Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist-30 million kruge!-Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels.

With this work Pacton pivots from realistic fiction to fantasy, and the often lovely writing creates a feast for the senses despite the plot’s weaknesses.Īdolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age. The world is a vibrant, multiracial, magical place, but uneven pacing makes the first half drag while the latter portion of the book rockets along and provides all the conflict and tension. Unfortunately, every conflict resolves rapidly, compelling obstacles are nearly nonexistent, and love blossoms immediately so that the only barrier is Quinta’s love-’em-and- leave-’em attitude (her sexual experience, which includes past male and female lovers and many one-night stands, is, refreshingly, never an issue for her or for Twain). Both Quinta and Twain are appealing and easy to root for.

Together they set out to make a dress of starlight for the Casorina who rules their land. When Twain discovers a strand of starlight and Quinta finds a book of starlight lace patterns at the Vermilion Emporium (possibly the most creative and least utilized magic shop in YA fantasy), they discover a secret-that starlight lace once conferred power, although magic was last seen in Severon a couple of hundred years ago. Set against an imaginative background and inspired by the Radium Girls, this is a love story between two broken, orphaned older teens who discover magic both literal and figurative when they meet.

The vermilion emporium by jamie pacton