scijessreads

This is a book where the description and the actual story don’t entirely match. It is billed as having “star-crossed lovers,” but this is less a story about romance and love and more one about the power of knowledge and how to bargain for what you want without losing everything in the process. If nothing else, this is a story about learning how to read the fine print on a contract before you sign it.

Aurelius Ashe is an illusionist, but not in the way you might think. Praetorius is a tinkerer and builder. Luce is the product of this upbringing and is also deeply in the dark about so much of his past. And Charlotte is but a pawn in the chess match that Odilon Rose is trying to play with pieces that were actually set in motion by someone else.

Yes, there is a circus of sorts. Full of people that have abilities better suited for the life Aurelius gives them. And there are Faustian bargains aplenty. There is also no lack of hidden motives, not-so-hidden motives, and the general machinations of men that want more power than they are due. But in the end, there was a level of detachment between the reader and the character. So much time was spent hearing about happenings, reading descriptions of circus acts, and being told over and over again that Aurelius was some form of charlatan or magician (depending on who was doing the talking). There was so much here, so many different people and so many different mysteries and plots (that eventually overlapped in a tangled mess), but it was hard to find a throughline to make everything mean something. Even Charlotte and Luce, their lives being more alike than anything when it came down to the details, felt removed from what was ostensibly a story about their lives.

*I received a free ARC from Netgalley and the publisher to read and review. All opinions are my own.