Review: Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s ‘The Beautiful Ones’

★★★★☆

This 290-page novel is a romance with a pinch of fantasy thrown in. Though it deals with themes of deception, betrayal and heartbreak, it is nevertheless a dose of pretty-people-in-pretty-places escapism.

Nina Beaulieu, 19, is new to Loisail, where she is experiencing her first Grand Season. The glamorous parties of the city’s wealthy and beautiful were supposed to be a chance to find her Prince Charming, but her rustic ways have made it difficult for her to fit into the cosmopolitan circles that her guardian cousin and his elegant wife frequent. Nina also has her ‘talent’ to contend with, which sends crockery flying across the room and shakes books off their shelves whenever she loses her composure.

Hector Auvray also has a telekinetic ability, one so perfected that it has taken him around the world as a touring performer. A rags-to-riches success story, but heartbroken, he has come to Loisail in search of his one true love, the beautiful woman who promised she would wait for him, then didn’t.

Young, trusting and naïve, Nina is ill-prepared to navigate the passions and pains of falling for a man with a complicated, unresolved past, but each passing day tangles Hector deeper in his own web of romantic deception. Will Nina’s love steer him from disaster, or will he remain caught by the spell of the woman who has always held him in her power, and who wants him to break his young friend’s heart?

“You said you wrote me a letter,” he told her. “What did it say?”

“Nothing important.”

“Nina, please,” he said knowing instinctively that it was important. And there was a coldness to her eyes, which had been gentle and honest. There were seeds of disappointment in the curve of her mouth, melancholy in her movements where before he’d only ever found a vibrant joy of the world.

Hector knew what she’d written. Not the words but the meaning. It was engraved in the space between them.

Though not particularly complex, The Beautiful Ones is a touching, heartfelt love story. It is fairly chaste (kisses and cut-to-black), but no less passionate for it. Together with the setting, the focus on manners and matters of honour lends a charming, old-fashioned vibe. If you enjoyed the writing style in Mexican Gothic, this book is similarly gorgeous to read. Like Noemí, though not as forthright, Nina is a passionate woman who lives life true to her heart. The two books are very different in tone, however – The Beautiful Ones lacks the darker, horror element that gives Mexican Gothic its edge.

Towards the end, I did find myself wishing that this book had a few more teeth. I liked its conflicts and the characters’ growth, but I found the ending a bit too tidy, and there are few passages of hammy description that lose some of the novel’s power as an illustration of the bittersweet perspective that comes from heartbreak.

I also think the book would have been a better one had Valérie been a more complex and well-rounded antagonist. As Nina’s rival in love, she is a naturally unsympathetic character, but I don’t think it was necessary for her to be written as such a pantomime villain. Particularly in the chapters that show us Valérie’s thoughts and motivations, things feel a little cartoonish.

Overall however, I did thoroughly enjoy this book. Far too much to rate it any lower. I absolutely love the lush, verdant quality of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s writing, and will definitely continue to work my way through the rest of her books.

Review: Tyler Whitesides’ ‘The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn’ (Kingdom of Grit #1)

★★★★☆

The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn is a chonker of a book. At 730 pages, this steampunk-esque ‘flintlock’ fantasy has the scale and stakes of an epic. I enjoyed it a lot more than I initially expected.

The first 100 pages are a rather chaotic mash of action and exposition. I was not engaged, to the point that I was toying with abandoning the read. However, I am glad I persevered. Once it gets going, this book really comes into its own, and by the midway mark I felt I was reading something of similar ilk to Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series.

The quality of the prose is nothing to write home about, but there is a lot to love about this book, from its gentle humour to its eclectic cast of characters. The heist is one of my favourite types of plot. The assemblage of an unlikely crack team, all members of which are hiding mission-derailing dramas and insecurities beneath the table, is as good as it gets, and this book benefits from a healthy dose of natural chemistry.

He had hoped for a more elegant ending to their haphazard flight. Instead, he’d be hitting the bay at tremendous speed, shackles locked around both wrists, holding a terribly heavy safe box.

‘Well, I’m certainly not bored,’ thought Ardor Benn.

Our main trinity of heroes are the eponymous Ardor Benn, self-proclaimed ruse artist extraordinaire, his pyrotechnician sidekick, Raekon Dorrel, and Quarrah Khai, a thief who takes thieving seriously. Together, they have the charm, the brains, and the light fingers, all of which will be needed if they are to pull off the heist of the century – stealing the king’s ceremonial dragonscale armour (and thereby saving the world, of course).

Ardor Benn features a lot of genre tropes, from mysterious priests to a race of dragons on the brink of extinction, but as someone who spent most of their adolescence ploughing through fantasy novels, I think this is one of the good ones. The plot comes together with precision, and there is genuine tension as the team are challenged by the various bumps on their road to victory.

Ardor (Ard) was a much better protagonist than I initially thought. The banter, spread through the first 50 pages thicker than cottage cheese, annoyed me, but gradually our dashing rogue is revealed to be a deeper and more considered personality. By about page 150, I felt that the book had abandoned its strained effort to bring humour to every page, allowing a more natural flow and ebb in the dialogue, which actually made it funnier. There were a few scenes that were able to make me laugh aloud, and the interesting secondary cast complement the main heroes well.

‘Last time you broke into the throne room… the whole thing was a trap.’

‘I gathered that,’ she replied. ‘The moment the crossbow shot me in the chest.’

For a first-of-trilogy type novel, this book has a good pace, and is satisfyingly self-contained. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, and the worldbuilding is clever without taking itself too seriously – the author extracts a phenomenal number of key plot points from combusted dragon dung.

The villain of the piece does unfortunately hold things back, as they are rather threadbare, and too vulnerable to their insecurities to take seriously. However, given that this is the first of a trilogy, I am willing to assume that meaner, more credible baddies will rear their heads as the series progresses.

Another potentially divisive feature is the seeding of a love triangle, as Ard wrestles with his feelings for an ex (it’s complicated) whilst diving into a new relationship. I worry, slightly, about the havoc this has the potential to wreak in the next book. This kind of thing just does not align with my personal tastes, so here’s hoping it will not draw too much attention from the main story.

If you like your fantasy novels full of action and adventure, and you want happy endings, but not the insipidness of a castle parapet kiss in the sunset, this is the book for you. Intelligent, well-balanced, and a fun ride, The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn was, to me, a pleasant reminder of all the reasons I still love the fantasy genre.

Review: Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘The Home and the World’

★★★★★

This was a random read for me, but I am so glad I discovered it. At just 200 pages, Rabindranath Tagore’s 1916 novel is a short one, but it is an Indian (Bengali) classic. I read the English translation, which was edited by the author and his son.

The story is an allegory of India’s internal wrestling match during the early years of the independence struggle. This is explored through the lense of sexual temptation. Bimala, a dutiful Hindu wife, falls for Sandip, an anti-imperialist revolutionary, much to the despair of her mild-mannered landowning husband, Nikhil.

Just as a drama, I thought this was fantastic – and usually I hate love triangles – but it is worth noting the depth and meaning of the text. The characters represent aspects of Tagore’s personality, and illustrate his internal battle between the benefit of certain ideas Western culture brought to India, and his emotional stance, which leaned towards revolution against all forms of westernisation.

I used to feel that goodness has a limit, which, if passed, somehow seems to make men cowardly. Shall I tell the whole truth? I have often wished that my husband had the manliness to be a little less good.

It is a first-person narrative, switching between the three corners of the love triangle. The sexual politics are fascinating, and provocative. The Home and the World tackles some challenging questions, like why it is not uncommon for women to find dangerous men more sexually attractive than those who are reliable and good. On this, and several pyschosexual conundrums, the book presents some interesting theories. The book does not pass judgement on its characters, allowing the reader to make up their own mind. The individuality of the three voices forced my sympathy for all, perhaps despite my instincts.

I loved the writing. Tagore’s prose has a pleasant density, but it is energetic and powerful. Everything keeps driving forward with great force, and some of the dialogue is electric. This book was made for reading – in Sandip’s parts, shouting – aloud.

The Home and the World is a masterfully layered novel, with compelling characters and an operatic ending. Since it is a short book, I’ll leave this as a short review, but I absolutely recommend this to anyone with a taste for beautiful writing and drama.