Reviews

The vibe here is primarily: Silly. Which makes sense with the narrator being Puck (of Midsummer Night's Dream fame), but the tone was not always to my taste. There were times the silliness shone; Miss Bickle was a delight, and sometimes Puck's interjections into the narrative were funny and added to it. Like whenever the characters wondered or guessed out loud about fairies or gods, it was entertaining when Puck would confirm or clarify to the reader, and fleshed out the supernatural side of the world which the main character only had a limited view of.

However, I don't know if it HAD to be narrated by Puck. I'm asking myself what would be lost or gained if the POV was more straightforwardly just Miss Mitchelmore... and since Puck primarily followed her with limited jumps elsewhere, all I can think is "If we followed a more straightforward view where we got to see some character internality, I might have understood Mitchelmore's personality of felt her despair more strongly." And especially Lady Georgiana, who although delightfully rake-ish at times, didn't feel particularly strong as a character. A POV chapter or two of her where we got to actually see her tortured internal thoughts I feel would have strengthened my understanding of her a lot more than just seeing her sit around through Puck's eyes.

The romance in this story was also not strong. I enjoy regency novels that have you kicking your feet and cheering for the characters at a mere brush of the hands. Here, the narrative distance to their emotions lowered my investment, and when the characters got closer I didn't feel like things were really built up to make it satisfying. Part of it may have been the modern-esque dialogue at times, complete with swearing. Sometimes Lady Georgiana would say something rake-ish suddenly that I was like "Geez, this doesn't feel like a seductive regency romance, just a modern woman trying to elicit a scandalized reaction." The difficulties between the couple were also rather nebulous, mostly consisting of Lady Georgiana being like "I shant" and Miss Mitchelmore being lie "no actually please do though" until after a dozen or so times Lady Georgiana gives in. I don't really get in the end why the two end up risking/sacrificing for each other.

I went into this expecting regency vibes, including a typical regency romance, but it felt more like a modern romance with a regency dressing and a bunch of magic/fairy shenanigans. I wouldn't recommend this for a regency fan, I WOULD recommend this for people who like fairies/magic/goddesses. The twists/mysteries are pretty obvious, and the book is kind of split in two from the culmination of the first mystery. The first mystery was obvious, but I enjoyed the final culmination and then was surprised I was only halfway through the book. The following chapters about the aftermath were quite interesting, and I liked watching Miss Mitchelmore grapple with what she did... but then the following romance conflict kind of felt like a meandering nothing (though the sex scene was fun!), and the second big arc/conflict kind of required you buy into the romance and be invested.

Despite all my complaints, it was an enjoyable read. The vibe was silly, and if you just vibe with that and enjoy the silly moments with character who aren't particularly deep. It was also very fun to see a woman in the role of a rake-ish duke. Fun and fluid writing style, but the characters/romance/plot were a bit too simplistic for my taste.