4/5 stars. Thank you to orbit book and netgalley for sending me this arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ren, an orphan and ex street rat is trying to con her way into a noble family to ensure a future for her younger sister. Little does she know, she is thrust into Family feuds and political intrigues.

This book was really well developed. The setting was well done and it makes readers feel like they are actually there. The characters, there were many morally grey characters and it definitely makes this book more interesting. The pacing is quite slow, reducing my 5 stars to 4. Although the second half of the book was better. I would definitely recommend this book.

The Mask of Mirrors is the first in a new fantasy trilogy by "author" M.A. Carrick - really a pen name for authors Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms. I've loved much of Brennan's solo work (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, Driftwood) and so seeing a new series at least cowritten by her was enough for me to request a copy of this on Netgalley the moment I saw it. The book's blurb on Amazon comparing it to Swordspoint, City of Brass, and Guy Gavriel Kay's work only made me even more interested - even if the book was listed at over 600 pages and thus longer than I usually like.

And for once, that blurb isn't really inaccurate, The Mask of Mirrors features a story that is part Fantasy of Manners (ala Swordspoint), part clash of cultures/colonizers (ala City of Brass, as well as also at times part Heist novel, part Horror novel, and more. It winds up in the end reminding me also of another book, Robert Jackson Bennett's Foundryside, in how all of the above themes, plus worldly mechanics, wind up coming together in a final confrontation for the fate of this setting. The above are all books I've loved, and The Mask of Mirrors certainly showed signs of becoming another one until it's conclusion, where it just couldn't live up to its potential, with it often confusing me at times too. I'll be back for book 2 just because of the potential, but I wish I'd found this more satisfying on its own.

Note: This fantasy world is seemingly Slavic-inspired, including in the names of Places, People, Things, and Concepts, complete with letters with accents/carons on top of them. As I don't have a slavic keyboard and my spanish keyboard doesn't quite accomplish the same thing, I will be spelling these names without the accent marks, and I apologize if that offends somehow.

---------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
The arrival of Renata Viraudax to the City State of Nadezra makes a big splash in the social scene of the Nadezra's nobles. A woman of unusual fashion and tastes from the foreign city of Seteris, Renata appears to be the daughter of an estranged former-member of House Traementis, a noble house in decline, and seems to seek the impossible task of reconciliation to a House that never forgets any slights. And so Renata ingratiates herself to the Traementis' young heir, all the while acting and dressing in ways to draw attention as the hot new thing in the city.

There's just one problem: Renata Viraudax doesn't exist, she's just a creation of Ren, a Vraszenian con artist and thief of a girl who fled Nadezra 5 years ago with her adopted sister Tess after poisoning her adopted mother, a brutal gang leader. Now Ren seeks to attach herself to a noble family so that she can get a hold of their riches for her and Tess - after all, it was Nadezra that made her suffer as a child, so why shouldn't it reward her now with riches?

But Ren's arrival comes in the middle of a time of secret unrest, in which some unknown forces have their own plan for Nadezra - a plan that may carve the city in blood for the sake of their own unknown and horrible purpose. And so Ren may want only to exploit the city, but to do so, she may have to save it first.....
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The Mask of Mirrors is, like so many other fantasy books these days, a story that is told from a number of perspectives. That said, this is Ren's story - while we will jump around at times to seeing the story from the perspectives of a number of other characters - most notably Donaia Traementis and Giuna Traementis of the Traementis Noble House, Grey Serrado of the City Vigil (the Watch), and Drossi Vargo (a crime lord trying to gain legitimate power with a secret), among a bunch others - most of the story is told from the perspective of Ren. And as Ren's story gets more involved with the magical and monstrous plotting going on behind the scenes in the city, the story begins to sort of shift genres to go along with the change.

And so we start off with what seems like a combination of a heist/con-artist novel with that of a Fantasy of Manners type plot - you have Ren, trying to con herself into high society for riches, you have the nobles all plotting against each other, you have Vargo trying to use both his criminal and legitimate connections to get himself higher status in society, you have the honest cop in a corrupt police system, and you have the mysterious Rook - the legendary champion of the people in his unbreakable mask: these all combine to form a plot that is fascinating to read for the book's first third. There's one particular moment, where Ren manages to manipulate about a dozen noble families with their own agendas into doing small things that all add up to help one big noble family with its problems so that they will help Ren that is just tremendous to read, for example.

And then the book shifts. The book introduces some of what's going on behind the surface in spurts at first - the conflict between the city's original people and the foreigners who once conquered it, the magical symbols inscribed in places for various aims, the mysterious drug going around that is causing strange deaths, to the kids going missing off the street without the nobles caring. And of course there are two clear mysteries: who is the Rook and who is the mysterious person whom Vargo seems to have in his head. These aspects hint that the book will shift into a tale of dark magic, of angry peoples warring over cultures, and of a conflict for the heart of the city, one that Ren will find herself at the center of, and the book shifts well into these aspects, with tremendous emotional and horror-filled impacts at times.

Unfortunately the payoff doesn't quite fully work out, as the story moves on from being one about the characters to one about the magical and setting aspects coming together. This is not a book that really well explains its magical systems (unlike the aforementioned Foundryside) and has a umber of them - a tarot-card like deck that tells the future, an astrological system that reveals fate, and most importantly the Numinatria system of inscribed sigils which can seemingly have very powerful magical effects. And so when the finale relies on that last system and deals in large parts about how unprecedented certain magical feats are or relies upon a protagonist realizing something about how the magic works, it kind of falls flat, because well, it's just sort of "huh, okay." Which is a shame, because the setting - with its conflict between peoples, its class issues, and interesting characters - is really strong to set up that finale, which just amounts to a mess.

And then it ends, like Foundryside, with a few reveals which portend new things coming in the book's sequels. One of those is more interesting than the other (one involves the true allegiance of a character who the book can't decide whether it wants to suggest he's good or bad) but there's enough again still in this setting and characters to make me want to continue with the series. And it's possible that some of my confusion with the magical finale is drawn from my own reading style - which is pretty fast and can overlook miniscule details. Still, I hope that the sequels to this one continue the strong character and theme work while becoming more clear about its underlying fantasy elements, to truly draw out its potential.

This full review will be published online in January closer to the book’s release date.

I had great fun reading this one. The setting itself drew me in with a Venetian-like city and Romani influences but this steadily progressed to an entire list of many other things that intrigued me as well.

There are clever con artists, masked vigilantes and dashing duelists. There are street gangs, clan leaders and conniving nobles. There are the simmering tensions between colonial powers ruling over oppressed native inhabitants. There are interesting magic systems that borrow from runic inscriptions, tarot reading and astrology. There are even a few dashes of horror to spice it all up.

And within all these elements, of course, are the plots and manipulations by various characters who all seem to hide behind one mask or another. Unravelling the threads that tie them all together made for an interesting ride.

The central events of THE MASK OF MIRRORS take place within the city-state of Nadežra. The city was taken over a good two hundred years prior by the invading Liganti who have established themselves as the city’s rulers ever since. The native population, the Vraszenian clans, have since been treated poorly and largely looked down upon by the Liganti noble houses much to general resentment. Even those of mixed blood are less likely to rise as high as a full-blooded Liganti due to the stratification of their society. But for those with enterprising minds it just might be possible to force themselves into the upper echelons of society with a scheme or two. Hence, the con central to this plot is born.

The story unfolds with multiple point-of-view characters that each have their own conflicting concerns and motivations. Among these characters, I would claim there are three in particular that comprise the main point-of-view characters: Ren, Grey and Vargo.

Ren is a half-Vraszenian con artist who grew up thieving on the streets of Nadežra after being orphaned at a young age. She fled the city for a number of years, but returns all grown up and in the guise of a Seteran noblewoman Renata Viraudax. “Renata” claims to be an estranged cousin of the noble House Traementis with the aim to insinuate her way into their affections – and into their purse strings. But her successes in charming Liganti high society isn’t enough to convince the skeptical head of the Tramentis family that she’s who she claims, and Ren quickly realizes that House Traementis may not be as wealthy as they once were. Her con only grows more convoluted as her plans place her in the path of the masked vigilante The Rook and another noble family’s plot to incite angry Vraszenians.

Grey Serrado is a Vraszenian who has managed to climb his way up the ranks to become Captain of the city’s guard. It’s a position that offers him little social benefit – the guard is comprised of Liganti elite who mostly look down on him as an upstart while his own people regard him as a traitor for aligning himself with the policing force that often targets them. Nonetheless, Grey is grimly determined to protect who he can and investigate the recent string of missing children being kidnapped off the streets. The request by the Traementis to look into the city’s newest arrival, Renata, is just a minor annoyance to deal with on the side.

Derossi Vargo is a ruthless crime boss turned legitimate businessman who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. With an extensive information network and relative control over the seedier elements in Naderza, the only thing he seems to lack is the social privileges that allow him to walk easily among the noble crowd. With the arrival of Renata Viraudax, he plans a mutually beneficial arrangement to provide her with opportunities while achieving his own ambitions with her noble connections. Vargo’s plans are always the most difficult to discern, but with his hidden talents for magic and the secret companion he speaks to in his head, it’s quite clear that there’s much more to him than meets the eye.

I found all three of these characters, along with the other main characters that support or impede them, to be memorable in their own right. None of them ever bored me, and on occasion some of them even surprised me.

In regards to the plot itself, this book contains elements of a “fantasy of manners” which naturally means there is a ton of character-work and events that requires more socialization than action. The pace of this book was therefore pretty steady but I never found it to be slow. I was engrossed and interested to see what each character would do next, especially because there were all sorts of twists to look forward to. Sometimes there were hints placed in advance that led me to figure something out before Ren did, but I never blamed her for making the wrong assumptions based on the information she had access to.

But for those who fear that this is all talk and no action, never fear – there are still a number of duels, infiltrations, and near-death encounters to keep the reader on their toes.

Another thing I found enjoyable about this read was the detailed worldbuilding that fleshed out the cultures, religions and folklore. Best of all, not once did I feel as though there was any sort of info dumping. Tidbits and explanations about the world around the characters were interspersed seamlessly throughout the narrative and never in overwhelming amounts. I agree with those who point out that there’s quite a bit to digest, but I personally hadn’t found that to be a negative thing.

I’ve also seen that other readers have found the sprawling cast, complex histories and various terminologies to be complicated at times but again, I never felt that to be the case in my experience. I enjoyed being fully immersed in this world so this all just made the event seem more vivid to me. But then, I’ll note that I’m the kind of person who enjoys extensive lore in things like RPGs and will eagerly consume all the additional information on the world and its characters, so take that as you will.

The final thing I’ll mention is that I found that this book wraps up in a satisfying way – resolving the current conflict but leaving many open questions that will leave the reader anticipating the sequel. I’ll be picking up book two of this series for certain. Perhaps this isn’t for everyone, but this definitely worked for me.

Many thanks to Orbit and Netgalley for providing the free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ren is an orphan (and ex-street rat) trying to con her way into a noble family to ensure a future for her younger sister and herself until she realizes that she got involved in something way bigger than a simple con. She is thrust into the middle of family feuds and political intrigues while trying to avoid suspicion and maintain her image of a wealthy young lady wanting to meet and connect with her aunt and cousins.

I like that the intrigue is complex, we come to realize that Ren’s story is only a small piece of a big puzzle about economic gain and corrupt elite fighting for power. The setting is also well done, it reminded me of Venice with the small isles and the canals. The number of details in the setting is impressive, and it definitely is a strength of the book.

The characters in this book are multifaceted and it gives them a depth and complexity that we do not encounter in every YA fantasy book. There are many morally grey characters in this book, and it seems like everyone has something to hide. They sneak around, spy, and manipulate with no shame. I must say though that even if the world and the characters are vibrant and colorful, the pace is quite slow. It takes a while for all the pieces to fall into place and for us to understand what the actual bigger plot is.

There is magic in the book, but it is not much present at first, it is introduced slowly in the first part of the book. It gets a little confusing, I am not sure yet that I understand exactly how the magic works in Ren’s world. Since it plays a more important role in the second part of the book, I would have liked it to be better explained. It is also hard to keep track of all the secondary characters, their relations with each other, their various cultures, and their titles (plus all the new vocabulary specific to this world). There is a list of characters and a glossary at the end of the book, but it is harder to refer to it every time with an ebook, so it was challenging to hold onto the threads of every conflicts, alliances, names, titles, and backstory. The complexity and the details of the setting in a part of the reasons why I liked this book, but it’s also why I struggled with it.

The second half of the book is more engaging, and more significant things happen, but it is still a long book with a complex setting a slow pace, it might not be the ideal book for just anyone.

This is one of those books that grows on you. For me it was a bit of a rough start. The first few chapters were difficult to get through mostly because of all of the confusing, hard to pronounce names of the characters. The plot however draws you and and keeps you hooked. By chapter four I was invested and just had to find out what was going to happen. Following Ren through her schemes to become a member of House Traementis was nail biting at times. Carrick creates such an in depth world that you can almost feel and smell it. I loved the Venetian feel of the city of Nadezra. I also loved the loyalty Ren and her "siblings" Tess and Sedge show each other throughout the story. The twist at the end with the identity of the Room was one I wasn't expecting, I was almost certain it would have been a different character. I also found the glossaries at the end rather helpful. While I was hesitant to start this book initially because of the shear size of it, I'm extremely happy that I did. I can't wait to see what happens next in this trilogy.

An absolutely FABULOUS immersive dive into an alternate world of magic, political intrigue and skullduggery!
I WILL be purchasing a hardcover copy of this book upon release to keep in my permanent library, and am eagerly awaiting the second installment!

An amazing amount of thought and planning went into the world building here. This world has multiple moons, making for a complex layout of dates and times. It also has it's own system of magics. Both native and the inhabiting conquerers have differing religious and magical systems that are individually imaginative and rich. The setting Nadezrå is reminiscent of Venice. A city of islets, bridges and rigorous caste systems.

Our main character, Ren is a promising young thief in a band ran by a Fagginesque master Ondrakja. Who rules over her band of 'fingers' with a casual brutality. Ren does the unthinkable after Ondrakja punishes her by killing her blood brother Sedge because she feels Ren is too valuable a commodity to injure physically. Ren retaliates by poisoning Ondrakja and fleeing the city with her remaining blood sibling, Tess.

Jump forward five years, and Ren is back, masquerading as the Alta Renata with Tess as her devoted maid. Ren is determined to worm her way into the upper tiers of Nadezra's ruling elite and has set her eye on infiltrating the House Treamentis, which has fallen on hard times.

The story is a swirl of political intrigue, as Ren gets caught up in the maneuverings of the upper caste system. While also being unexpectedly insnared by her past as a Finger. Lovely characterizations, you really do care about the outcomes for Ren, Tess, House Treamentis and the other dizzying array of people. Sorta need a spreadsheet to keep everyone straight. Thankfully there is one in the back of the book which I didn't discover til I had finished it! :D

Highest, HIGHEST recommendation!!!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC for my unbiased review.

Before you pick this book up, you should know that this is a slow book with a large cast. Its main focus is on characters, politics, scheming and a bit of a mystery at its center. It includes a lot of descriptions of clothing, which I normally don't care about, but it was written in a way that added a lot to world building and I found myself enjoying it.

This is the first book I finished in 2021 and honestly, I couldn't have started it with a better book. The characters are great. The world building was very immersive. I don't think there was a single thing I disliked about this book. The last 20%-30% was a wild ride and I need book 2. Now.

Big thank you to Orbit for the advanced reading copy, I was very excited to receive it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

5/5 glowing stars!

First of all, what a completely perfect book to start off 2021! There is no better way to start a year than a perfect rating! This was amazing. Imagine Six of Crows, but everyone's grown up, there's cons instead of heists, and everything is much, much darker. Well, I guess it doesn't sound as much like Six of Crows now, but it has the same vibe and excellence!

Ren is a con artist who has come to the city of opportunity with one goal: to con a noble family to secure her fortune and her sister's future. She never expected to actually become attached to the family, or the people around her. And she definitely didn't expect corrupt magic, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats, and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly to become tangled -- with Ren at their heart.

A big make or break in a book is the characters. Are they interesting? Are they unique? Do they have any kind of character arc? I was on the lookout for all of those characteristics, and I'm happy to report that all of them were checked off!

What I especially loved was that we got some gray area characters! Does doing the wrong thing for the right reason make it okay? What about doing the right thing for the wrong reason? We got that with basically our entire cast of characters. Our main character is literally a con artist! She walks that thin line and is an amazing MC. I have trouble finding a main character that I actually enjoy reading, so I'm glad I found one in her. My favorite character, Vargo, is an enterprising crime lord. What could possibly be cooler? He's also a bit of a grown-up, cutthroat Kaz Brekker from Six of Crows (yeah I know, sorry for all the SoC references but this book reminds me so much of it) who, if you know me at all, you'll know I LOVE him, just as I LOVE Vargo! Seriously, I can't wait for more in book two.

The Mask of Mirrors brought in a super diverse cast! Not only in personality (though thank goodness it's diverse there too) but in every aspect! We got to see all different kinds of LGBTQ+ representation as well as an interesting one I haven't ever seen written about. Vargo, the best character in the book (in my humble opinion), has nosophobia. Nosophobia is the fear of contracting an illness or developing a disease. Vargo is a normally unshakable person who takes great pride in his dignity. So to see him gone completely limp from fear, so much so that he had to be carried around another character's neck like a scarf, really just goes to show how much something like that can level your world, no matter how strong or powerful you are.

The worldbuilding in this novel was so rich and consuming that it didn't feel at all like anything I've read! I know I keep saying that this book is unlike anything I've read and then I call it Six of Crows or something, but it really has so many unique elements that I just love. I was a little confused at the beginning with all the terms, but I, the idiot, didn't notice the glossary or character index at the end until I was an embarrassing amount of the way through the book (the end). I'm so glad it was included! When reading political high fantasy books, I get the names and terms mixed up too often.

The Mask of Mirrors was written by M.A. Carrick, which is the pen name for two authors working together. When I read a book written by multiple authors, it's really a no go for me if I can tell the writing apart. But these two writers fit seamlessly, so much so that I would never have guessed there were two of them if I didn't read the author blurb!

I've been looking at the reviews on Goodreads for a while now, trying to find why anyone could have rated it below five stars, and the complaint I see most is the pacing. Yes, the pacing can be a little slow at times. The book is nearly 700 pages! Do you expect it to zoom along the entire time? I actually enjoyed the slower pacing when it cropped up, though the pacing was pretty good for the most part, as evidenced by the fact that I didn't even think about it until I saw the reviews.

I absolutely loved this book! It blew away all my expectations. I'm so grateful I got to read a copy, and I would 100% recommend it! I positively can't wait for the second book to be released, and I wonder what else these authors could create!

A fantastic introduction to a complex world full of political rivalries, intrigue, and an ambitious con, The Mask of Mirrors is the first book in the can't miss new series The Rook and The Rose.
Nadezra "The City of Dreams", if full of deception, secrets, and mystery. Each resident wears multiple faces. From the crime lord turned legitimate business man, to the mysterious disguised man defending the common folk from the corruption of the city's elite. In The Mask of Mirror's no one is exactly what they seem.

I really wanted to like this book. I liked Marie Brennan's Lady Trent books, and I hoped I would enjoy this book like I enjoyed those. However, this was a case where the authors' vision and the reader's expectations didn't match up. There were aspects of the novel that I enjoyed. The Rook was intriguing, and I kept reading to find out who he was. I worried about the street children who couldn't sleep, and I hoped that a cure would be found for them. I appreciated the depth of the characters and their variety--in terms of age, gender identify, sexuality, and ethnic background. The setting was rich and nuanced, and there seems to be plenty of space for the series (trilogy?) to explore many aspects of the world. However, these were secondary points, which meant I found the subplots and characters more interesting than the main plot. I had trouble sympathizing with the main character, con artist Ren, who was running a scheme to ingratiate herself into a noble house, and her schemes meant that I kept meeting new people in new places with new terms to remember. I could not keep track of all of the many noble houses and roles. I also just could not get excited about a plot that hinged on earning a trading charter. That said, the book ended with several revelations that promise new fireworks in the sequel, and I'm interested to see where the authors take Ren next.

i received an arc from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

this book is one that had me really bored in part 1 and super hooked for parts 2-4. it is a “political high fantasy” that is HEAVY on the politics, so be prepared for a lot of names, titles, and places to be thrown at you right from the get go. i struggled a lot in part 1 (hence why i was bored), but figured out by part 2 that there are only a few characters that actually mattered and the other names could be fluffed over. is this the best way to read adult high fantasy? probably not. but my brain could not handle all of the proper nouns on the page - so i decided to give it a break.

parts 2-4 are addicting. a mystery starts to form, and there are perhaps some romantic inklings?

two things i loved:
- casual acceptance of lgbtq+ people: the word “spouse” is used instead of “husband” or “wife” when the gender of the spouse isn’t known. similarly, there is a trans side character mentioned without any trace of transphobia.
- discussions of privilege: i love a good discussion of race and class. this book, while a bit heavy-handed on some of the commentary, did a good job of showing how stratified society is.

things i did not like:
- YIKES, INCEST? leato and renata’s “chemistry” was super weird. i know they’re not technically cousins because ren is a con woman, but leato doesn’t know that!
- pacing: this book was unnecessarily drawn out. whole scenes could have been easily deleted. i just felt my mind wandering during a few sections.

and the reveal of the rook? i wasn’t surprised - this person was my first guess. but the authors did a good job of giving some red herrings that brought me off course.

anyways, all in all, this is a pretty solid adult fantasy. i don’t really foresee myself continuing with the series, but as my first ever arc, it was a good start!

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currently reading review

i requested this arc because (somehow) the synopsis gave me adult six of crows vibes? i think it was “a rich and dazzling fantasy adventure in which a con artist, a vigilante, and a crime lord must unite to save their city” that got me.

honestly, i don’t know what i was thinking when requested it, but i’m glad i did get the arc, because this book is pretty good.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51340378-the-mask-of-mirrors" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose, #1)" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1590151669l/51340378._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51340378-the-mask-of-mirrors">The Mask of Mirrors</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19457338.M_A_Carrick">M.A. Carrick</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3622225760">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I consider myself very lucky to have received an ARC of this book from NetGalley by way of the World Fantasy Convention virtual book bag. Not only did I get to read this fabulous book that was completely off my radar, but now I have a NetGalley account to get more books in advance.<br /><br />This book caught my attention even before I learned that M.A. Carrick is a pen name with Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms on the other side. I am not familiar with Helms, but have enjoyed some of Brennan's work and was happy to read more. And there's a lot to love about this book!<br /><br />I'm a sucker for fantasy Venice, and this one delivered both the familiar and the unfamiliar. The language is distinct (not just fantasy-bastardized Italian); while the city is a canal city, it's not just Venice was a mask and a hat on; and the story explores colonialism and class conflict, not merchants versus monarch neighbors.<br /><br />Once I learned that Marie Brennan was half of this writing duo, I knew I was in for some rich world building, both micro (the clothing details!) and macro (the geopolitical history!). It took me a while to get the hang of it (mostly the geopolitical history), because my hand was not held very much, but I eventually sorted out the different people groups, where they came from, what they called themselves, what they called each other, and why the city is contentiously shared. I appreciate that the focus of the story was continually on the characters, social interactions, and the intrigues of the plot, and not on massive exposition dumps that might have cleared up the history but at the expense of boring me and making me put the book down. <br /><br />The political intrigue is built around actual local politics, not a monarch’s court, a war, high-society family feuding, or a disruptive incident like an election or new head of a powerful family. All of those can produce wonderful and thrilling stories, but I have been looking for something different, and I found it here. Rather then starting with a disruption and following characters who try to leverage it to attain their goals, this plot is the unfolding of the disruption amidst everyone’s schemes and agendas. Also, we follow characters representing several sectors of society’s lowest tiers, rather than the highest. None of our main characters just happens to know someone in the nobility or the slums in order to get that tier on the page; they all work hard for their interactions.<br /><br />Beware if you're easily lost or put off by large casts of characters! I really like this in a story, even when I lose track of people and forget who they are. It was a little tough because different characters referred to each other by different forms of their names, and there were a few secondary characters that became muddled for me, especially because I had to take a month-long break in the middle of reading this book. However, everyone was distinct enough that I recalled who they were and how they fit into the story as the scenes progressed, so I was never lost for long. <br /><br />Tl;dr: this book made me happy. It's stuffed full of my big-fat-fantasy-novel joys. It didn't drag like (I quite honestly have come to expect from) a 600+ page book, it wasn't two or three books smashed into one, or a book that didn't know when to stop and so ended on a cliffhanger/left some huge part of the plot unresolved to shortcut into the next book. The pacing was tight. The story wrapped up, justice was served, the characters advanced in their goals. In doing so the positions and relationships between the main characters shift so that new tensions emerge that will drive the interpersonal aspects of whatever the next plot is, and I am really looking forward to it.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/20325359-e-a">View all my reviews</a>

The Mask of Mirrors is a complex story about a con artist who infiltrates a wealthy family. I loved the atmosphere and the characters. I did find it difficult to keep up with who was who since there are so many characters. I am sure fantasy loves will love this book.

This book was great right from the start. I loved it. The characters in this book are fantastic. The magic is complex. There are so many plot twists that I was wishing it was even longer than 672 pages.

The story follows Ren, orphan/con artist. Her latest and most ambitious con is to become Alta Renata and join the ranks of the rich and elite. She has plans to con her way into the wealthy Traementis family and let them support her. It will be hard to keep up her ruse with all the dark magic popping up in the city. Not to mention her past dogging her every step.

Great start to a new series. I can't wait for the next one.

This book is AMAZING. I am so impressed at the level of detail in the world buikding, amazing character construction, and brilliant pacing of this book. I seriously cannot say enough good things and it was a delight to read. I cannot wait for book two!

Really solid fantasy. The characters are fantastic. Lots of secrets and complexities. The story was slow in spots but the descriptions and plot are so worth it. I really enjoyed the main character and her story. This story definitely shows how people hide behind masks even if you can't see them. I will definitely read more by this author.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC! Disclaimer: I didn't want to give this book a rating, because I didn't get through much of it, and I don't feel like a rating based on a fraction of the book is necessarily fair. I stopped reading at about 10%. While the idea of the story very much intrigued me, I didn't find the characters interesting enough to sit through the slow plot development and world-building. I usually love books with extensive world-building, but it has to be balanced out with other things that keep my interest in the meantime, and this story just didn't have that. Unfortunately, the book is too lengthy for me to invest however much time it might take for me to really get into it. It just wasn't for me.

Omg this book was so good!! It took me a while to read it and get through those 672 pages but I'm not mad about it because I got even more attached to these characters and the plot.

The Mask of Mirrors follows Ren, a con-artist who murdered the leader of her knot after she killed Ren's brother. With her sister Tess, Ren runs away to try another job, one that could let her be part of the nobility if she succeeds and be able to enjoy the benefits of such a position. But for that, she'll have to be really smart and put on the mask of Renata, a distant relation trying to reconnect with her family. She was never meant to care for Leato, Guina or their mother but eventually, she did and so did I. We also have an evil house that needs to be stopped and the mystery of a cloaked man "The Rook" to figure out.

Overall, this was a very interesting (even if can be slow at times) and so worth the read. I cried for some characters and the ending left me shocked (view spoiler). It's not often that authors/books manage to fool me like that especially in Fantasy instead of Thrillers, but wow, I loved everything about it and I cannot wait for book two!!

(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Netgalley)

The Mask of Mirrors, by M.A. Carrick (Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms) is a novel of complex plot and rich characterization that does just what you want a first novel in a series to do: arrive at a strong resolution while also leaving you eager to see what happens next. As such, despite a few issues, it’s an easy recommendation as a great way to start off your fantasy reading for 2021.

The setting is the city of Nadezra — “City of Drams” — ruled over by an occupying, mostly corrupt, noble elite whose ancestors conquered the surrounding land, then were driven out of all but the city, which in the peace treaty became “shared”, in the sense that the conquerors (the Liganti) rule and the natives (the Vraszenians) get access to their holy sites. The story has one truly main character — Ren — and a number of major other characters (too significant to be labeled “side” characters):

Ren: a young woman, former child of the streets, who with her blood-sister Tess
is running a long con to insinuate herself into one of the city’s powerful (or once-powerful to be more accurate) families by impersonating an estranged “niece” they’ve never met or heard of

House Traementis: A somewhat fallen House desperately trying to stave off utter collapse. Currently, the House consists of a sternly strong matriarch (Donnaia), her charmingly wastrel son Leato, and her young teen daughter Giuna, whom both Leato and Donnaia have tried to protect from the harsher realities of their situation and the larger political world

Grey Serrado: Captain of the Vigil, the Nadezra police force, and best friend of Leato Traementi. As a native Vraszenians working for the hated Liganti, Serrado is stuck between two worlds, a fraught position recently made worse by the recent killing of his brother

Derossi Vargo: an up-and-coming crime lord who, like Al Pacino in the Godfather films, is seeking to go “legit” by joining the nobility

The Rook: sort of a nationalistic Batman. For 200 years, the hooded swordsman has been protecting the Vraszenians and taking on the Liganti, though most assume they are not the same person over the two centuries, but a role handed down old Rook to new Rook.

Lesser albeit important characters include the head of a rival House to Traementis and his male heir, Varga’s bodyguard Sedge, a young street child, and an astrologer.

Because this is a mix of con games (multiple ones), heists, secret identities, revenge plots, murder mysteries, political intrigue, magical enigmas, and schemes within schemes within schemes, I’m not going to into a detailed plot summary. I’ll just note a few general aspects.


One is that it’s a dense, attention-requiring plot involving a lot of characters, a lot of names (not just the main characters), and as noted, a lot of schemes. The plot, in other words, is full of plotting. This probably isn’t, therefore, a novel to read while binging Schitt’s Creek. I enjoyed the complexity of the story, though at times I think we’re given more information than we need that unnecessarily make it more complicated. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t need all the clothing descriptions, but given how important appearance is in this society I’ll somewhat grudgingly cede its relevance (though appearance is important in any noble society and not all give us the same level of painstaking detail—again, MMV)

The authors do an excellent job of creating tension/suspense in a variety of ways and settings, whether via a street riot, a chase scene, an abduction, a duel, or through more “mannered” but no less vicious scenes that takes place in a more domestic setting: a jewelry store, a wedding party, the parlor or study of one of the houses.

The identity of the Rook is a big question throughout, which I think is problematic. Secret identities work in the real world because the choices of who lies underneath the identity are nearly endless. Batman could be any of millions living in Gotham. But in a novel, we have basically two options: a relatively major character or somebody we haven’t or barely met. The latter is a bit of a cheat (sort of like a mystery writer introducing the murderer for the first time on the last page), so it’s almost always going to be the former. And therein lies the problem because now, rather than potentially being millions, or even dozens, we’re down to a literal handful. Which forces the author into playing all sorts of games while also making the characters at least a little oblivious. For instance, all the possibilities have to either be coincidentally the exact same height and body type or the author has to arbitrarily withhold that information and pretend the characters never notice those qualities, even as they’re hyper-alert to other details, such as the piping on a jacket or a curl of hair. And even with these games, because the options are so few, the reader still has a good chance of figuring it out. Now, admittedly how one reacts to this is somewhat dependent on one’s personality. Personally, I find it frustrating in the, “Look, I know who it is, you should know I know who it is by now, so can we drop the whole ‘who is it, who is it’ routine for the next few hundred pages?” Your mileage may vary.

Finally, with regard to plot, the novel does a nice job of bringing most of the main questions and conflicts to resolutions, while leaving some up in the air and also opening up a number of other intriguing concerns and mysteries. Which, as noted in the intro above, is exactly what you want a first book to do.

As for characters, The Mask of Mirrors is a perfect example of taking familiar character types and imbuing them with a sense of unique personality and rich detail such that they feel like actual people rather than the types they are. Ren, Vargo, Serrado, etc. are all complex, multi-faceted characters, within their own selves and also because they are often forced into playing a role, either because they’re literally acting (as with Ren and Tess’ con) or because they need to present different faces in different situations/company, much as well do on a regular basis. Varga, for instance, has one face for his street gang and another for when he moves in more noble company, while Serrado has a form (and content) of speech amongst his Liganti comrades on the Vigil and another when he interacts with his own people. These sort of “code-switching” scenes are often some of the most revealing and also most tense, particularly when the stress of the scene makes it more likely someone might slip, such as how Ren might drop into her street slang if faced with a triggering situation. I also enjoyed just how “gray” many of the characters are, as well as how that greyness, combined with never being quite sure just how transactional the relationships are, means one is never always fully confident where they (the reader) stands with them or how they stand (or will stand) to one another once they get new information and/or new motivations or opportunities.

The world-building is solidly constructed. Thanks to Ren’s con game of playing a cousin from a different land (her “mother” had left Nadezra years ago and had no contact since), the authors get to play the “You know, Bob . . . “ card frequently because those doing the explaining don’t realize Bob actually does know. It’s a clever way of straightforwardly info-dumping details of history, culture, city layout, religion, and magical systems (patterning: a sort of Tarot card power, inscribing—channeling energy through precisely drawn figures, and imbuing—giving certain qualities to objects) without it feeling clumsy. That said, beyond the magic and politics (and clothing), I wouldn’t call it a deeply detailed world.


The Mask of Mirrors is a long book, and now and then it may feel its length, but I’m glad the authors chose to take their time in telling this tale, as it allowed for the slow revelation of character as well as the slow maturation (or shifting) of relationships. I’d expect some would argue for it losing one or two hundred pages, but I think it earned its length. The authors have woven a rich tapestry of plot and character, and I’m hoping not to have to wait too long to see the rest of it unfold.

Per the publisher's email request to not post reviews until two weeks before the publication date, this review will not be posted on my blog, Goodreads, or linked on my Twitter or Instagram until Friday, January 8th, 2021.

Thank you Orbit and Netgalley for granting me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is one of those books where you have to really be patient in order to begin to get a sense of the method to the madness. I think it’s important to go into this book knowing that you might be a bit overwhelmed with the intensity of the worldbuilding (if you’ve read the A Song of Ice and Fire/ Game of Thrones series you will know what to expect). If you can get past that, though, you’re in for a pretty intriguing story.

Aside from the prologue, you are thrown into the story right when Ren is starting her con as Renata in order to try and worm her way onto a noble family’s register. So, almost immediately you are met with chess-game-esque conversations and court politics that go hand-in-hand with an extreme amount of world-building. I’m the type of reader that typically enjoys court politics and detailed world-building in fantasy novels, however, this ended up being too convoluted for me. There are several different races that each have their own historical and cultural backgrounds that are discussed throughout the book, as the city has it’s own rather violent history between warring groups of people, and this ends up adding a layer of tension into the plot. Then there are three main characters that you follow (with an occasional side-character’s POV popping up): Renata trying to con her way into the noble family, Grey, the constable captain that spends his spare time looking into the murder of his brother, and Vargo, the crime-lord trying to expand his control. I love intricate plots where there are several working layers and pieces happening at the same time, but there’s a lot of unknown and ambiguity for too much of the story that it just became confusing. I also don’t think that the worldbuilding in general would have been as overwhelming if there wasn’t such an avalanche of terminology that went with the world that Carrick created, as things like the days of the week or names of the months became cumbersome and distracting from the story itself.

The first half of the book is heavily involved in political maneuvering, with the magic of the world peeking out every now and again, but at roughly the halfway point these two things flip in prominence, and that’s when the story really took off for me. I love the magic system. Carrick took ideas of tarot, astrology, and dreamscapes and reinvented them to fit the world. There’s also another aspect of the magic system that involves something similar to drawing the alchemy symbols in the anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist. Carrick did a great job of associating each type of magic with a different culture of people that reside in the city of Nadezra, and I do think that this enriched several aspects of the book, including the disconnect/animosity between the two main groups of people. This is also the point in the story where the different layers and moving parts start to feel more defined, and the secrets and questions, while often still unanswered, come into focus more. This is what really hooked me.

Character-wise, I think Carrick did okay. I actually ended up enjoying Vargo and Grey more than Renata, but I do think that Renata is a good character. Vargo was the most interesting to me, because his different layers felt more fleshed out. While Renata certainly had different layers, I felt like there was a slight disconnect between her and the reader. I also really appreciated how Carrick wrote the relationships between different characters, especially since there were moments where I feel like it’s common for authors to create unnecessary conflict as filler for the plot, but Carrick didn’t fall into that. All of the conflicts and the way that they were or were not resolved felt realistic and logical to me.

Aside from a bumpy beginning, I did find myself enjoying this book. Carrick doesn’t leave us on a cliffhanger, but they definitely left me curious with newly-formed questions. Be patient with the worldbuilding, because the magic and plot development make this a book that I think people are going to enjoy, and I have very high hopes for how the rest of this series will play out.