An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors (The Risen Kingdoms, #1) in /r/Fantasy Discussion Group

Aug 23, 2022 Caitlin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fic-fantasy, owned-audible, owned-kindle, owned-bookshelf, purchased-2022

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors is an epic fantasy that takes strong influences from 18th century Europe, adds in some airships, an intriguing magic system and tops it all off with one of my favorite character duos in fiction: the young princess Isabelle des Zephyrs and Jean-Claude, the musketeer who has dedicated his life to protecting her.

As a princess of the Zephyrs, Isabelle is expected to marry well and strengthen the magical family line. However, Isabelle was born without magic and is o An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors is an epic fantasy that takes strong influences from 18th century Europe, adds in some airships, an intriguing magic system and tops it all off with one of my favorite character duos in fiction: the young princess Isabelle des Zephyrs and Jean-Claude, the musketeer who has dedicated his life to protecting her.

As a princess of the Zephyrs, Isabelle is expected to marry well and strengthen the magical family line. However, Isabelle was born without magic and is only valuable to her father as a way of making a potential alliance. In service to this, he arranges a marriage to a foreign prince who has already had two of his fiancées die in mysterious circumstances. Armed only with her wits and her musketeer, Isabelle must try to survive the intrigues of a foreign court and possible assassinations if she wants to escape her father's influence and find her own place.

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors is an excellent blend of a fast-paced plot and well-developed characters such that I think it would satisfy a pretty broad range of readers who enjoy historically influenced fantasy. Even as someone who doesn't always enjoy political intrigue, I really liked seeing Isabelle navigate the different noble courts and there's a lot of hints to the magic system and history that intrigued me and I'm excited to see more of in the rest of the trilogy.

I also adored the relationship between Isabelle and Jean-Claude, who acted as a father figure to her since her own father was so lacking in the parental care department. Jean-Claude constantly supported Isabelle but also pushed her to be the best she could be so that she could stand on her own without him. It was one of the most positive and supportive mentor roles I've seen in fantasy and it was so nice that there was no romantic element to it at all.

As a history nerd and someone who loves fairly quick pacing, I adored the blend of this book and the humor was perfectly snarky. There are some nautical terms to deal with if that's not your thing but it's heaviest at the beginning of the story and not too bad after that. It's a new favorite book for me and while I'm terrible about following up with sequels, I really want to continue this series soon. ...more

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May 17, 2018 Ithlilian marked it as did-not-finish

I apparently hate everything right now, I just be on a dnf streak of almost 20 at this point. Again, steampunk and floating air ships seem to be novel and interesting, yet I've read maybe one book ever that I could even tolerate. I immediately didn't like this. It could have been the formality of it all, the lack of upfront personality, the descriptions of the working of the ship, or just my mood, but lazily entering a story just isn't going to cut it. You have to grab my attention, I want to ju ...more

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