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  • Writer's picturemikeofthepalace

"The Mask of Mirrors" by M. A. Carrick, aka Marie Brennan & Alyc Helms

I expect I’m going we’re going to be seeing a great deal of chatter about The Mask of Mirrors in the next few weeks and months, and for good reason. This was excellent. The main character is pulling a con that Locke Lamora would be proud of. We’ve got underworld kingpins, a Zorro like figure, traumatic childhoods, tarot readings, flirtations, and talented dressmakers. It’s all a delight.


The book is set in the city of Nadežra, which has a great deal of both Venice and New Orleans in its blood. It is the holy city of a people that remind me a great deal of the Roma, but long since conquered by foreigners, and subsequently liberated - sort of. In the centuries since, those descended from the conquerors have maintained their position as the ruling aristocracy, but tension with the original people has been ever present.


Enter Ren: an orphan who fled the city as a child, returned as “Alta Renata Viraudax,” supposedly from an estranged branch of one of the city’s noble houses. In the name of family rapprochement, “Alta Renata” is trying to charm her way into the good graces (and, incidentally, pocketbooks) of her supposed family. But, naturally, things don’t go entirely according to plan.


For starters, Ren is no cheerfully amoral Locke Lamora. She’s been well trained to be a con artist, but she’s much more concerned about the safety and security of her sister and herself than tweaking the noses of the rich. Years of feuding with other noble houses have left her targets distinctly short of cousins, and when they welcome Renata warmly into their hearts it’s pretty obvious Ren isn’t going to be able to rob them and go on her way.


And so Ren has to navigate her way through the city’s nobility with nothing but her wits, charm, and her sister’s talents as a dressmaker. She becomes another piece in the city’s politics, used and manipulated by the various noble houses and other, even less savory, players like slum-lord-gone-”respectable”-landlord who happens to own the townhouse Alta Renata is renting. Throw in the long-simmering tensions between the nobility and the repressed ethnic minority and a few encounters with the Rook - a dashing, Zorro like figure, champion of the downtrodden and thorn in the heel of the nobility - and you’ve got a hell of a story.


I’ve mostly talked about Ren, and she’s certainly the star, but this is an ensemble book with a variety of POV characters. Her supposed cousins from the noble Traemantis family; her sister Tess; an officer of the city Watch, risen high for one of the repressed minority; and her charming underworld kingpin landlord are all prominent, with assorted others providing other perspectives as needed.


I’ve never read anything by Alyc Helms, so I really don’t have a basis of comparison for her. Marie Brennan, though, I know. I was kind of “meh” on A Natural History of Dragons, but thought Driftwood was a masterpiece. This has more of the feel of Driftwood than the Lady Trent books, I’m happy to say. I’ve seen comparisons to The Goblin Emperor as well, which fits. There’s also a very strong colonialist element to the story. And the cover is beautiful, which never hurts.


Big thanks to Orbit for the ARC of this. It comes out on Tuesday.


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