I spent last year on a Mary Robinette Kowal bender with her Glamourist Histories series, and have spent all of 2015 waiting VERY IMPATIENTLY for the last book to come out this spring. Very impatiently. So when my library system *finally* ordered its copies, I greedily placed my hold and then waited AGAIN until I got my copy. And then of course, an enormous stack with earlier due dates, as well as my graduation, put that reading on hold again. With all this anticipation, this book cannot possibly be this good, right?
Wrong, dear reader. It was amazing.
How amazing, you might ask?
Well. Let’s put it this way. I feasted on it all.day. And then when I realized it was time to make dinner (and it was my evening to cook, since The Chancellor had an evening meeting), I grudgingly put together the homemade fettuccine alfredo that I normally immensely enjoy. I raced through creamy, delicious, homemade pasta alfredo in order to finish this book.
You need to read it. I won’t give a summary, because it contains a few plot points from the earlier novels, but it caps off the series very nicely, it maintains the tone of the other books, and it provokes some terrific questions about race, class, gender, and exploitation. I mean, I like a great fluffy Jane-Austen-style-fantasy, but one that is socially conscious on top of that? Mary Robinette Kowal should be renamed Imperator Furiosa.
And then this thing happened when I posted my brief review on Goodreads:
I, of course, behaved like a total grownup. [by which I mean a Kristen-Bell sloth meltdown totally occurred in my house]
I’m starting this series later this year. Excited!
That’s really cool that she liked your review. That one time my review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane got retweeted by Neil Gaiman, I almost died. It’s a pretty great feeling.
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the series! I hope you enjoy the books. Also: that is super cool Neil Gaiman retweeted you. Pretty sure I would have died then and there. :)
I’ve only read the first Glamourist Histories book, which I thought was fine, but nothing that really excited me. I have heard that the sequels are a lot more engaging, and I like the fact that she apparently changes up the sub-genres within her magical Regency framework. Now that the series is finished, I really do need to get round to reading books 2 to 5 (possibly re-reading Shades of Milk and Honey first).
I still have a slight meltdown any time an author interacts with me in any way on social media. I can totally see why you’d be super excited.