For the record, I enjoyed this book and plan to read the rest of the series. For all its promise and the glowing reviews and recommendations, I was expecting a lot more. The comparison to Jane Austen is apt, and there are pretty clear references to several of her novels in the characters and plot. The addition of glamour magic as an everyday social skill provides a way to make the old Austen formulas new and interesting.
The story follows Jane Ellsworth who is well on her way to becoming a spinster, while her younger sister Melody is full of promise in terms of getting a husband. Several new gentlemen arrive in the neighborhood, including the Darcy analogue Mr Vincent and the dashing soldier Captain Livingston. Melody starts falling for the wrong man, while Jane doesn’t even realize for about half the novel that she too is falling into a romantic attachment. As any good Austen story, this one ends with a wedding, but also includes an epilogue that suggests future weddings and further adventure (a second new feature). In addition to the magic of glamour and more emphasis on action-adventure in the climax, the third new component is the level of conflict between the sisters. Melody and Jane fight and make up like modern sisters, and not like the sister sets in Austen’s original novels. All of this adds up to a fun, light, Austen-esque read.
What was disappointing to me was the level of character development, bland dialogue, and pacing. In terms of character development, both Jane and Melody could use more. The personalities are not well-defined except through the conversation and arguments the sisters share. While there is a bit more of Jane through the narrative perspective, given all the description of both sisters, their actions-thoughts-words are not detailed. For Melody, this means that she comes across as a Lydia-based character until the very end when she goes to her sister for a hear-to-heart after the climactic traumatic discovery of the villain(s). Again, as with Jane, the information from the narrative gives only a personality outline, and Melody could be a much more interesting, well-rounded character with even a little more attention. The most developed character is actually Mr Vincent, and this happens because we gain access to his artistic journal through Jane (he gives it to her to read as a thank you).
The dialogue I think is the key to making or breaking this novel. If the dialogue, internal and among characters, were more complex, the characters would be much more satisfying.
The romance and the action sequences are almost exclusively relegated to the last 50 pages or so. Up to this point, everyone talks about their possible interests in general terms. I understand that part of this is to build suspense and that such secrets are a part of Austen’s works too, but it gets old after a while. It’s the same problem as with character development; there needs to be more detail or at least a bit more complexity scattered throughout.
Hopefully, the remaining volumes in this series will fill in the details of character and world-building.
