The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

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.

Maybe it just wasn't the right time for this book, but I couldn't concentrate on the story, I felt very detached and just didn't feel like I enjoyed it that much.

The Familiar grabbed me from the first line and was extremely satisfying to read. I wouldn't say it was fast-paced, maybe more medium, but I was never bored and I never wanted to put the book down. In a lot of the books I read, there's a lot of buildup to the climax of the story only for the bulk of the action to happen in the last few pages, and I'm often left feeling like it was sort of rushed. But in The Familiar, there was buildup, and then the action started and I was like, “wait, there's still so much book left!”
I loved Luzia as a main character. I liked that while everyone around her thought she was just a stupid little servant, the reader knows she is so much more. It would have been incredibly dangerous for Luzia to show anyone just how clever she really was in the 1500s. But hiding your true self can be dangerous too, and this quote really smacked me in the face: “I know what it is to lower yourself, to keep your eyes downcast, to seek invisibility. It is a danger to become nothing. You hope no one will look, and so one day when you go to find yourself, only dust remains, ground down to nothing from sheer neglect.” I mean, it absolutely BODIED me. Leigh Bardugo, did you write that for me? I feel called out. Anyway, watching Luzia evolve from a meager scullion to a woman who truly knows what she's capable of felt really good.
Santángel was another great character and I liked the way his relationships evolved throughout the book and the way Bardugo introduced his backstory. Really, character development as a whole was super on point, even for side characters. Everyone felt important and they all evolved in ways that made perfect sense. I've learned that Bardugo is very good at this.
This is such a hard review for me because I like the book so much, I just want to gush about spoilery things. I'll just say I think the book ended just the way it should have and call it a day.
This was my first Leigh Bardugo book. Her others have been on my TBR for a while, but that list is a mile long. I hope to get to Ninth House soon because I know for sure I'm a fan of hers now!