Lizz's review: Some authors are really good STORYtellers. Bardugo is one of those authors.
Actual stars: 4.75
Format: audio, libro.fm
What I liked: Ugh, everything. I love this new world. I love that I haven't read this story in 100 other times in 100 other books. I loved these characters because they weren't good, but they were real, complex, surviving. I love how slow the pacing was because it was so immersive. And the ending. Well, I loved the ending.
What I didn't like: It's hard when you're rating a book 4.75 stars to decide there is something you didn't like. I found the story took a few chapters to get into, that's my only note.
Yes, absolutely. But also, I knew I would.
Who I'm recommending this to: Bardugo fans, people who love an immersive story, anyone looking for something "good and different" because I know we get those requests all the time at the bookstore.
Book Summary:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishaverse series comes a highly anticipated historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age
In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position.
What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.
Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.
