Readers who’ve read Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, will already be familiar with several of the characters in H.G. Parry’s glorious reimagining of that novel, A Far Better Thing. Lucie Manette and her tragic father, Dr. Manette, appear. Charles Darney shows up from time to time. Unlike in Dickens’s novel, however, Sydney Carton takes center stage in Parry’s. And also, unlike Dickens’s novel, this one adds fae, other worlds, magic, and changelings to the already exciting scenes of courtroom drama and revolution.

Sydney Carton lives a lackluster life in London. He’s bright but morose. He’s hardworking but refuses to pursue any ambitions. Unless you know Carton’s secret, he seems baffling. He could do so much more with himself than drink his life away working for another lawyer. His secret is a doozy. Sydney Carton is a changeling. The fae can find him anywhere he might go and force him to do their bidding. We actually meet Sydney while he’s on one of those errands: fetching human bones from a resurrection man to give to the fae. This isn’t weird at all to Sydney (it’s actually one of the less odious things they ask him to do); what’s really weird to Sydney is when, the next day, he runs into the person the fae left in his place. Sydney comes face-to-face with his changeling, Charles Darnay, in the middle of a courtroom. Worse, his changeling is on trial, accused of being a French spy. Sydney’s quick mind manages to get the charges dismissed.

Meeting Darnay and the Manettes (who are friends of Darnay) throws Sydney completely off his stride. Sydney can’t help but grow entangled with the charming Manettes, especially Lucie, whose face always reminds him of a lost loved one. Further complicating things, one of the detested fae shows up to press Sydney into service for its own terrible schemes. Parry gives Dickens a run for his money in terms of complicated plots and I had a blast following all of the twists and turns. Even though I expected that the plot would roughly follow the shape of A Tale of Two Cities, Parry had me guessing the entire time about what would happen next. For a few chapters, I even hoped that Carton would be able to escape the destiny Dickens limned for him originally.

It’s been a while since I last read A Tale of Two Cities and I remember enough of that book that reading A Far Better Thing sometimes feels like I’m seeing events from the other side of the stage. Parry absolutely knocks my socks off with the things she does backstage of A Tale of Two Cities. In Dickens, Sydney pops up here and there where he’s needed. Dickens’s novel mostly sticks with the Manettes and Darnay. In A Far Better Thing, the reverse is true. We get to see what Sydney is up to as he races around, trying to keep Darnay and the Manettes out of the clutches of the Defarges and the Committee of Public Safety (they need a lot of saving) while also trying to thwart his fae tormenters. This book is a wild ride.

I suggest that readers who are interested in reading A Far Better Thing at least read a good summary of A Tale of Two Cities. It would be better to read the original novel, so that you’ll catch the allusions to Dickens. I know that Dickens can be heavy-going for some readers, but A Tale of Two Cities is one of his more tightly composed and exciting books. It’s my personal favorite work by Dickens. Madame Defarge (the original version) still gives me the willies. Sydney Carton shines in both stories, and I fell in love with his character all over again in A Far Better Thing.

Faeries, changelings, and the French Revolution collide in this stellar novel by H.G. Parry.

Sydney Carton is miserable. He's a mortal servant for The Realm living in late 1700s England, using his brilliant mind to assist with legal cases - when he's not drinking. Imagine his shock when the defendant in his most recent case walks in and Carton comes face to face with his own changeling. Across the courtroom sits none other than the changeling of his childhood best friend Ivy, who died on the eve of Carton's 13th birthday and last night in the Realm. Thus an adventure begins, stretching across the sea to France, into gritty alleyways, and behind magical doors.

Set in our real world but steeped in fantastical elements, this story is beautifully told and atmospherically set. The characters are all mostly unlikable, but put together they create a perfect cast of misfits and unsung heroes doing their best to survive and thrive in the most unusual of circumstances. I continue to be delighted and enthralled with Parry's writing and will absolutely be a completist of her work. Her imagination, creativity, and raw talent are well on display in these pages.

Thank you, NetGalley and Tor, for the chance to come along on this adventure in exchange for this honest review.

Dickens’s fans rejoice. HG Parry has written a faithful retelling of A Tale of Two Cities from the POV of Sydney Carton. The fairy world provides all the explanations that I always wanted in the original. Her voice is strong and motivations clear. It felt like traveling gracefully back in time and seeing the world through realm silver.

I love the idea of an inspired by book, but it feels like this was more a retelling than an inspired by. The time setting and the vocabulary didn't feel like they matched well, and sometimes it felt like the author was trying too hard to make it seem older. I think that maybe the style of writing just isn't for me.

A dense mystery, with the sense of noir you would find in old detective movies. If you enjoy Sherlock Holmes, but with a fantasy twist, try out this novel.

This is a book that I really wanted to love, but unfortunately I think H.G. Parry's writing style just isn't something I mesh with. I found myself getting incredibly bored and a lot of things going over my head. I am sure it is a me problem, but this just wasn't the book for me.

Did somebody say revolution?

A Far Better Thing is a faerie mashup of A Tale of Two Cities. Set during The French Revolution, my American heart needed this 😆 H.G. Parry can w r i t e. She has a PhD in literature and it shows. This is well researched and a bit darker of a fantasy than the last book I read by her.

"But every revolution, however it ends, begins with a flicker of hope."

I must confess I haven’t actually read A Tale Of Two Cities, so I no doubt missed heaps of stuff. The story stands alone well anyway. The dialogue is Dickensian, and the setting, but nothing else feels deeply so.

A deeply melancholic but fascinating tale of love and tragedy and rebellion and faerie, this is a story that haunts. Sydney - or Memory, as the faeries call him - is a human who was replaced by a changeling, sent out into the mortal world as a servant, endlessly enslaved to the very same faeries who took him. But when he comes face to face with his own changeling, the man living the life he should have had - and, perhaps, the woman he would have loved - the course of Sydney’s life is altered forever.

More than two cities, although the story indeed links London and Paris, in the throes of the revolution, this is the story of two realms: faerie and the mortal realm. Faerie is depicted entirely strange and unknowable, as are its denizens. There will be much to like for fans of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. But unlike that book, you are seated more deeply in the heart of a singular character, our narrator, and the reader gains a real sense of him- even though Sydney himself barely knows who he is.

A marvellously woven and emotionally compelling read.

Revolution is brewing in France. Is unrest brewing in the Unseen Realm of the Fae as well? In this brilliant retelling of "A Tale of Two Cities," the faeries switched dissolute lawyer Sydney Carton in boyhood with a changeling, the beautiful and virtuous Charles Darnay. Sydney Carton is astonished to meet his changeling in court and since such encounters are forbidden, Carton suspects a plot by his wicked fae master.
This could pave the way for Carton himself to revolt.

Genius. Loved it. Nominated for LibraryReads on Edelweiss. This will make my Top 10 list of 2025 for sure.

I stopped reading this after two chapters. The language used in the description - specifically, “heart breaking” - made me nervous, so I read the last chapter and decided the ending is not for me. I don’t feel that I can give the book a fair rating based on only reading a few chapters, but what I read so far was well-done, so my rating is based on that only.

I haven’t read the book that this was based upon, so I can not give feedback on that regard. However, it’s a very complex slightly down sort of read. A man who’s a suicidal alcoholic, haunted.
The world building is impressive and immersive. A very heavy feeling tragedy.

"Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell meets A Tale of Two Cities in H. G. Parry’s A Far Better Thing, a heart-rending fantasy of faery revenge set during the French Revolution.

I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse.

The faeries stole Sydney Carton as a child, and made him a mortal servant of the Faery Realm. Now, he has a rare opportunity for revenge against the fae and Charles Darnay, the changeling left in his stead.

It will take magic and cunning - cold iron and Realm silver - to hide his intentions from humans and fae and bring his plans to fruition.

Shuttling between London and Paris during the Reign of Terror, generations of violence-begetting-violence lead him to a heartbreaking choice in the shadow of the guillotine."

If you haven't read any of H.G. Parry's magical tales set during the French Revolution, you are in for a ride. They are thrilling and so deeply researched, the worlds are habitable by the reader.

H.G. Parry’s A Far Better Thing is the best novel I have ever read. Parry’s masterfully written reimagining gives voice and depth to one of literature’s most tragic and enigmatic figures: Sydney Carlton. With grace and emotional intelligence, Parry turns the shadows of A Tale of Two Cities into a stage of rich inner lives and new possibilities.

Sydney Carlton is a law clerk who has lived his whole life knowing he was taken as a baby from the human world and switched out with a changeling. He grew up in the Realm but got out and lives as a mortal servant, he serves faeries. He comes to work on a trial, and face to face with his changeling, Charles Darnay. He and Darnay are never supposed to cross paths ever and Sydney can sense that it’s more than a coincidence.

The relationship between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay is at the heart of this novel, and it’s rendered with such nuance and tenderness that I found myself revisiting passages just to savor the emotional weight. Rather than a simple rivalry, Parry draws out a complex bond filled with mutual recognition, buried wounds, and moral reckoning.

What’s most remarkable is how Parry honors the tone and themes of Dickens while subverting and expanding them. Carton’s voice is sharp, self-aware, and often devastating but always finding hope. Watching him navigate a world where he is more than just a sacrifice is an extremely moving experience.

This novel is not just a companion novel it’s a conversation with Dickens across time. It deepens A Tale of Two Cities while standing confidently on its own as a story of redemption, identity, and love.

I finished it with tears in my eyes and a full heart. One of the most powerful historical novels I’ve read in years.

I will be posting my bookstagram review the day before release to build hype before the release @seductivespellbindingsagass and on amazon the day of release my goodreads review is up now!

This book destroyed me. I am devastated and I am in love. Wow. I have decided that I will read anything this author writes. I am now a die hard fan. Wow.

Parry has some of the best writing I've read in quite some time. The concept of remaining A Tale of Two Cities into a fantasy with faeries? Immediately love. The characters were well developed and interesting
, the plot was unique and fresh. Definitely a read that fantasy lovers are going to want to get their hands on!

What if Charles Darnay was really a changeling, and that's why Sydney Carton and he looked so alike? Carton, or Memory as the fairies call him, narrates his story as a mortal who is forced to work for his fairy masters. He knows one fairy in particular, Shadow, has a purpose for him but not what it is. Can he discover it and get revenge on the fairy who allowed his childhood friend, Ivy (and Lucy Manette's double), to die? A fun, inventive fantasy spin on A Tale of Two Cities.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this novel that shows the best and worst of times for a group of characters from two worlds caught in a game of political tumult, revenge and supernatural stakes that could affect everyone.

In the afterword for this book there is a line about how they story came together for the writer. The sentence is quite familiar to many, one that starts with "But what if". Those three world probably have launched more creative works than anything else. That's why I love art so much. Three words can create something that touches the reader, takes a familiar tale, and make it unique, Gives life to characters in different ways. And leads to places others never thought to go. In case there is a question, I really loved this novel. A Far Better Thing by H. G. Parry is a novel of two cities, two sets of characters, and two worlds, set in a time of revolution, chaos, revenge, and love.

Sydney Carton is a man who drinks too much, sleeps too little, and cares nothing for the life he leads. Carton works two jobs, one of them as a researcher and advisor to a lawyer, and whose latest case has caused difficulties in Carton's life. Their client has been accused of treason, by a man known to owe money all over London. An easy case Carton thinks, until he sees the client and realizes that he knows him. For they are both touched by faeries. Carton was taken from his family as a child, replaced by a changeling, the client Charles Darnay. Carton spent his childhood trapped in the Children's World of Faery, and now works his second job, as a mortal servant carrying out the will of Faeries in London. To meet one's changeling is rare. To see another one also in court, and this one being the changeling of the woman he once loved, is impossible. Carton knows something is going on, that rumours he has heard about trouble in the Faery Realm might be coming to this world. Soon Carton is caught in a web of treachery, rebellion and revenge, stretching from London to Paris, with bodies starting to pile up, and the sounds of the Wild Hunt filling the night skies.

I am usually not a fan of books that attempt to work as sequels, or reboots or use older works to build a story. A rule that I am willing to be flexible about when the writing is as good as this book is. Parry takes the story of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and makes something original, and compelling Right from the beginning the reader is pulled into a world familiar and yet different, darker and more sinister than one expects, with a lot of sadness for many of the characters. The writing is quite good, the characters are very well developed, and fleshed out in many ways. One gets the motivations even from the most evil and wrong of characters. One gets why they feel like they do. Faery World is well described and a place I would like to read more about. Parry goes into a lot of different things, English and French law, the revolution in France, the different sides, and mixes fictional and real pople in the story.

One doesn't have to have read Dickens to understand what is going on. Though it might help a bit. This is a really wonderful story, with a mythology that is different, and one I would like to know more about. A perfect example of what fantasy stories can be capable of, taking the everyday and making them not just magical, but compelling. This is my first reading of anything by H. G. Parry but will not be my last.

A darkly whimsical retelling of A Tale of Two Cities, in which the main characters are Mortal Servants of the Faerie Realm, stolen as babies, and their changelings, the people who took their place, their names and their lives. Against the backdrop of the French Revolution, H.G. Parry weaves in the machinations of the Fae, wreaking damage with their plots and revenge, and the misery and torment of their mortal servants who are also longing for a revenge of their own.
Rightly marketed as a book for readers who loved Jonathan Strange & Mr. NorrelI.

This is a 3.5 I would say. The reason I can’t give it a 4 is because I found it very slow with no real aim for a good part of it. It didn’t inspire me to keep reading, so this took me quite a while to read. It does pick up extraordinarily at the last 1/3 I would say. I read it all in one day and thoroughly love the ending.

A beautifully-spun retelling of Dicken's classic A Tale of Two Cities with a twist of fate and a dash of fairy magic. Sydney Carton is the human servant of fairy masters and has been ever since he was swapped for a changeling as a child. A coincidence that's not a coincidence at all presents itself when he meets and saves the life of his own changeling, Charles Darney, and begins to plot revenge against the fairy that brought them together and fairy realm itself. Would that all fantasy stories were this tragic and compelling. Carton is incredibly relatable even while he tries to convince himself and everyone around him, readers included, that he's just a drunken ne'er-do-well, and the plot, while familiar, is cleverly reinvented in a way that feels entirely new. Fans of classic fairy stories and doomed protagonists will appreciate Parry's latest novel.