Member Review

Micah is a former debutante who was born between male and female, who ran away from home to escape his mother's plans to 'fix' him, and joined the circus. It's among the talented people of the circus that he starts to find himself as an aerialist and discovers that he wields magic long thought lost. His past won't let him go that easily and a ghost from ancient times keeps telling him he's the key to magic in the future. Will his new life survive the clash of past and future?

Micah is an empathetic character, and you can instantly feel why running away became the only answer. His questions and situation are a bit more extreme than most, but the feeling of not being sure if you can be who you want to be or even knowing who you want to be is something that everyone can relate to.

The way we get his story in the beginning is with flashbacks interspersed with moments in the present, and it's a great way to drop a lot of background without losing a handle on everything that is happening in the circus. It's a nice way to break up what could have been a monotonous training season while giving information on how we got there.

It's an interesting story full of questions and intrigue that suffers a bit from wanting to be grander than it is. It seems that Lam thought setting up a magical world full of wonder necessitated overly complicated writing full of complex poetry and sentences that don't mean anything until it's revealed they're key to the plot. It's a valid technique when the story calls for it, but I don't think Micah's story needed to be told in such a complex way. There are moments when I would have preferred a straight telling. It's more of a personal preference than a fault in the book, but it did affect my enjoyment of it.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and DAW for the compelling read!