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A review by kiraly
The Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney
4.0
I picked this up at the library on a whim. I thought, "Hmm, alternate-history Portugal? With magic and murder and secrets? All right, I'll give it a try." Then I let it sit for a while as I worked my way through the other books on my to-read list. When I picked it up again, my eye caught the word "selkies" in a review on the cover...and I knew I had made the right choice. I read half of it in one night because I couldn't stop reading and finished it the next day.
I can't decide what I most adore about this book. The world? It's such a well-crafted blend of history and magic. To be fair, I know nothing about Portuguese history, but the descriptions of society living and politics make sense together. The magic system (and roles of non-humans) blend in seamlessly. And the more I read about the non-human societies (the selkies and sereia) the more I want to know about them.
Then, of course, we have the characters. Oriana and Duilio read like real, flawed people with only so much in the way of magical gifts. Their lives are made more complicated by the fact that neither of them are precisely "people", or at least not human. They both hide layers of secrets and spend much of the book carefully deciding how much they can trust those secrets to each other.
My only complaint about this otherwise well-crafted story is the presence of several loose ends still dangling when the book is over. I was relieved to see that, firstly, there is a sequel, and secondly, the library has a copy. I look forward to reading more.
I can't decide what I most adore about this book. The world? It's such a well-crafted blend of history and magic. To be fair, I know nothing about Portuguese history, but the descriptions of society living and politics make sense together. The magic system (and roles of non-humans) blend in seamlessly. And the more I read about the non-human societies (the selkies and sereia) the more I want to know about them.
Then, of course, we have the characters. Oriana and Duilio read like real, flawed people with only so much in the way of magical gifts. Their lives are made more complicated by the fact that neither of them are precisely "people", or at least not human. They both hide layers of secrets and spend much of the book carefully deciding how much they can trust those secrets to each other.
My only complaint about this otherwise well-crafted story is the presence of several loose ends still dangling when the book is over. I was relieved to see that, firstly, there is a sequel, and secondly, the library has a copy. I look forward to reading more.