Isabelle grows up in a world where the main worth of women is to be pretty and bear bloodline-preserving children, but of course she’s having none of that, instead growing up with a keen analytical mind, secretly posting mathematical proofs and otherwise SCIENCE’ing her way through life. Either one should have been enough to have her killed at birth, but in swoops royal musketeer (and second point of view) Jeane-Claude, who’s delightfully ‘musketeer’ and dedicated to Isabelle to a fault to save her life. The main protagonist–Isabelle–is born with both a deformed hand (a single ‘worm finger’, which is an odd turn of phrase, but works I suppose) and a lack of the bloodline magic she should have as part of her family. It’s just not something I’d seen much of before and really stood out (in a good way).Ĭharacterwise, the two main points of view really shine. On top of that, there’s a distinct Imperial/Victorian era French influence to a lot of the world, with royal families a mix of gunpowder, bombs, and swords royal musketeers (more on that later) and especially naming conventions. Now I really want to know more–about the priests and about the other magical families at the very least. It’s just a crazy amount of creativity and it all somehow manages to fit together. When next you stand before a mirror with your hat on you will feel it on your head but not see it in your reflection.” And then as you get deeper, you run into priests that show devotion by replacing limbs (and even more) with magical steampunk artifacts, even more magical families (the other main one can send their reflection through mirrors all around the world). Tricorner hats? A family with magical shadows that can eat the shadow right out from their enemies–potentially creating soulless magical slaves? So delightful. A world built on flying islands with the main method of travel being skyships?Ī vast downward-pointing cone of rock bristling with an upside-down forest of salt-encrusted, aether-emitting cloud-choral stalactites that kept the Skyland aloft. Worldbuildingwise, it starts right from the beginning. It’s not a huge part of the overall plot, but if that’s something that bothers you, this may not be the book for you. Vaguely spoilerly warning: There are a number of moments leaning of body horror through this book, especially towards the end. Well worth the read and I’m absolutely going to see where this story goes next. It’s got great steampunky worldbuilding (with some hints of body horror I honestly feel steampunk should probably have more of), royal/courtly intrigue, wonderful characters, and some delightful writing (with a French twist to the word choices that I don’t see much of). I don’t know when/if I would have found this book, if not for that, and I really quite enjoyed it. One of the reasons I’m really glad for the 2021 Book Bingo.

An alchemy of masques and mirrors