Alanna Thornton’s Reviews > A Treachery of Swans > Status Update

I was always taught that earnestness is a weakness, yet Aimé manages, unwittingly, to turn it into a strength.
"You must stop thinking so little of yourself," I tell him, and I'm surprised to find I mean it. "Besides, we're in this together, and I'm clever enough for two."

I think the Dauphin is my favorite character

Yikes tarasques are terrifying

“My mind refuses to be still. I think of a white swan flying in a dazed panic toward a glossy black lake. I think of spell-threads glowing between my father's fingertips. And I think of a heavy, bejeweled crown clutched in my hand.”

“If the Théâtre is a gluttonous creature, the Château is a violent one, bleak and lifeless against the pit of night. Its towers are sharp as wolf teeth, the few lit windows slit like a snake's pupils. There's something vigilant about it, something prowling as though it is grin-ning, lips pulled back, a predator anticipating a kill.”
WOAH

is the quiet that is broken by the heeled footsteps of Mademoiselle Marie d'Odette d'Auvigny. She glides down the staircase like an apparition, the veined marble kissing her skirts, candlelight draped across her pearl jewelry.…
She has not changed, of course, since she was last seen in the loges.
Yet she is a lie.
Lying has always been as simple as breathing to me.

Woah!!

I’m confused but completely dazzled