Shades of Milk and Honey
Ratings38
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings38
Average rating3.6
*Shades of Milk and Honey* is an intimate portrait of Jane Ellsworth, a woman ahead of her time in a version of Regency England where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality. Despite the prevalence of magic in everyday life, other aspects of Dorchester's society are not that different: Jane and her sister Melody's lives still revolve around vying for the attentions of eligible men.
Jane resists this fate, and rightly so, because while her skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face, and therefore wins the lion's share of the attention. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Jane has resigned herself to being invisible forever. But when her family's honor is threatened, she finds that she must push her skills to the limit in order to set things right--and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.
This debut novel from an award-winning talent scratches a literary itch you never knew you had. Like wandering into a secret picnic attended by *Pride and Prejudice* and *Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell*, *Shades of Milk and Honey* is precisely the sort of tale we would expect from Jane Austen...if she lived in a world where magic worked.
This description comes from the publisher.
Featured Series
5 primary booksGlamourist Histories is a 5-book series with 5 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Mary Robinette Kowal.
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Add to Mr Darcy's lady criteria a talent for illusion magic, called glamour, and you've got the setting of Shades of Milk and Honey. I couldn't stop my mind from making connections between Austen's works and this as I went along. “He's the Darcy! He's probably the Wickham!” The story isn't an echo of an Austen plot but it's close enough that the distraction is unavoidable. Manners and propriety are still a big deal but Jane is more assertive than an Austen protagonist, which is a welcome difference.
The next book seems to be a direct sequel, rather than some other eligible lady's quest for a rich husband. I'm curious to see how that plays out.
This was not bad, but I found the JA like characters just as annoying (if not more so) than in JA books. I just found nothing I wanted to identify with in any of the characters. The way the author mimicked JA also meant I was able to figure out who ended up with who and why.
The magic was interesting, but not enough to save the book for me.
Jane Austen with magic. Except a little heavy on the Austen: all characters seem to be lifted straight from Austen's works, except in only two dimensions. The mother with the poor nerves, the sister who doesn't care about her impropriety, the heartless cad who leads the sister into impropriety. The depth Austen gives these stereotypes is missing here.
Having said that, it was an enjoyable light read. I've read a bit of Austen lately so this fit right in, and I love the idea of glamour being a ‘feminine art' alongside drawing and music as a way for a young lady to display her accomplishments in order to secure a husband. And Austen never had such a good chase scene.
I'm not really sure if I liked this, but I didn't dislike it, and I'll give further books a chance so I'm rounding up to four stars. It had a lot of Austenesque bits, but never felt quite right. The ending felt pretty rushed, too. But entertaining enough.
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