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★★★★✬ 4.5 stars
I have several questions for you:
- Do you like petticoats, Victorians and magic?
- What about a female heroine, who, while a little bit lost and flustered, is kickass despite not knowing it herself?
- And would you care for a would-be love triangle that is forbidden in more ways than I care to list?
If you said YES, YES and YES, then I don’t understand why you are STILL not reading this series. Especially seeing as how it’s called Industrial Magic??? Even if I didn’t know what it was about, the name of the series alone would hook me!
It’s really hard for me to review this book because I’m evidently a fangirl. I reviewed the first part of this series when I was still but a wee blogger lass, and I do feel like maybe my review didn’t really do it justice or reach a big enough audience. But that still doesn’t explain why this book isn’t more widely known??
So since this is the second book in the series, I’m not going to tell you much about the story. For that you’d have to read the first book. Plus, I don’t want to take away the pleasure! Instead, I’m going to try and tell you why I love this series as much as I do.
Reason #1. The Magic System
Now I’m not your biggest specialist on magic systems in books, as I don’t tend to read a whole lot of fantasy. But correct me if I’m wrong – I’m not sure magic is used as a means of production, powering engines and clocks and basically running the economy in any other fictional world? Or at least, maybe not in this way? Magic in this book is not a tool to assert status, to get your own end. Magic is almost an affliction, cause it means your only place in society is a… rich prisoner. The Magi are not allowed to marry (for reasons I will not spoil), nor are they allowed to even stay with their families. They are rich and strong (but not really powerful), they are the victims of their own power which they have not chosen to wield, and they can not run from it. But they can try. And this is largely what the second book in the series is about – trying to outwit your fate.
Reason #2. The Heroine
It might just be me, but I feel like Charlotte, our main character, is just the right amount of wit, smarts, capability, and yet childish egoism, naivete and klutziness. She’s a wonderful heroine! She makes an equal amount of mistakes and blunders as feats. Which she tends to discount as belonging to her own abilities. She does not know her own feelings. Charlotte is as lost in her own wishes, her state and her romantic inclinations as any traditional Victorian novel heroine. I absolutely love that about her. Perhaps I feel like she’s a little bit like me.
Reason #3. This Series Could Go On And On
And I hope it will! It’s one of those series like The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch – urban fantasies that have their own spectacular world that you want to get lost in again and again, and you’re safe in the knowledge that it’s not one of those books which has three parts and then ends. Oh no, this series will hopefully go on and on till I get tired of reading it, which, in turn, I hope to never do! So bring on the drama.
Dear Emma Newman, please keep writing this series. If only just for meeee! (I know, I am so selfish…) I know I will keep waiting for the third book just as much as I’ve waited for the second one.
I thank Tor Books and Emma Newman for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange to my honest review. You can buy the book here through Book Depository, and buying it through that link also helps support my blog.
Why have none of my friends read this series yet? Will you finally make that change in the world and tell me how you liked it??? Please do!
I’m Evelina and I blog about books that made an impression on me. I love middle grade, women’s, scifi and some literary too.