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emtees's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This is what I’ve been hoping for from this series.
In the fourth book in the Glamourist Histories, Jane and Vincent travel to Venice to study with the famed glassmakers of Murano, hoping to improve on their technique for glamour in glass. En route, their ship is attacked by pirates, and not only is Vincent injured, but they lose all their money and papers, leaving them without funds or proof of their identities in a foreign country. Luckily, they also befriend a wealthy banker who offers them a place to stay, a line of credit at his bank, and even help engaging a glassmaker. Despite their difficulties, it seems like Jane and Vincent will be fine. But all is not what it seems to be in Venice, and the Vincents end up discovering that not everyone who seems friendly is actually a friend and help can come from unlikely corners.
Okay, confession. I added a .25 to my total score for one reason. Late in the story, Jane, Vincent and their new friends, who include a whole convent full of nuns and the poet Lord Byron, have to pull off a heist against a gang of criminals. I love a heist. Any book that gets marketed using the phrase “X meets Ocean’s Eleven” is something I will read. And this is a really good heist. It’s got twists and turns, plots within plots, disguises, subterfuge, a gondola race through Venice and did I mention a convent of nuns and Lord Byron? So that alone would have made this my favorite book in the series.
But there was a lot more going for this book. Jane and Vincent have really grown on me; I didn’t like either of them very much in the first book, but they’ve both had so much character development and I really enjoy spending time with them. I think I like them even more as a couple than I do as individuals; they have a lovely, solid, supportive partnership of a type you don’t get to see with romances that end at the wedding. They go through a lot of struggles in this book, from the sudden poverty of their situation to the lingering trauma of Jane’s miscarriage two books back (so appreciate that that hasn’t been forgotten!) to the ongoing effects of Vincent’s troubled childhood, and there is never any sense that these problems will split them up or cause melodrama between them. Instead, within a fantasy context, we get a very realistic portrayal of a couple working through the bad times together. Jane, the narrator, has also gone through some strong personal character development. My biggest issue with her character from the beginning has been how she seemed to accept the prejudices and snobbery of her culture a little too readily, but in each subsequent book, Jane has been confronted with circumstances further from her sheltered upbringing, and it seems those lessons have stuck. In this book, we see that she has gotten over many of her racial and religious biases and even become comfortable around people who aren’t as conservative as she is. (The Jane of book 1 would never have made it through an evening of socializing with Byron, never mind come to think of him as a friend.) And in this book, Jane gets a hands-on experience of poverty and it changes her view of the privilege she’s always lived in. Yes, the Vincents’ brief foray into the life of the poor and just as rapid exit from it is convenient, but it allows Jane to see beneath the surface of the world she’s used to and realize how other people live.
The world-building gets expanded on a bit more, both in the magical world of glamour, where Vincent and Jane continue to break ground with their techniques and Kowal gives us more detail on how glamour actually works than previously (I wasn’t sure up until this book if glamourists actually used their hands), and in the weaving together of fictional and real historical events. I especially liked that we got some follow up from Jane and Vincent’s earlier adventures with Napoleon’s army. And this book was easily the funniest of the series. There were a lot of great lines, and the heist included a particularly hilarious bit that I would swear was inspired by the Sound of Music. Yes, the nuns were involved.
I have a couple of quibbles with the plot line - there were a few elements that felt like missed opportunities, and a couple of places where I think plot threads got dropped when they could easily have been tied up like I guessed that Lucia was in on the plot early on but I kept expecting her to turn out to be Sanuto’s daughter or something, explaining why he told Vincent to make a donation to that particular church , but overall this was a really enjoyable book.
In the fourth book in the Glamourist Histories, Jane and Vincent travel to Venice to study with the famed glassmakers of Murano, hoping to improve on their technique for glamour in glass. En route, their ship is attacked by pirates, and not only is Vincent injured, but they lose all their money and papers, leaving them without funds or proof of their identities in a foreign country. Luckily, they also befriend a wealthy banker who offers them a place to stay, a line of credit at his bank, and even help engaging a glassmaker. Despite their difficulties, it seems like Jane and Vincent will be fine. But all is not what it seems to be in Venice, and the Vincents end up discovering that not everyone who seems friendly is actually a friend and help can come from unlikely corners.
Okay, confession. I added a .25 to my total score for one reason. Late in the story, Jane, Vincent and their new friends, who include a whole convent full of nuns and the poet Lord Byron, have to pull off a heist against a gang of criminals. I love a heist. Any book that gets marketed using the phrase “X meets Ocean’s Eleven” is something I will read. And this is a really good heist. It’s got twists and turns, plots within plots, disguises, subterfuge, a gondola race through Venice and did I mention a convent of nuns and Lord Byron? So that alone would have made this my favorite book in the series.
But there was a lot more going for this book. Jane and Vincent have really grown on me; I didn’t like either of them very much in the first book, but they’ve both had so much character development and I really enjoy spending time with them. I think I like them even more as a couple than I do as individuals; they have a lovely, solid, supportive partnership of a type you don’t get to see with romances that end at the wedding. They go through a lot of struggles in this book, from the sudden poverty of their situation to the lingering trauma of Jane’s miscarriage two books back (so appreciate that that hasn’t been forgotten!) to the ongoing effects of Vincent’s troubled childhood, and there is never any sense that these problems will split them up or cause melodrama between them. Instead, within a fantasy context, we get a very realistic portrayal of a couple working through the bad times together. Jane, the narrator, has also gone through some strong personal character development. My biggest issue with her character from the beginning has been how she seemed to accept the prejudices and snobbery of her culture a little too readily, but in each subsequent book, Jane has been confronted with circumstances further from her sheltered upbringing, and it seems those lessons have stuck. In this book, we see that she has gotten over many of her racial and religious biases and even become comfortable around people who aren’t as conservative as she is. (The Jane of book 1 would never have made it through an evening of socializing with Byron, never mind come to think of him as a friend.) And in this book, Jane gets a hands-on experience of poverty and it changes her view of the privilege she’s always lived in. Yes, the Vincents’ brief foray into the life of the poor and just as rapid exit from it is convenient, but it allows Jane to see beneath the surface of the world she’s used to and realize how other people live.
The world-building gets expanded on a bit more, both in the magical world of glamour, where Vincent and Jane continue to break ground with their techniques and Kowal gives us more detail on how glamour actually works than previously (I wasn’t sure up until this book if glamourists actually used their hands), and in the weaving together of fictional and real historical events. I especially liked that we got some follow up from Jane and Vincent’s earlier adventures with Napoleon’s army. And this book was easily the funniest of the series. There were a lot of great lines, and the heist included a particularly hilarious bit that I would swear was inspired by the Sound of Music. Yes, the nuns were involved.
I have a couple of quibbles with the plot line - there were a few elements that felt like missed opportunities, and a couple of places where I think plot threads got dropped when they could easily have been tied up
Content Warnings
Moderate: Miscarriage
Minor: Child abuse
Nothing directly in this book, but past trauma around miscarriage and child abuse, with resulting PTSD, are discussed.
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