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ergative 's review for:
The Grand Tour
by Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede
This was light and fluffy and fun. I liked the teamwork of the four leads; I enjoyed how everyone found time to properly enjoy the Grand Tour (opera, shopping, touring antiquities) while also investigating the mystery. Nothing terribly demanding.
I did have trouble keeping Cecy and Kate separate in my head: which one does magic; which one is clumsy; which one likes opera; which one is good at lying (that was cute); which is married to James; which is married to Thomas, etc. In the first book, they were in entirely differnet locations, writing letters to each other, so the setting and sub-cast were distinct. But here, they're all scrambled up together: Kate narrates what Cecy says in one scene, and then we get a different POV and Cecy describes her perspective of the same scene, while narrating what Kate does. So the person who is named and described is not the pereson narrating the scene. Also since Cecy and Thomas do magic, they often go out to do magic stuff together, even though Cecy is married to James and Kate is married to Thomas. So all the landmarks and associations that separate characters are scrambled together. I got it straight at about the 3/4 mark, but it's hard for a characterization to sink in if I can't remember whether the person who likes opera is also the person who is clumsy, and whether the man she's married to also likes opera or gets bored by it all.
I see from the publication dates that this one was published over 15 years after the first one, so perhaps the authors were also having a little difficulty settling back into the characters. But, as I said, I got it straight in the end, so perhaps the third book will go more smoothly.
I did have trouble keeping Cecy and Kate separate in my head: which one does magic; which one is clumsy; which one likes opera; which one is good at lying (that was cute); which is married to James; which is married to Thomas, etc. In the first book, they were in entirely differnet locations, writing letters to each other, so the setting and sub-cast were distinct. But here, they're all scrambled up together: Kate narrates what Cecy says in one scene, and then we get a different POV and Cecy describes her perspective of the same scene, while narrating what Kate does. So the person who is named and described is not the pereson narrating the scene. Also since Cecy and Thomas do magic, they often go out to do magic stuff together, even though Cecy is married to James and Kate is married to Thomas. So all the landmarks and associations that separate characters are scrambled together. I got it straight at about the 3/4 mark, but it's hard for a characterization to sink in if I can't remember whether the person who likes opera is also the person who is clumsy, and whether the man she's married to also likes opera or gets bored by it all.
I see from the publication dates that this one was published over 15 years after the first one, so perhaps the authors were also having a little difficulty settling back into the characters. But, as I said, I got it straight in the end, so perhaps the third book will go more smoothly.