuxia staple: impossible flying-about martial arts fights.) Still, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a short fun novella, stories about found families, and/or people who like an Asian aesthetic in their fantasy.

Here is the link to the Goodreads page for this book. And if you would like to pre-order I would recommend either IndieBound or the new online store Bookshop.org (as amazon has been delaying new book releases lately in order to deal with increased shopping for the quarantine situation).

Book Review: What Angels Fear

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Book: What Angels Fear (Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries Book 1)
Author: C.S. Harris
Release Date: October 2006
Source: Bought
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

After reading The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman last week, I still had both Regency England and mysteries on the brain, and I needed desperately to scratch that itch. I thought about re-reading Mairelon the Magician for the millionth time, but then I remembered that I had bought this book, What Angels Fear, a year ago (at local mystery bookstore Murder by the Book, on Indie Bookstore Day in fact!) and never got around to reading it. It is a murder mystery novel that is set in Regency England, and its the first in the series, so if I liked it, I had plenty more where that came from!

my baby boy Sebastian

I will fully admit that when I first saw this book at the bookstore, my main impetus for picking it up was because of the main character’s name: Sebastian. Sebastian was the name of my cat, my baby boy, who died at the age of 18 a few years ago. (I had him since he was 6 weeks old, when I was in 7th grade. I named him after Bastian from The Neverending Story and St. Sebastian – I was a a very devout Catholic obsessed with hagiography at the time… and just because I love the name). Anyway… I picked up the book because of the name. But the description quickly grabbed me too: Regency England, murder mystery, brilliant dashing troubled hero? This is my jam!

I’m embarrassed it took me so long to get around to actually reading it, but boy did I enjoy it!

Here’s the basic plot synopsis: Sebastian St. Cyr, Lord Devlin, has returned to London from the wars against Napoleon in France, where he worked as an intelligence operative because of his particular skills. He has been getting into trouble for dueling (outlawed quite awhile ago) and is generally considered by his father, his sister, and most of society to be a libertine and a layabout. He’s actually an honorable man – his duels have mostly been in defense of innocent people, and he doesn’t sleep around nearly as much as people assume he does. The real problem comes in when a beautiful young actress is brutally raped and murdered late at night in a church, and the evidence points to Sebastian St. Cyr, despite his insistence he is innocent. Bad luck and a general disdain for the Bow Street Runners leads to a series of incidents that make Sebastian look even more guilty, and he is forced to go on the run, avoiding capture so that he may have a chance to clear his name. Along the way he gains the help of a young street waif, an old friend from the war, and Kat Boleyn – an actress and acquaintance of the murdered actress, who broke Sebastian’s heart six years ago, and who has plenty of secrets of her own. As Sebastian investigates the murder, he discovers that the truths he may found could have profound consequences not just for him, but for the entire country.

This novel was a tightly-plotted twisty exciting ride of a mystery. I was following along carefully, trying to solve the murder with (or ahead of) Sebastian, but I did NOT see the ending coming until it was just about right in front of my face. There are quite a few characters to keep track of, and as the novel is told in omniscient third-person, you get the chance to be right in the heads of quite a few of those characters. Even so, I did not guess the culprit until Sebastian had. And then I was like: “oooooh! I get it!”

Sebastian is in some ways your typical Regency hero (mystery novel or otherwise): he’s brilliant, handsome, honorable, much more forward-thinking than most of the other men around him, and of course an excellent lover. He has the added benefit of better-than-usual eyesight, hearing, and reflexes. Is he a little TOO perfect? Yeah, probably. But I honestly don’t mind that when I’m reading this kind of book. Despite that, C.S. Harris does a good job of fleshing the character out, giving him some depth and nuance. I think it is safe to assume that will continue in the next books.

The other characters all vary in dimension and depth, of course. Kat Boleyn, the heart-breaking actress, is fairly well-written. She is, to an extent, also a typical Regency heroine – beautiful, intelligent, willful, etc. The secret to her motives are a little too obvious and stereotypical. But she has a secondary secret that gives her more interest and keeps her from being too one-dimensional. And I liked her even if she was a tad cliche at times. I also assume she will get more fleshing out in later books, and I look forward to seeing how that turns out.

I felt that the historical elements of the novel were well-considered and deeply researched. Some Regency novels just kind of toss in an archaic word or place name here or there and then don’t worry about it much. This narrative felt nicely grounded in its time and place, with characters drawn from real historical reference, and a great use of the language of the time. The prose is also wonderful: descriptive and intriguing without being too florid.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this book. So much so that I got online and ordered books 2 and 3 before I had even quite finished it. I imagine they should arrive sometime next week and I look forward to seeing how Sebastian gets into trouble next time.

Also, apparently book #15 (!!) of this series is coming out on April 7th, so I have a lot of catching up to do!

For links to this book, What Angels Fear: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound
***Under the current circumstances, please try to buy from an indie bookstore if at all possible. Indiebound is a great way to find one near you that delivers. Or, if you want, you can order from MY favorite local indie bookstore: Murder by the Book

And here is the Goodreads page with a list of all the books in the series

Book Review: The Daughters of Ys

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Photo by me

Book: The Daughters of Ys
Author: M.T. Anderson (writer)/Jo Rioux (artist)
Release Date: May 2020
Source: ARC provided by publisher (obtained through my work)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

The Daughters of Ys is a graphic novel written by M.T. Anderson, with art by Jo Rioux, that is based on an old Breton folktale. “Breton” refers to the area of France called Brittany, which actually originally had a Briton/Celtic population, before it was colonized by the Roman Empire, and then was eventually subsumed into France. So the folktales of the area are a very fascinating mix of cultures.

This graphic novel contains beautiful full-color art with a soft color palette and a sweeping style, that tells a sad, foreboding far-reaching story in a surprisingly small, tightly-narrated package. 

The Daughters of Ys are two sisters, Rozenn and Dahut, the daughters of King Gradlon of the kingdom of Kerne, who live in the capital city of Ys. The sisters drift apart after the death of their magical (possibly faerie) mother, and follow divergent paths that bring them into conflict with each other. Rozenn, the eldest and heir to the throne, goes to live in the wilds, to be among the plants and animals and away from the riotous parties and debauchery of the capital city. Dahut, the younger, takes on the task of maintaining the kingdom for her increasingly broken and useless father, the king, and revels in the parties and the young men who come to court her. But Dahut has a dark secret. A secret that makes their kingdom the richest and most powerful of all, but at a steep cost. When Dahut and Rozenn come into conflict, one sister betrays the other, and their choices have the potential to ruin the entire kingdom.

This story is a dark lesson in obligation, desire, and what happens when debts finally come due. It is also about the ways that family can fall apart and even destroy each other in the face of competing needs and motivations.

When I first saw the cover, I didn’t care for the art style, but as I got into the story I decided that the style – somewhat loose and soft with a kind of colored pencil texture to it – actually fit the folktale-nature and tone of the narrative. Also, by the end of the story I was very fascinated by the original folktale, and had to go look it up on Wikipedia later. I’m now wondering if there’s a full collection of Breton folktales somewhere, because that would be cool. AND I went in search to see if anyone had written a full novel adaptation of the story, and lo and behold! There is, in fact, a whole 4 book series based on the folktale written by respected SF/Fantasy writer Poul Anderson and his wife/sometimes-coauthor Karen Anderson! So I’ll be looking for those later…

I gave this graphic novel a 4 out of 5 stars. I’m not going to singing its praises to the rafters for weeks, but I did really enjoy it. And I highly recommend it.

For the curious, here is the Wikipedia page about the legendary city of Ys.

And the Wikipedia page about Brittany, where this folktale originates from.

Finally, here is the goodreads page for Poul & Karen Anderson’s book series: The King of Ys.

Book Review: Middlegame

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Book: Middlegame
Author: Seanan McGuire
Release Date: May 2019
Source: ARC provided by publisher, then audiobook bought from Audible
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Seanan McGuire is a very prolific writer. She has written two different urban fantasy series (The October Daye books and the inCryptid books). She has written a bunch of horror novels, including the acclaimed Newsflesh Trilogy under the pen name Mira Grant. And she has gained, probably, her most impressive accolades from her novella Wayward Children series, the first of which – Every Heart a Doorway – was how I came to her in the first place.

Middlegame is a standalone fantasy novel (which I really appreciated! I love a good epic fantasy series but sometimes they get too exhausting and I enjoy a good immersive standalone book). And guys, it is SO GOOD.

I first started reading it in April 2019, when I borrowed an ARC through my work. However, I only got about a third of the way through it before various issues got in the way and I never finished it. And then I returned the ARC to my employer and that was that. So, when I started my “Storm the Castle” 2020 Reading Challenge with my friends, I knew that Middlegame would be on the list of books in the “Books You Started But Never Finished” Category.

A few weeks ago I caved in and just bought the audiobook. Even though I am slowly getting better at reading print books again, I still do the majority of my reading through audiobooks, especially because I can often listen to them while I’m working. It took me quite awhile to finish the audiobook of Middlegame though, for a few reasons: first off, I started it but then decided I really REALLY just wanted to finish the book Lawrence in Arabia first because it had stolen all my attention; second, the plot of Middlegame was stressing me out so much and giving me so much anxiety that I had trouble listening to it for more than half an hour at a time; and third, I didn’t really care for the narrator, Amber Benson.

Amber Beson is the actress who portrayed Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and by and large I really do like her as an actress. But no matter how hard I tried to get used to her, I just did not like her narration – especially her voices for two of the antagonists, Reed and Leigh. Her voices for the two main characters I didn’t LOVE, but I could handle. Her voices for the two villains just set my teeth on edge every single time. So, that didn’t help. But oh well.

The story itself, however, is AMAZING. I’m going to try to explain what is a rather complex premise and plot without giving away anything too spoilery (I know its been out for almost a year but I still would like to avoid spoilers if I can).

Middlegame is set in a version of America where alchemy exists in secret all around us. Asphodel Baker, one of the great alchemists of her age, sets out to lead humanity to a kind of utopic vision called “The Impossible City” by embodying something called the “Doctrine of Ethos” – a kind of philosophical and magical concept that controls (or perhaps more accurately, creates?) reality – into a biddable human form. However, Asphodel Baker can’t do this on her own, and when her greatest alchemical creation – her protege Reed – kills her, he takes over her task with the help of violent, I would say INSANE, golem-woman named Leigh. And together they create a group of children, created in pairs as twins, with rhyming names, who each MIGHT come to embody the doctrine as they grow.

To be clear, all that is just the PROLOGUE. Stay with me!

The MAIN plot of the book follows one set of these pairs, brother and and sister Roger and Dodger. The twins have been separated at birth by Reed and his associates, but discover each other when they realize they can see through each other’s eyes and speak to each other in their minds despite living on opposite coasts. They do not know WHY or HOW they can do this, and decide they must be quantum-entangled somehow but since they are kids they don’t question it much. They grow up on opposite sides of the country as best friends, but as they become teenagers and then adults a variety of incidents keep tearing them apart (I’m trying really hard not to get spoilery here, folks). They keep coming back together again, and then splitting up, over and over. It was very stressful for me!

Finally, as adults, they reunite one last time as they realize that a) they were created beings, not born in the traditional sense, and b) their creator might be trying to kill them.

The plot of this novel is enormously complex. There are several important characters to keep track of, one of whom you don’t realize will be important until much later in the book. Parts of the novel are told out of chronological order: the book is organized into Parts 1-7, but it continues to return to Part 7 THROUGHOUT the novel! In addition, each part is prefaced with a passage from “Over the Woodward Wall” which is a children’s book that exists in-world for the characters (but not for us) written by Asphodel Baker to indoctrinate children to her ideas. (Fun fact: Seanan McGuire is now actually WRITING this not-real book and it is being published by Tor). On top of all this: there’s TIME TRAVEL in the book. Quite a lot of time travel in the second half (I hope that doesn’t give away too much!).

As I said earlier, this book gave me a lot of stress and anxiety. I want to be clear that this is not a mark against it! It just goes to show how REAL the characters were to me, and how tightly, tensely written the plot was! Every time the two main characters, Roger and Dodger, got separated, or were put in danger, I got very stressed!

This book is brutal and cruel. Both to its characters and to its readers. It is almost physically painful to read. On the other hand, Seanan McGuire’s writing always has a beautiful, almost poetic quality to it. It is especially noticeable in her Wayward Children series, but it is also in evidence here. Some of the passages are just SO PRETTY. Here’s just a few examples:

“Words can be whispered bullet-quick when no one’s looking, and words don’t leave blood or bruises behind. Words disappear without a trace. That’s what makes them so powerful. That’s what makes them so important. That’s what makes them hurt so much.”

“Maybe it would be comforting, to her. The math would be true, and that’s all she’s ever asked from the world. He knows the words that apply to this situation—exsanguination, hypovolemia, hemorrhage— but they don’t reassure him the way the numbers reassure her. They never have. Numbers are simple, obedient things, as long as you understand the rules they live by. Words are trickier. They twist and bite and require too much attention. He has to think to change the world. His sister just does it.”

“For a man on a mission, a hundred years can pass in the blinking of an eye. Oh, it helps to have access to the philosopher’s stone, to have the fruits of a thousand years of alchemical progress at one’s fingertips, but really, it was always the mission that mattered. James Reed was born knowing his purpose, left his master in a shallow grave knowing his purpose, and fully intends to ascend to the heights of human knowledge with the fruits of his labors clutched firmly in hand. Damn anyone who dares to get in his way.”

“She looks like peaches and cream, like Saturday afternoons down by the frog pond, innocence and the American dream wrapped up in a single startlingly lovely package. It’s a lie, all of it. He believes in exploiting the world for his own gains, but she’d happily ignite the entire thing, if only to roast marshmallows in its embers.”

There is also something to be said about determination and hope in this book. These characters balance just on the edge of giving up and giving in every other page, and yet somehow manage to keep trying and keep fighting, in the face of failure and death and worse. And it is also about love – familial love, the love for family and friends, rather than romantic love. And that was something else I really appreciated about this book. No knock on romance – I love a good romance – but this was something different. You’re going to think this is a weird comparison – but it is different in the way Lilo & Stitch was different from the usual “princess falls in love” Disney fare. As someone with three siblings, it was something I could really appreciate (even if I don’t get along quite so well with my siblings as Roger and Dodger do).

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. Just as I have enjoyed everything I have read by Seanan McGuire so far (and I have so much more of hers to read!). I highly recommend this book. Just… maybe not the audio version…

And, even though I didn’t intentionally time the finishing of this book and the writing of this review quite so well on purpose, it is actually quite nicely timed because the trade paperback printing of Middlegame is being released on April 7th. So you can pre-order if you like! How apropos is that?!

For links to buy the book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound

And Tor.com has a couple passages available to read on their website as well: from Part One and Part Four

Book Review: The Body in the Garden

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Book: The Body in the Garden
Author: Katharine Schellman
Release Date: 7 April 2020
Source: ARC provided by publisher (obtained through my work)
Rating: 6 out of 5 Stars (I can do that if I want to!)

Photo by me

Let me begin this review with a little backstory (kind of like I did for Disney’s Land). I love many things. I am a very enthusiastic, some might say obsessive fan, of quite a few pop culture subjects. But here are a few of my EARLIEST obsessions: Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes, the Regency England fantasy novels of Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, and murder mysteries in general.

I read my first Jane Austen novel – Pride and Prejudice – in 5th grade (I was reading WELL into a college-level by fourth and fifth grade) and became immediately obsessed, proceeding to read all of her novels. At about the same time, I had become obsessed with mystery novels. I started with age-appropriate books such as Nancy Drew and the Boxcar Children, but very quickly moved on to Sherlock Holmes, who is still one of my greatest loves. Not long after that I read Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede – a book that combined Regency England historical setting, fantasy, and a pair of beloved character solving a mystery. Her sequel The Magician’s Ward, and her trilogy of related Regency Fantasy novels co-written with Caroline Stevermer (Sorcery and Cecilia, The Grand Tour, and The Mislaid Magician) all follow in this same delightful vein.

I would easily rank Mairelon the Magician as one of my top 5 favorite novels – it is my most-commonly-read “comfort novel.” When I am sad or restless or can’t focus enough to read anything else, I read Mairelon the Magician. I have read it approximately 5 PER YEAR since I first picked it up 1995 or 1996, which means I have read it approximately 120 times!

So, to bring it back to the present: I received an ARC of The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman through my work. I discovered to my delight that it combines my favorite things: it is takes place in Regency (1815) England, it is a murder mystery, and it features an awesome woman detective and a dashing sea captain (a la Captain Frederick Wentworth from Jane Austen’s Persuasion). I told my friend about this perfect storm of my favorite things in one book and he replied with this Doctor Who gif:

(if you’ve seen the Doctor Who episode “The Doctor’s Wife” you get why this is so funny)

I was only 20 pages into the book and I was already absolutely DELIGHTED!

The main plot is this: Mrs. Lily Adler, recently widowed and heartbroken has returned to London from the country at the insistence of her (former) mother-in-law. There she meets up with two old friends: Lady Serena Walter (a school friend) and Captain Jack Hartley (her husband’s best childhood friend). While attending a ball thrown by her friend Serena, Lily has the supreme misfortune of accidentally overhearing an argument, pertaining to a blackmail, between persons unknown through a hedgerow, which then leads to gunfire. She and Captain Hartley then discover the dead body of an unknown young man. When the Bow Street Runners (the very early version of a police force only recently coming into itself in the early 1800s) are bribed into NOT investigating the murder, Lily Adler decides that something must be done, and determines to take on the case herself. She quickly enlists the aid of the dashing and protective Jack Hartley, and a smart determined young heiress from the West Indies who has been uncomfortable in London society because of her mixed parentage. Together they risk their reputations and their lives to solve the murder.

To say I enjoyed this book would be gross understatement! I should add, as further backstory, that I suffer from severe depression. I USED to be a prolific reader (2-3 books per week) but as some know, depression can absolutely DESTROY higher brain function. The ability to read, to write, to concentrate and focus just completely EVAPORATE. I haven’t been able to really read in at least 4 years. I switched to audiobooks a couple years ago, which helped. And in the last few months I have been slowly relearning how to read again. But VERY slowly.

So when I say I inhaled this book in THREE DAYS (just 20 pages the first night, then about ⅓ the second night, and finally finishing the whole last ⅔ in one sitting on a third day), you may perhaps understand how big a deal this is for me!

I just loved this book THAT MUCH. It was like my brain just CLICKED back on for awhile! It was AMAZING.

The two main characters, Lily and Jack (well, three I suppose if you include the heiress Ofelia Oswald), are completely wonderful. They are fully-realized, complex people who bond over their shared love for and grief over the loss of Lily’s husband, Freddy. But they also share a sense of justice, and fairplay, and hilarious SARCASM and wit. I was glad to see that they did NOT form a romance over the course of the book, but a great and touching respect and friendship. I adored them both, and I am going to jump in now, before the book is officially released in April and other people discover these characters: I am going to marry both Lily AND Jack. They are mine. You cannot have them!

The plot of the murder mystery was well-crafted and clever and kept me guessing. I thought I had it figured out and then a twist about ⅔ of the way through proved me wrong. I didn’t figure out the truth until RIGHT as the characters were ready to reveal themselves.

In addition, this book was ENORMOUSLY well-researched. It is clear that Katharine Schellman both loves the time period and has the work ethic and attention span to research the fine details that give a good story its texture and its realism. I have taken several college and graduate level courses on the subject of Jane Austen, and both Georgian and Regency-era novels, and so I recognized (perhaps more than the average reader) the kind of historical research that went into this book. It was very impressive! And really added to the overall effect and enjoyment of the book.

I really cannot stress enough how much I loved this book! I was on twitter a couple nights ago raving about it and the author herself very kindly responded. She was so friendly and she is seriously becoming one of my new favorite internet-people.

What makes me even more excited is that the cover of the book announces that it is “A Lily Adler Mystery.” Both this and the ending imply that another book (possibly many other books!) is either already being written or is at least contracted to be written. I am so happy that there will be more of these! The only downside to reading a book before it has even been released is the fact that it means waiting EVEN LONGER for the next one!

Everyone should go pre-order this book NOW while you can! (Katharine Schellman also has a pre-order sweepstakes going on her Instagram, so there’s that).

For links to pre-order there is, of course: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound

For the Instagram sweepstakes head here to Katharine Schellman’s profile