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Mask of Mirrors etc by M.A. Carrick
Sep. 20th, 2023 03:44 pmThe Mask of Mirrors
The Liar's Knot
Labyrinth's Heart
4/5. Get ready to be surprised. I read a series of chonker fantasy novels, and I liked it.
This is a trilogy about a con-artist who impersonates an unknown relative to insinuate herself into a noble house in a Venice-inspired fantasy city, where things get quickly more complicated because there’s a masked vigilante who keeps flirting with her, and also she is mixed race and uneasy in both the culture she infiltrates and the oppressed culture of her birth, and there’s a rebellion brewing, and dangerous magical artifacts, oh and also, she’s accidentally acquiring a family in the people she set out to con, whoops.
These books remind me of giant overstuffed armchairs. Too big? Yes. But that’s part of the fun. These books are full of things I like, including a whole lot of secret identities and living triple lives stuff. And, importantly, the sort of deliberate focus on made family – the kind that takes more effort than found family – that is my jam. All packaged up in an actual plot, yes, but it’s a meandering, sometimes puzzling one. Put it this way, I said “uh-huh, you sure did” when I discovered that the authors used their homebrew tarot system featured in the books to do a lot of plotting.
But yeah, I enjoyed myself. I just went on the ride with these books in a way I rarely manage to do. It can happen!
BTW, one half of the writing team here is Marie Brennan.
Content notes: Fantasy novel terrible childhoods, parental death, child death
The Liar's Knot
Labyrinth's Heart
4/5. Get ready to be surprised. I read a series of chonker fantasy novels, and I liked it.
This is a trilogy about a con-artist who impersonates an unknown relative to insinuate herself into a noble house in a Venice-inspired fantasy city, where things get quickly more complicated because there’s a masked vigilante who keeps flirting with her, and also she is mixed race and uneasy in both the culture she infiltrates and the oppressed culture of her birth, and there’s a rebellion brewing, and dangerous magical artifacts, oh and also, she’s accidentally acquiring a family in the people she set out to con, whoops.
These books remind me of giant overstuffed armchairs. Too big? Yes. But that’s part of the fun. These books are full of things I like, including a whole lot of secret identities and living triple lives stuff. And, importantly, the sort of deliberate focus on made family – the kind that takes more effort than found family – that is my jam. All packaged up in an actual plot, yes, but it’s a meandering, sometimes puzzling one. Put it this way, I said “uh-huh, you sure did” when I discovered that the authors used their homebrew tarot system featured in the books to do a lot of plotting.
But yeah, I enjoyed myself. I just went on the ride with these books in a way I rarely manage to do. It can happen!
BTW, one half of the writing team here is Marie Brennan.
Content notes: Fantasy novel terrible childhoods, parental death, child death
