David Thorpe is an accomplished narrator, but yikes. This is the least sexy romance novel I have ever, ever heard. He’s reading it exactly like a mainstream mystery novel–not surprising, since that’s what Thorpe specializes in– and it is NOT working for the fantasy setting, or for the romance that’s supposed to be building. The voice he’s using for Robert Blyth is deeply unappealing. I’m trying to imagine any sexy scenes I know are coming later in the story, and I’m actually literally cringing. I have to DNF the audio two hours in.
I think this is probably a very good book. I’ll try it again in print. I rarely think an audiobook narration is so bad that it’s ruining the story, but… Don’t listen to this one.
“Mystery! Magic! Murder! Long looks full of yearning! This book is a confection, both marvelous and light."—Alix E. Harrow, author of The Once and Future Witches
Wightwick manor and ‘A Marvellous Light’ (The Last Binding trilogy) inspired comfort art. Some are getting magical research done, some are reading victorian erotica and not hiding it, the cats are ‘helping’, normal sunday afternoon stuff. @fahye
(As always, click on image for crisper/bigger version!)
More messing around with Edwardian fashion, with characters from A Marvellous Lightby@fahye which is full of endearing underdogs and starched collars (and cats that can see ghosts!) The intent was finding out if I can do a Leyendecker-type image without making it Leyendecker-stype people, if that makes sense.
A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske is described as a jock/librarian romance, but in truth it’s more like Art Nerd “interior design is my passion, don’t tell anyone at my boxing club” meets Science Nerd “spells are an incomprehensible mix of physics, programming and contract law, please let me explain in detail” romance.
Fanart as a chance to try designing my own Edwardian wallpaper, the magical houses in this book are so wonderful. @fahye
The other day I woke up in the middle of the night realizing I could have posted the art I made for @fahye’s excellent book “A Marvellous Light” anytime in the last two weeks. ANYTIME??
Anyway, I love Edwin and Robin, I really liked making this, and it’s a shame for all of you that Tumblr hates NSFW because this is a cropped version of the full pic :)
Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.
Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it–not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.
Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles–and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.
My Review:
★★★★★
I loved this! It reminds me in a lot of ways of KJ Charles’ The Magpie Lord series, but with a completely different relationship dynamic.
I saw other reviews that described this as ‘like top tier fanfiction'and 'a himbo and a librarian’ and really I don’t think I can top that. Because this is those things, and more.
You know how sometimes a story has that indefinable characteristic that just makes you go “ooooooh this is gonna be good!” as soon as you start reading? That’s what happened here. I picked it up because it sounded good; I read it in a day because it was excellent and sucked me into the world completely. Also the writing is just gorgeous.
I love how Freya Marske took the 'secret society of magicians’ trope and flipped it on its head. Robin has spent his whole life knowing nothing about magic. Then he finds out the dead-end civil service job he’s been shuffled into is actually a magical liaison job that includes daily reports to the Prime Minister. Then he’s accosted in the street and cursed over a missing object he knows nothing about… And things spiral from there. Edwin has always been the weakest magician of his family, forced to use actual string for his cradling as a crutch, bullied and laughed at and retreating into books his whole life, and now he’s stuck with a liaison who is cheerfully oblivious to what the actual duties of his job are and comes across as a dumb jock. It doesn’t seem like a promising start to a relationship, but it certainly is delightful.
Ooh, and the cradling! First, a magic system built on cat’s cradle is unique and genius. It made for such a visual experience of spellcasting, with the fluid (or clumsy) movement of fingers through positions, and a shimmering or color change of the air between the fingers. Having Edwin be forced to use an actual string (the horror!) was also great.
But the inventive magic system doesn’t stop there! Later they encounter a secret magic system developed by girls who were shut out of the traditional magic world, this time based on liminal spaces. And that is genius, really. Because liminal spaces are magic, and it makes perfect sense that one would be more open to magic while in one.
The slow-burn relationship was lovely and I look forward to more adventures of Edwin and Robin in the future, as the ending sets them up for this perfectly.
*Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing an e-arc for review
Favorite Quotes:
The only other woman was Trudie Davenport, the sharp-featured brunette with a da Vinci nose and an actress’s high laugh, who even on ten seconds acquaintance gave off the air of a marble set loose in a bowl – always trying to return herself to the centre of things.
—–
“Bel and Charlie surround themselves with people who are in love with them,” said Edwin. It didn’t sound like malice. It sounded like tired statement of fact. “They can’t stand not to be loved.”
—–
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not. You can’t It’s extremely irritating.” Edwin stepped close, very close indeed.
“What’s irritating?”
Edwin said, “Every time you touch me it’s exactly what I want.”
—–
“One doesn’t need to define the individual if the contract includes all of us.”
All of us. Every living magician in Great Britain. Flora Sutton’s words were the final piece; Edwin’s mind shook itself like a tablecloth and laid the solution out, flat and clear and horrifying. If every British magician truly was descended from the Three Families, then it defined them all on the bloodline level; even more horribly, it negated the need to rely on an individual’s consent, if you constructed the spell properly. A contract was consent, even if it was given on your behalf by your ancestors.
—–
Usually he’d have been tense enough to snap, standing this close to Walt, but his fear had washed out of him. He’d never outgrow it entirely – he’d grown up with it woven into his nerves, a spell cast on a sapling – but he also didn’t think it would ever return to the same extent.
—–
Robin gave him his hands back. Robin gave a grin of open affection and pure relief that brought the sunlight back into Edwin’s mouth for a fleeting moment.
—–
Something about that cracked Robin’s heart into pieces and rectified it with the next beat.
—–
“You,” said Robin. Every time it was easier. It was carving its own groove in his mouth. “I want you.”
—–
And he paused, in the space between inhalation and exhalation, and invited magic in.
I’m writing about this book after a recent re-read. One of the things I love about re-reading is that knowing where the plot is going can make you read differently at the beginning. Case in point: this time around, a passage in the third chapter jumped out at me:
“Edwin ran his eyes twice more over the page and then when the words refused to line themselves up and be seen, replaced the sweep of his sight with that of a fingertip, finding pleasure in the tiny roughness of the paper. Edwin’s collection of small enjoyments was carefully cultivated. When he exhaled his worry he imagined it going up in the snap of the fire. He thought about the meticulous cogs of the Gatling’s clock, and the particular hazel of Sir Robert Blyth’s eyes.
In the gaps between small things, Edwin could feel his quiescent magic like a single drop of blood in a bucket of water: more obvious than it deserved to be, given its volume. He could breathe into the knots in the back of his neck. And he could feel out the edges of the aching, yearning space in his life that no amount of quiet and no number of words had yet been able to fill.”
I’ve come to think of this passage as an interpretative key for the rest of the book. Not in the literal sense that the author inserted a few lines on page 26 to show readers how to read. Rather, this passage contains in microcosm things that make the writing remarkable across the whole book. There are powerful and slightly unsettling metaphors, descriptions that engage all the senses, and a fictional world so rich in detail that characters can draw on internal references to create metaphors. But even more than that, this passage describes the very feeling of reading itself. The writing of this book feels exactly as Edwin’s reading is described above: a carefully cultivated collection of small enjoyments. Writing textured enough I imagine myself closing my eyes and running a finger over it. So that’s what I’m looking at here: digging in and picking apart exactly how this book’s prose gets its layers and textures and movement.
