Our heroine leads an odd career, one in which she’s very good indeed. But her place in this world, her impoverished circumstances and even her career choice are bound up in the mystery of her lost mother and the reappearance of an ex-friend who might have been something more before a strange withdrawal on his part drove them apart.
The novel brims with magic rooted in cards and spoken spells. It’s like and unlike Harry Potter’s world. There are vile curses and enchanting magical blessings. There are curses that can cause a person to slice off their own fingers and others that make you tap dance uncontrollably. There are drinks that will make you literally float inches off the ground and dresses with kaleidoscopes of live butterflies swirling around the wearer.
The plot keeps you engaged from page one. We’re constantly guessing as to who is friend or foe, who has leveled a clever and potentially lethal curse, who is searching for a lost grimoire, a book of sorcery so puissant and malevolent that just touching it subjects its handler to a black-veined inner rot that proceeds from the hands and slowly takes over the host. The reasons why someone would curse another are as varied as human beings themselves and, after dealing with so many clients, Marlow Briggs is fairly certain she understands the treachery of which human beings are capable. It’s your nearest and dearest who are especially likely to betray you, as she’s learned to her cost.
The magic system makes sense within the confines the author has set. Marlow’s mastery of it isn’t something we question. For her talents to work, there’s more than merely breaking curses. She has to dig deep into her clientele’s backgrounds in order to find out who’s responsible for casting a curse in the first place. She has to sift through clues, listen to unguarded statements from strangers and learn who benefits from seeing a poor unfortunate afflicted with a hex. She’s clearly a woman of keen intellect (although she does let her paranoia get the better of her from time to time).
The worldscape Ms. Pool has invented is one of dazzling wealth and grinding poverty, the two co-existing in an uneasy stalemate. The poverty breeds gang rivalry and turf possession and for that reason the rich avoid it like the plague. Being among the upper crust means being born or wedded into their ranks and you can imagine how often that happens for commoners. This has its meaning too within the plotline since there are those who think that a rebalancing of power might be a boon to those without enough money in their pockets or food in their bellies.
The person who set a curse of compulsion on Adrius Falcrest is a mystery that keeps the reader guessing almost until the very last page. The author has wound it cunningly with the enigma of Marlow’s vanished mother, the furtive Cassandra whose life was even shadier than Marlow could have imagined. This is a heady novel, bursting at the seams with backroom deals, the threat of gang warfare, curses flying like swarms of angry bees, dazzling opulence with spells as gaudy as the rich clothing, food, architecture and lives of those who possess it. In short, it’s one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. I’m almost sorry it needs a sequel. That means I’ll have to wait and see what further hijinks Marlow gets herself into now that her circumstances have changed so drastically.
The novel brims with magic rooted in cards and spoken spells. It’s like and unlike Harry Potter’s world. There are vile curses and enchanting magical blessings. There are curses that can cause a person to slice off their own fingers and others that make you tap dance uncontrollably. There are drinks that will make you literally float inches off the ground and dresses with kaleidoscopes of live butterflies swirling around the wearer.
The plot keeps you engaged from page one. We’re constantly guessing as to who is friend or foe, who has leveled a clever and potentially lethal curse, who is searching for a lost grimoire, a book of sorcery so puissant and malevolent that just touching it subjects its handler to a black-veined inner rot that proceeds from the hands and slowly takes over the host. The reasons why someone would curse another are as varied as human beings themselves and, after dealing with so many clients, Marlow Briggs is fairly certain she understands the treachery of which human beings are capable. It’s your nearest and dearest who are especially likely to betray you, as she’s learned to her cost.
The magic system makes sense within the confines the author has set. Marlow’s mastery of it isn’t something we question. For her talents to work, there’s more than merely breaking curses. She has to dig deep into her clientele’s backgrounds in order to find out who’s responsible for casting a curse in the first place. She has to sift through clues, listen to unguarded statements from strangers and learn who benefits from seeing a poor unfortunate afflicted with a hex. She’s clearly a woman of keen intellect (although she does let her paranoia get the better of her from time to time).
The worldscape Ms. Pool has invented is one of dazzling wealth and grinding poverty, the two co-existing in an uneasy stalemate. The poverty breeds gang rivalry and turf possession and for that reason the rich avoid it like the plague. Being among the upper crust means being born or wedded into their ranks and you can imagine how often that happens for commoners. This has its meaning too within the plotline since there are those who think that a rebalancing of power might be a boon to those without enough money in their pockets or food in their bellies.
The person who set a curse of compulsion on Adrius Falcrest is a mystery that keeps the reader guessing almost until the very last page. The author has wound it cunningly with the enigma of Marlow’s vanished mother, the furtive Cassandra whose life was even shadier than Marlow could have imagined. This is a heady novel, bursting at the seams with backroom deals, the threat of gang warfare, curses flying like swarms of angry bees, dazzling opulence with spells as gaudy as the rich clothing, food, architecture and lives of those who possess it. In short, it’s one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. I’m almost sorry it needs a sequel. That means I’ll have to wait and see what further hijinks Marlow gets herself into now that her circumstances have changed so drastically.