Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
This weekend I read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal. It seriously hits almost all of my buttons for a good read. Except it was way too short. I kept trying to get myself to slow down so I could savor it more, but I couldn't put it down. Luckily, there is a sequel coming out, but unfortunately not until early 2012.
It's the story of a young lady on the verge of becoming a spinster and her social circle in Regency Era England that has a bit more magic in it than our world. It's written very much in the style Austen and was a delightful read. It's described by one reviewer as "Take Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and add a dash of magic." Though personally, I think it's more Sense and Sensibility than P & P.
As much as I love P & P and have probably read innumerable sequels and fan fics, I'm glad it takes more from S & S. Every time I read or watch S & S, I want it to end differently. I don't like Marianne or Edward Ferrars and always though that Elinor and Colonel Brandon would have been a much better mach. The sisters at the center of Shades of Milk and Honey seem to be parallels for Elinor and Marianne. Jane is rather plane and pretty much a spinster at this point and Melody is beautiful and outgoing, but has a quite a bit less sense than she should.
The biggest change in this AU Regency is the manipulation of glamour, which is basically the ability to create illusions. This is considered one a of the essential accomplishments of a young lady, along with music, art, and needlework. While Jane maybe plain she is an accomplished glamourist.
I must say it took me a while to get into the whole glamour thing. I'm not crazy about magic in my reading. I've been burned by too many fantasy novels where it's described for pages and ends up becoming more important than the characters and/or plot. But after I let go of my magic prejudice, it didn't bother me. The glamour was handled in a very matter of fact way that I liked.
I really liked being in this world and will happily go back when the sequel comes out. My one complaint was perhaps that the gentleman Jane ends up with was a little too mysterious for me to really want them to be together despite what they share in common and that almost all the other gentlemen in book no matter how decent they seemed through 80% of the book became if not exactly evil, but not exactly decent either. It just seemed ploy to make the very mysterious hero look good.