Valérie despises Nina and takes delight in being cruel to her: Nina, young and inexperienced, chaffed at the restrictions imposed on her and unknowingly torments Valérie with visions of what she has lost. She'd certainly prefer not to be under the dominion of her martinet Aunt Valérie. Nina would rather be at home collecting beetles and exploring the woods. A woman's only asset is, it seems, her reputation.Īgainst this background we follow the lives of Antonina (Nina) Beaulieu, a young woman from the country in the capital for her first Grand Season and Hector Auvray ("a castaway who had washed up on a room of velvet curtains and marble floors"). While clearly an imaginary world, many of the place names, both local (Loisail, Montipouret, Luquennay) and remote (Port Anselm, Yehenn, Carivatoo), evoke that, as does the atmosphere of carriages, telegraphs and newly built railways.ĭespite these stirrings of modernity it is still a ferociously traditional society, not to say patriarchal, with women's roles in particular fiercely constrained by the rules of etiquette and the fear of what Society will make of any scandal. well, perhaps a bit like somewhere in central Europe, on a planet a bit like Earth, around the turn of the 20th century. Moreno-Garcia's new novel is an engaging fantasy-romance with a hint of magic. I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley.
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