I have to say midway through I wasn’t liking this as much as I liked the previous installment. Something about the timeline, probably, because I’m always of the notion that characters should fall in love over an extended period of time instead of something artificial like a week.
There’s also a lot of exposition and context in this one, to get us from the barest outlines of a conspiracy to a full blown catastrophe. The main point isn’t that complicated–Maud, Robin’s brother, has been sent onto a ship to figure out where the second piece of the Contract is. If all three pieces are gathered, then the evil doers are going to be able to do a giant power sharing spell against the desires of most magicians.
But that’s all window dressing, for the second and third act, to the attraction and relationship between Violet and Maud. At first it was a bit too manic pixie dream woman and young ingenue for me, but Violet is just a character non pareil. From her purposeful debauchment to her winsome courage, it’s no wonder Maud goes from wallflower to in love over the course of a week (?).
I’m looking forward to the next installment, but I hope that it focuses as much on these characters as the world building, as interesting as it is! Since we’ve spent a decent amount of time on backstory and exposition in this book, I’m confident that Marske will deftly handle weaving together the existing story threads. I’m also quite curious as to who (or if) the main couple of the final volume will be–as long as we get more bits on Violet-and-Maud and Robert-and-Edwin.
