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yodamom's review
4.0
I love Ms. Briggs ability to write female and male characters that are equally strong and independent. This her first book had such wonderful leads, Aralorn and Wolf. She is a smart, independent, smart arse, nobel turned savior. The Wolf, an heir, damaged and hated by his father. The two of them dance back and forth developing into a sweet story. Their relationship or lack of one really carries the story the evil king and his minions didn't matter much to me. They are there, evil, ok really evil, with zombies, ghosts, dragons.... It was a really good story and nice escape and a wonderful first book from a fantastic author.
jenhurst's review against another edition
4.0
I’ve read all of the Mercy Thompson and alpha and omega series books and I really enjoyed them. They are werewolf urban fantasy books and this is more of a classic fantasy. It’s a very different story, which surprised me a lot but I really enjoyed it. If feels a bit like a DND campaign and has a surprisingly few amount of characters but for being a simple story it was really well done.
songwind's review against another edition
3.0
Masques is a fantasy adventure with romance elements.
In the author's forward to the latest edition, she talks about her lack of fantasy genre education when writing it, and her heavy use of fantasy cliches. She's not wrong, but I didn't find them especially odious, either.
The story revolves around Aralorn, a half-human mercenary, and Wolf, her friend and companion who is on the run from something in his past in the shape of a... wolf.
The villain of the piece is the ae'Magi, a powerful sorcerer tasked with controlling the world's magic to avoid a repeat of the vaguely defined "magic wars." As people in such positions tend to do, he ends up overstepping his bounds.
As the story goes on, a romance subplot becomes more important, but never becomes the motivation for the story as a whole. I think it was well handled and added depth to the characters involved.
In the author's forward to the latest edition, she talks about her lack of fantasy genre education when writing it, and her heavy use of fantasy cliches. She's not wrong, but I didn't find them especially odious, either.
The story revolves around Aralorn, a half-human mercenary, and Wolf, her friend and companion who is on the run from something in his past in the shape of a... wolf.
The villain of the piece is the ae'Magi, a powerful sorcerer tasked with controlling the world's magic to avoid a repeat of the vaguely defined "magic wars." As people in such positions tend to do, he ends up overstepping his bounds.
As the story goes on, a romance subplot becomes more important, but never becomes the motivation for the story as a whole. I think it was well handled and added depth to the characters involved.
redentrapy's review
3.0
I loved Wolf's character. I liked this book because Aralorn is just so much like me. Strong, stubborn, doesn't listen, and generally does what she wants. The storyline was cliche and a little predictable. Not one of her best but still good in it's own right. The villain in this story was well thought out but the climax was a little anticlimactic. Still if you like Patricia Briggs I recommend this book even though it is not her best it is still good and fun to read.
showell's review against another edition
3.0
Really looking forward to the sequel. Ate this one up in a day. I can tell it is an early effort as she is obviously (in parts) still experimenting with some aspects of the trade. Parts of the story remind me very strongly of the Hobs Bargain, for example. Still she's Patricia Briggs and she didn't let this reader down.
tani's review
3.0
This was Patricia Briggs' first published book, and it shows. The edition that I read had later been edited by Briggs, but it was still fairly mediocre. The story is predictable, although enjoyable, and there's a distinct lack of tension. Even reading the last fifty or so pages, I wasn't drawn in. Important things were happening, but I felt an almost complete emotional disconnect from it. To put it bluntly, the climax of the book was anticlimactic. However, if you're a fan of the Mercy Thompson books, this still might be a worthwhile read, as it contains some of the elements of that series, such as a wolfish love interest and a shape-shifting protagonist.
For me, the best part of the book was seeing all the traditional fantasy elements come together. There's nothing exciting or groundbreaking here, but the elements are varied enough that I got a lot of enjoyment out of them. I also enjoyed the characters, although I felt no particular emotional attachment to them. The villain was suitably evil as well, and the truly reprehensible things he did helped to raise the emotional stakes past what they might have otherwise been.
On the downside, the pacing is pretty bad. There are a lot of scenes where the main character just reads book, and although it advances the plotline, it's not really exciting. As I mentioned earlier, there's no sense of urgency to the end of the book. I keep putting it down and then forcing myself to pick it back up, even though I was only thirty pages from the end, and in the thick of the ending action. Sometimes it feels like the emotions of the characters are just as detached from the plot as mine were; when one of the characters discovers a spell that they believe will be instrumental in defeating the villain, there's no more excitement to them than there was when Aralorn read a particularly interesting folktale.
Overall, I thought this was about what you might expect from a first novel. Pretty mediocre in a lot of ways, but with the seeds of later success.
For me, the best part of the book was seeing all the traditional fantasy elements come together. There's nothing exciting or groundbreaking here, but the elements are varied enough that I got a lot of enjoyment out of them. I also enjoyed the characters, although I felt no particular emotional attachment to them. The villain was suitably evil as well, and the truly reprehensible things he did helped to raise the emotional stakes past what they might have otherwise been.
On the downside, the pacing is pretty bad. There are a lot of scenes where the main character just reads book, and although it advances the plotline, it's not really exciting. As I mentioned earlier, there's no sense of urgency to the end of the book. I keep putting it down and then forcing myself to pick it back up, even though I was only thirty pages from the end, and in the thick of the ending action. Sometimes it feels like the emotions of the characters are just as detached from the plot as mine were; when one of the characters discovers a spell that they believe will be instrumental in defeating the villain, there's no more excitement to them than there was when Aralorn read a particularly interesting folktale.
Overall, I thought this was about what you might expect from a first novel. Pretty mediocre in a lot of ways, but with the seeds of later success.
mamap's review against another edition
3.0
not as good as her others - obviously the first. i'm glad she kept writing - i'm also glad that she learned how to write dialogue, conflict, and emotional love.
papidoc's review against another edition
5.0
This was Briggs' first published novel, and it's a good one. Magic, shapeshifters (even into a mouse!), invisible beings, romance, and power struggles. Not a bad beginning...