I really liked the story, setting, and characters, even if the start took a bit of time to get off the ground. The setting isn’t unique, but Clare uses it to the advantage of her story, allows several rippling romances to build tension under the surface, and while she often describes just a bit too much about what people are wearing, the food they’re eating and the tables they eat at in the decorative rooms where they live—once the story hits 20% it moves, builds intrigue, casts an intricate web, and is a sprawling complex plot of twisted politics (which I love) and forbidden relationships. If you've read Clare, you know you're going to hear about all her characters' gold cufflinks and diamond brocades, a-line frocks, silks and satins, and even the colour of their lace knickers—it's her thing. Love it or hate it, if you are reading Clare, you're getting over-the-top non-Dickensian descriptions. I happen not to mind it, not that I think it adds anything to the story. 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this cast of confused and conflicted characters, the cheeky banter, and the fantastical setting. 

 

Then I read what some others had to say…and it’s not often I respond to the nay-sayers, but it felt as though some have missed the point of fiction. Fiction, while it may add to highlighting real social issues, is not designed to solve world problems. Fiction, while it may reflect some realities and even sharply represent historical or current situations, is not meant to paint a non-fiction realistic picture of anything. When we read fiction, we may make connections, we may make inferences, but all of these are subjective and literary because fiction is still fiction and is never a manifesto or a declaration, even when it is used as a veil for these things. Even if she meant it to draw my attention to historical world events, I can still enjoy a fictional reading of a fictional fantasy story in a fictional world and take it all as fiction. 

 

And this was good fun fantasy fiction. 

 

I don’t think the author is trying to hide that she is painting a fantasy world based on the historical backdrop of the 1st-2nd Century BC; some of her characters are even closely named for historical people (Judas /Judah Maccabeus, Hadasa the Jewish Queen of Persian peoples, Marcus Aurelius…)— and though the stories are all fantasy, threaded through with magic and mysticism, the ties to real events (read The Apocrypha ‘hidden readings’ and some of The Pseudepigrapha ‘false writings’ of 1st & 2nd Century BC Jewish tradition) are potent. We can call this Historical Fantasy, but I wouldn’t call it plagiarism. I’ve recently read one of VE Schwab’s ‘alternate London’ series, and while there are minor insignificant similarities, these stories are nothing alike in their unfolding. I often see similarities in many stories that happened to be written at the same time, or are of the same genre, and maybe there’s a story-writing vibe that traverses the planet every few years or so, but that doesn’t make it plagiarism either. I don’t know what people are on about…