I loveeeee books that have women as spies running around in high society. Gail Carriger and Sarah Zettel are authors who have fun series in this genre (which I've reviewed some of their books on this blog). I get pretty geeked out whenever I stumble across another one, so good.
Complete sidenote on the cover. One day, I hope the young adult genre can move beyond putting headless women on the cover. Or headless people in general. It's freaking unnerving, please stop.
An amazon summary without all of the weird intro/review stuff, "The year is 1818, the city is London, and 16-year-old Annis Whitworth has just learned that her father is dead and all his money is missing. And so, of course, she decides to become a spy.
Annis always suspected that her father was himself a spy, and following in his footsteps to unmask his killer makes perfect sense. Alas, it does not make sense to England’s current spymasters—not even when Annis reveals that she has the rare magical ability to sew glamours: garments that can disguise the wearer completely. Well, if the spies are too pigheaded to take on a young woman of quality, then Annis will take them on. And so she crafts a new double life for herself. Miss Annis Whitworth will appear to live a quiet life in a country cottage with her aunt, and Annis-in-disguise as Madame Martine, glamour artist, will open a magical dressmaking shop. That way she can earn a living, maintain her social standing, and, in her spare time, follow the coded clues her father left behind and unmask his killer. It can’t be any harder than navigating the London social season, can it?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Annis lives in London with her Aunt Cassia while her father constantly travels for work. Her mother died when she was quite young, which is why her Aunt lives with them (to look after Annis). Her father is due to return home soon-ish, but they receive word that he's died in a carriage accident. Annis and Aunt Cassia are thrown into the struggles of trying not to become destitute. Growing up, Annis figured out that her father was a spy, and she wishes to pursue his career path somehow. Annis contacts the war office and tries to launch her career as a spy, only to find that they are not wanting of her services. She also discovers that she may sew glamours and enchant certain qualities into clothing. She and her Aunt Cassia move out to the nearby country with their maid Millie, and Annis spends her time disguising herself as Madame Martine.
That's enough summary. The one thing that is unusual about this book within this genre, is that it lacks the humor that other books relish in, especially in this time period. The book is still very engaging, but I find Annis is rather vexing with how slowly she puts together clues. She's slightly an unreliable narrator with her lack of being able to put together some clear clues about the circumstances of her own life.
That being said, the story had great world building, great character growth, and a great sense to build relationships between characters. It also had the great sense to fill in the social expectations/norms of the time as they went along, rather than a one lump sum of world building in the beginning.
Most surprising to me, I really enjoyed Millie's character the most. She had the most surprising and quirky aspects about her, but it also kind of helped to break of Annis' very self-centered narrations (which got better over the course of the book - yay character growth).
All in all, I thought this was a pretty fun book. I wish more of the magic had been explained, but I suspect if there's a book 2 (which there should??? be), we'll probably get to see more of it there. I'm also kind of hoping this will be a series told from multiple narrators over the course of the books. So book 1 is Annis, maybe book 2 will be Millie, maybe book 3 will be Aunt Cassia. I don't know, but I have hopes for this to be a series.
Happy reading!
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