The Mask of Mirrors

M.A. Carrick is a pseudonym for authors Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, and The Mask of Mirrors is their first book together. It’s high fantasy set in a world with magic, and it starts the Rook and Rose series. I received a free review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book is written by two anthropologists and it shows. Tremendous work has gone to creating a world with hundreds of details ranging from directions (earthwise/sunwise) and times of day (sun hours and earth hours) to rules of card games and duels. The various peoples living in the city of Nadežra have their unique cultures with different clothing, deities and even funeral habits, from nobility to street gangs. None of it is explained to the reader; there are no info dumps and the reader is left to learn everything as they go. Mostly it works well—much of it is intuitive and none of it is vital for following the story—but there was so much of it that it was exhausting at times. There is a map and a glossary, but they’re not very easy to use in an ebook.

Nadežra is a city ruled by conquerors, and the peace between the ruling (white) people and the (Romani-type) tribes whose holy town is occupied, is tenuous at best. No one is happy with the situation, and there are elements on both sides that have decided to do something about it—at the same time.

In the middle of this arrives Ren with her sister Tess. They are former street urchins who have escaped from their cruel gang lord several years earlier, and have now returned to Nadežra with a bold plan to infiltrate a noble family and get rich. It’s a long con based on Ren’s skills at pretence and lying and her knowledge about the family she’s about to dupe.

Things start very well and Ren makes a splash in the society. But in order to maintain her con, she is drawn into the affairs of nobility and crime lords alike. The only way out is forward and Ren isn’t about to give up. Not even when she realises that the entire city is at risk and she might be the person to destroy it.

The book is divided into four parts. The first two are mostly a set-up for the latter two, and they are very slow to read. There’s a lot going on, but no plot to follow. The narrative doesn’t carry the reader forward, and it’s difficult to figure out what is important to pay attention to. The chapters don’t have an action-sequence pattern, and often when a chapter ends with a call to action, nothing comes of it, or the action happens where the reader cannot see, making them feel let down. This applies to all the point of view characters. They show up at random intervals to do something that seems random, or their chapters exist only to introduce the character. Tess, for example, doesn’t have a plot-influencing role, but she has her own chapters.

This changes after the half point. The latter two parts have a coherent plot that sweeps the reader with it and doesn’t let go. Ren discovers several schemes to destroy the city, and instead of working on her con, she finds herself trying to save Nadežra. The reader is kept guessing to the end if and how she might be able to do it.

This is a book that relies very much on Ren’s character. She’s a survivor who is willing to do pretty much anything to keep herself and Tess safe. Her morals are questionable from the start, but she changes along the way. The con becomes less important after she comes to like the people she’s trying to dupe, and saving the town becomes a priority over the con—though she’s also doing it to save herself.

There are several other characters too, none of which are easy to get a hang of. Are they good or bad, love-interests or backstabbers, and will they play any role in the final? Some people that we spend a lot of time with in the first half disappear completely, making them a waste of reader’s time, and we never get to know the baddies. But the characters with their POV chapters are all interesting, with secrets that aren’t revealed in this first book—but at least we learn the biggest one, the identity of the Rook. I would’ve been really annoyed if I’d had to wait for that any longer than I did.

All in all, this was a very mixed reading experience. I was ready to give up several times during the first half, as the story didn’t seem to go anywhere. But then I read the latter half in two days. And I’m glad I persevered, as the pay-off was satisfying, and there were a couple of interesting twists saved for the last. It just didn’t need the almost seven hundred pages to get there. Ren ends up in a new place in life and it’ll be interesting to read where she’ll take her con from here.

This is an amazing Dark Epic Fantasy … top seller, as it should be. First in the series the next increment is due out end of 2021. The website has samples of the clothing and a way to do a pattern reading and some explanations of numenatria.

The story centers on Ren .. who has many names and persona. She starts out as a ‘Finger’ (Think Oliver Twist kind of stealing). Soon you will see how she must escape… years later she returns with a new persona and name.

Every time I thought I figured out who was who and what was happening something would shift and it would keep me engaged and on my toes. I am so looking forward to next in series. Whose the Rook? What’s with the spider? Will Ren be found out?

It’s taken me a while to collect my thoughts on this book, and that’s because it is a complex web of twists and turns, and the worldbuilding was so rich and layered, I had to really go back and re-read it to fully catch all the little bread crumbs the authors left. That and I just really wanted to dive back into the world because it’s really stuck with me. I’m just saying, I’m ready for book 2 whenever it’s ready… yesterday would be acceptable LOL!

Now, let’s get down to business… The terminology of the world took a while to pick up on, even with the glossary in the back, (which I only discovered about a quarter of the way through the book *facepalm*), and I think a few other terms could have been further explained in there, but that’s only this readers wish of wanting to know more about this intricately built world. I could absolutely see (and am pretty please wishing it into existence) a sort of character/world/series bible a la the one that has been done for Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series. The world the authors have created is massive and I’ve got my fingers crossed that this trilogy is followed up by more books in this universe.

I will say, this is definitely an adult fantasy book, not a YA one, as sexuality is very casually done in the Nadezra society. It’s refreshing, honestly, the way that everyone’s sexuality and their gender roles and identification weren’t even thought of as a thing. It just is. No judgment, no questions about why or is it right or wrong, you are who you are, and you’re 100% perfect. *Ahem* if reality could adopt this enlightened attitude, that would be great, k, thanks?!

The one thing that I did find a bit jarring was the revolving POV changes, and them not really having any particular rhyme or reason, and the fact that they weren’t always in the same time frame, or setting even if it was the same character back to back, but under a different name. That being said, on my second read-through, they made a bit more sense as far as how they were placed timeline-wise. It reminded me of reading Game of Thrones for the first time before the TV show came out, and I felt like I needed a flow chart to follow who the hell was who, and what their alliances are – only it wasn’t as confusing as that, but at first it seemed like it.

Arenza isn’t your typical woman scorned… oh no.. she’s a talented thief, and she’s back to wreak havoc on those that did her wrong, and I am HERE FOR IT! Give me more of the morally grey and completely okay with it characters, please for the love of all the gods, I live for it! Thieves and cons are one of my favorites in the fantasy, genre, and M.A. Carrick has breathed fresh life into the trope with Mask of Mirrors. Without giving away any spoilers, Arenza is a character that I think a lot of people will relate to easily, and you’ll find yourself rooting for her, angry on her behalf, and also wanting to throw this book across the room because the authors make you feel all the feels.

I’m dying to know what book 2 will bring for this mish-mash of characters, and what plot twists the authors will bend our minds with. Whatever it is they’re doing, these two do it well, and I’m hopeful that they’ll be co-writing books together for a long time to come!

I wanted to like this more than I did. The set-up was grand–a young woman runs a confidence game on a wealthy family and the world building started out well, especially the clothing descriptions, but then it all became too, too much. Too many sub-plots. Too many confusing day names and time names and place names and spirit names and house names and magic techniques and so on. There’s a glossary at the end, which might have helped while reading, but an author’s true skill is not in making the reader look up odd phrases and situations but allowing the story to explain what needs to be explained.

It could have been shorter, trimmed of excess, and more focused. I was left somewhat frustrated by it all, even though the ending brought in some interesting revelations. Whether or not I’ll plow into the next book remains to be seen, but since it’s apparently not available yet, I have time to mull it over.

As a child, the city betrayed Ren in many ways, and now she’s back to exact revenge: by conning her way into the nobility, only to find out there’s a deeper game afoot and she somehow plays a role.

I’ll be honest and say the cover was a big reason why I wanted to read this book. The masks had me dreaming of Carnevale in Italy, but, after reading the book, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere one time that there were Slavic influences woven through the world, and I kept getting an Eastern European feel to it with tarot cards thrown in for good measure. It was kind of a dizzying world and something of a slog to get into, what with being thrown into a completely foreign world and having to wade through almost incomprehensible titles, families, places, and terms. It was confusing and I just gave up on trying to keep everything straight, hoping it would become clearer the longer I read on, which it did as the story picked up and took quite a few terms to become one of my favorite reads.

The Plot: Where Games Come to be Played
Ren was orphaned as a young child when her mother was killed and robbed. She ended up being raised alongside Tess and Sledge by their knot leader Ondrakja, but the city once again betrays her as Ondrakja kills Sledge as punishment to Ren. So Ren poisons Ondrakja, committing an unforgivable betrayal of her knot, and runs from Nadezra with Tess.

Years later, Ren and Tess are back. Aiming to take revenge on a city that has stolen everything from her by conning her way into the noble Traementis family, Ren poses as Renata Viraudax, the daughter of a woman struck from the Traementis register, with Tess as her maid. She makes waves as she ensures everyone in the city knows her name so the remaining Traementis family can’t ignore her. She also draws the attention of a masked vigilante known as the Rook and reformed criminal named Vargo who has eyes on joining the nobility himself.

Ren is drawn into a web, a dizzying game being played around her without her being aware of it while she plays her own, that has her reaching into her Vraszenian roots and playing both sides of the city, the Nadezran half and the Vraszenian half as the two clash in a class war around her.

The Mask of Mirrors is, as I’ve mentioned, dizzying. The reader is tossed whole body into a completely foreign world where nobles aren’t even lords and ladies, but altans and altas. There’s a handy cast of characters and a glossary that I found myself referencing throughout the book, but I found it easier to figure out by simply shrugging it off and hoping it would make sense and the pieces would fall into place as I read along. But it was often confusing and slow going as story and world building wound so tightly around each other. It was difficult trying to understand one piece without the other. So, the beginning was kind of a dizzy mess and will likely merit some re-reading. But I did like getting to know Ren as both Ren and Renata and the history that drove her to doing what she was doing. It was fascinating to read about how she worked to con the nobility of Nadezra.

The middle both disappointed and thrilled me. At its start, I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at a too common device used in fantasy. It felt like an easy way out to transition from the story of Ren conning her way into the Traementis family to the story of a disgruntled woman from Ren’s past and the story of a larger con game afoot throughout the city. Really, it’s quite a lot packed into this book, and I’m a little surprised it, more or less, flowed. But that middle part, as much as it had me rolling my eyes and feeling a little letdown, really did come through and add a little more to the story. Though it also bloated the story to near bursting.

The second half of the book was kind of a roller coaster. I found it impossible to put down. There was so much going on, so many events, so many different disparate parts coming together into a whole. I loved that control slipped from Ren and an entirely more sinister plot brewed to throw the city into chaos, chaos that maybe only Ren could help temper. It was an incredible ride and, at the end, I was mad that it ended and I would have to wait for the next book to be published because, by then, I’d gotten a good grasp on the world and was so pulled into the games being played that I wanted to read more. I don’t think I’ve ever been so indignantly angry at a book before.

The Characters: Focused on a Core Group
Like most fantasies, The Mask of Mirrors comes with a large cast of characters, but not so large as the dramatis personae list would have you believing. There are quite a few minor characters that do carry some importance, but the reader doesn’t really get to meet or interact much with them. Instead, the story is focused on a handful or so people, making it much easier to keep track of them and where in the world and the story they belonged.

There’s Ren and Tess who are sisters and have spent years together. Ren is the con artist while Tess plays her role as a lady’s maid and is quite a wizard with a needle. They’re a lovely pair that balance each other and I adore the close, sisterly bond they share. Tess is more of a shrinking violet, always unsure of herself when not playing Ren’s maid. Ren was, essentially, three faced as she portrayed herself, Renata the noblewoman, and Arenza the Vraszenian pattern reader. It was a lot of fun reading how she managed to pull them all off and keep them all separate. I thought Ren was much more boring than Renata, though, and Arenza didn’t do much but dutifully play her role. I liked that she was able to pull off all three, but I find I don’t really know Ren herself.

Then there’s Vargo and the Traementis family and the Rook. Each portrays a different part of Nadezran society. Vargo is the reformed crime lord trying to edge his way into the nobility, and he will play anyone and every game to do so. But there’s something suave about him, something that’s both oily and alluring. The Traementis family is rapidly diminishing, both in size and wealth. With the arrival of Renata, they number four. The matriarch is, of course, suspicious, but her children, Leato and Giuna welcome her as a long-lost cousin. There’s both distrust and desperation in the once prominent noble family. The Rook is a symbol for the Vraszens. A shadowy, unknown figure that has endured for 200 hundred years, the Rook exacts revenge for the lower classes, but seems to have a separate vendetta of it’s own.

Put together, the characters alone, with how diverse they are, hints at a huge story. Each is a different cog in a plot the reader only starts to learn of in the latter half of the book. There’s much at stake for each of them, but bonds also grow that will likely be tested over and over before the story is concluded.

The Setting: Focused on a City, but Complex
The Mask of Mirrors presents a fascinating, yet confusing world. As the reader is simply dropped into it and the authors don’t take a moment to introduce anything, it feels like a crazy mass of made up words that only slowly spin into a cohesive world. Instead, all the explaining is left to the glossary, requiring much flipping back and forth.

But I do have to admit that, as ambitious as it is, it somehow works. Once I was as fully oriented as I could be, or could at least keep altas and altans separate. I kept expecting Venice to pop up, especially with the prevalence of masks and all the canals, but Poland kept invading my thoughts. I definitely got more of an Eastern European feel than Italian, which just made things more muddled in my mind.

As I read on, though, I adjusted to the world unfolding before me to the point where I was fully drawn into it. I loved how it depicted a city full of the people native to Nadezra, the Vraszenians, and the descendants of the invaders. It’s a classic class story of the conquerors shoving down the people who were there first. But now things are becoming heated as cogs begin to turn, creating a city of unrest and distrust.

On another level, there’s a more mystical component at play. The magic is in the form of numinatria, designs that, when drawn a certain way, induce different kinds of behavior in the people caught up in it. But there’s also pattern magic, accessible only to Vraszenian pattern readers who take what are, essentially, tarot cards, and tell someone’s fortune and misfortune and that which is neither. The magic is subtle, but strong, and I get the feeling there’s more yet to be unraveled about how, exactly, it all works considering how strong the pattern magic of the Vraszenians are and how predominant the numinatria of the Nadezrens are.

Overall: Amazing After a Shaky Start
While The Mask of Mirrors started on shaking footing for me, I’m glad I stuck with it. It was absolutely slow going, but, by going as slowly as I needed to, I was better able to absorb the story and the world to the point where I really didn’t want it to end. As confused as I was at first, I found myself angry that I would have to wait for the next book to be published to find out what was going to happen next. I was not ready to stop reading, especially since the real story of the series was just starting to gear up. I wasn’t a fan of how the story seemed to evolve from one thing to another, but it all made sense and, thinking back, I can see wisps of the overarching story reaching all the way back to the first pages. Overall, an almost too bloated and ambitious story, but fascinating enough for me to eagerly anticipate the next book.

Thank you to Angela Man and Orbit for electronic and physical ARC copies. All opinions expressed are my own.