YA Book Review: Darkness of Morning by Samantha Boyette

Darkness of Morning by Samantha Boyette is a young adult fantasy novel. The second in the Guardian of Morning series, it follows the relationship and otherworldly adventures of two girls who grew up human but actually aren't.

The lost princess of a magical kingdom and her soulbound guardian are meant to be together. Unfortunately the princess has powerful enemies and a very self destructive personality. Much as her guardian loves her, there is only so much she can do to protect her from evil and herself.

I reviewed the first book here, and it follows on very well from it. It's a much stronger book, in story and characters, although it has a lot less world building because most of that has been established. Which means you're probably best off starting from the beginning. Actionwise, not a huge amount happens. The plot is quite clearly a three parter, and this is the "Empire Strikes Back" episode. Again, you should probably read all the books in a row.

Book Review: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is a classic. It's a historical lesbian crime novel of trickery and intrigue and madness and gentry and the London underworld, and it's so much not what I expected The impression I had of Fingersmith was of a London girl who gets talked into a scheme by a slick conman associate to go somehow trick some poor naive rich girl into losing her fortune. And that it ended badly and was probably a beautifully written but depressing slide into closer affection and inevitable betrayal, and possible the tragic death of one of the girls. I never really felt up to a whole book of that. But fortunately, that was absolutely not what it was.

Oh, the first part's true enough, it's the entire premise of the book, but after that? No. That's when everything changes. The elaborate scheme based on entrapping the naive rich girl, with the accidental seduction between the two, was only the beginning. It was, in fact, the context, the first act, the introduction to the real story.

I picked it up because a very nice reader contacted me to point out that I hadn't reviewed any of Sarah Water's most famous historical novels, and I promptly rushed out and borrowed a copy. And then spent about three weeks reading it in bits and pieces (I've had a busy month! I'd normally have finished it in a day). Fortunately, it held up both to the piecemeal sampling, and the final 'devouring of the last third in one go'. It's a pretty dense novel, with lots of vocabulary and settings and things to keep track of (like who knew what), but the cast is a reasonable size and the characters are distinctive.

It's also one of those stories that has some major plot twists, and it really changes the story if you know what comes next, so please understand that this is one of those rare reviews that doesn't analyse the entire book in detail because TWO THIRDS OF IT IS SPOILER. Twice. Yes, twice. This book is like Inception written by Charles Dickens. None of our characters really know what's going on, they all betray each other at some point, and our narrators are textbook unreliable.

Enjoy.