Reviews

Okay okay. Reminds me of Stephanie Garbers Caraval series, but more murderous and gruesome. The vibe reminds of me a short story titled Marionnette I read recently, very grey (and the Flames rise in the background). The prologue really pulled me right into thr story. Excited to start the next one!

sylvilel's review against another edition

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4.0

London 1884. Iris is a tightrope walker. She is African. She works in a circus. She has lost her memories and doesn’t know who she is. Oh, and she can’t die.

When a strange lord approaches her one day, it doesn’t take long before Iris is sucked into a mayhem of survival, bloodshed, camraderie and mystical powers - and a potential apocalypse.

To understand what will happen, and what her role is in all of this, Iris has to fight for her life while searching for the truth: Who is she, and what the hell does she have to to with the end of the world?

First, this book was so much more grown-up than I expected, which was a happy surprise.

The opening caught me head on, which is another thing I loved about it. This is an actual, honest to God, Victorian steampunk adventure, and I can’t find enough of those

izzys_internet_bookshelf's review against another edition

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4.0

4.5/5

This book was so different and I love it to pieces. The general idea of this book had me wanting more. the mystery of who Iris was, the setting! AGH I could not get over the Victorian setting. I loved the plot. the climax was INSANE. I cannot get my hands on the second book faster.

jose_kg's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

I really wanted to love this book, magical realism in Victorian London sounded amazing and many of the ideas that Raughley had are very interesting. The problem was the execution, the pacing was odd, very slow in parts and a lot of unnecessary repetition of characters back stories to the point I wondered if she'd set herself a high minimum word count. There was a lot of telling instead of showing and characters having deep feelings for each other with no reason. There was a fair amount of mind-reading going on, where Iris would question something in her mind and then a character would helpfully supply the answer without being asked. Iris was a surprisingly boring MC despite a really interesting back story, I think the author wanted her to be too perfect and that made her boring and the plot had to drive the story completely. The love triangle wasn't very believable and I don't know what was meant to be going on with Adam.

I found the final big battle with the other 'fanciful freaks' really silly. Firstly these people were meant to be her friends, we'd been told over and over how much their friendship meant, but the second they perceived her as a possible threat they try to kill her. Secondly they try to kill her, a person they explicitly know cannot die, so what on earth did they think they were going to achieve? Piss her off so she'd kill them faster? Thirdly, they heard her story of all the pain she'd gone through, the fact she didn't want to kill anyone and now that she knows what she can do she won't accidentally kill anyone else, so as a group that has multiple murderers in it, they decide she's the worst for accidently killing someone? It just seemed so contrived and took any emotion from the realisation that many of them probably died when the club burnt down.

Overall I found this a hard book to finish and I won't be reading the rest of the series. I have given some stars because the premise is really interesting, I just wish it had been executed better.

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