The Mask of Mirrors

I thoroughly enjoyed most of this. MA Carrick has crafted an intriguing buddy fantasy, but this time the buddy characters are both female. This is The Gentleman Bastards with a gender flip! We follow two con artists, who are trying to pull a con to ingratiate themselves with one of the noble families in a Venice-like fantasy city by pretending to be a long lost cousin. The main character (Ren) is likeable and well crafted. The con she is pulling is elaborate but built in a way that makes sense - her alter ego Renata is a carefully crafted facsimile of noble woman. Her partner in crime, Tess, takes on the role of servant, utilizing impressive needlework skills to keep Ren in fashion. This obsession with fashion is, however, the weak point of the book. A pet peeve of mine is when an author spends too much time describing clothing, unfortunately a trap that this book falls into too often.

The political scheming and Machiavellian plans that make up the core of the story are brilliantly done however. The buddy dynamic is well done and the character work is brilliant. The story is all contained within the the city of Nadezra for now, but the wider world is hinted at in intriguing ways. The Zorro like figure of the Rook is also intriguingly built into the plot.

Finally, whilst the magic system takes a bit of back seat, what is shown so far is cleverly done, with an interestingly cultural approach to magic

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this and definitely intend to keep on reading further into the series as it appears!