#i also love ren and grey the other main characters but vargo is the most six of crows-like of the three of them

[kazz-brekker]

my fellow kaz brekker fans while waiting for sab renewal/soc spinoff announcement i IMPLORE you to go read the rook & rose trilogy by m.a. carrick. the first book is called the mask of mirrors and among other things (swashbuckling masked vigilantes, secret societies up to no good, long cons to infiltrate the rich and steal all their money) it also features my other favorite crime lord, derossi vargo, well-dressed possessor of both a sword cane and a pet spider, who is literally always scheming and double-crossing people and is also very tightly wound and secretive and has hidden childhood trauma around disease

[a-duck-with-a-book]

REVIEW // The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose #1) by M. A. Carrick

★★★★☆

🌟 HIDDEN GEM 🌟

I have a few conflicting feelings regarding this novel, although I found it to be overwhelmingly well-written, with beautiful prose and next-level world building. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: give me a map and a timeline and I will love your book. I decided to divide my review into what I loved, what rubbed me the wrong way, and what I remained on the fence about. (I’ve noticed I spent quite a bit of space detailed my dislikes, so I want to emphasize that I really enjoyed this book and that I this is one of the most well-written novels I have read this year.)

// image: official cover art //

Loved ♡

Scroll through the reviews and you will see that this book has received plenty of praise, and rightfully so. I’m a sucker for world-building, but I think even those who usually skim the lore and history lessons in novels will appreciate the efforts the authors went to in order to create the world around the protagonists. By the time I finished I found that I had learned more from one book than I had from reading some other full series. They are able to fit so much without relying on info dumps, allowing the book to truly come to life.

Secondly, I appreciated that the world was casually LGBTQ+ friendly. It has always bothered me when authors go to the trouble of creating a fantasy world just to make it… homophobic. There are a variety of LGBTQ+ characters, and while the authors ensure that their sexuality or gender identity is canon, they avoid using these same characteristics as plot points.

Also, look at the cover art.

Some spoilers ahead-be wary of SPOILER warnings!

Disliked :(

I’m not a massive fan of using multiple POV’s, and one of the main reasons I am apprehensive of them is that authors sometimes fail to balance the time the readers spend with each protagonist. This happens to an extreme degree in Mask of Mirrors. We spend 90% of the time seeing the story through Ren’s perspective, 5% through Grey, and 5% through Vargo. And yes, these are obviously just estimates, and YES, we also get a couple passages from other characters, but the point stands! I wish we had spent more time developing Grey’s storyline, as both his and Vargo’s character arcs felt rushed and underdeveloped. [SPOILER] After finishing the book, I see why it was useful to show both their POV’s less often in order to leave the ending a surprise for the reader, but I think it would have been much more emotionally impactful if we had been able to follow their stories and get to know them better through more POV’s. [SPOILER END] I wish the authors had either eliminated their passages altogether or inserted more from their perspective-in their current state, they make the book feel unbalanced.

Finally, I think Ren benefits a bit too much from plot armor. I don’t dislike her per se, but I did get annoyed from time to time when everything conveniently went her way. Especially at the beginning, so many puzzle pieces consistently come together for the sake of her storyline, and this just took me out of the story. It is only about halfway through the book that we see her begin to face actual consequences, although I would argue that she gets away with a LOT near the end of the book as well. This apparent invulnerability and extraordinarily good luck made her a bit hard to relate to and like, at least for me. At one point she also gets so angry with a couple other characters for lying abut who one of them was… but like… isn’t that her entire plot line… that she’s pretending to be someone else? It was just too difficult in that moment to sympathize with her anger when she was able to get off without any repercussions after her own con. When people did discover that she was lying about her identity, they forgave her almost immediately. [SPOILER] Leato and Giuna both seem to be angry and hurt, but almost immediately Leato gets over it and then is in no position to make charges against her (going back to the convenient chain of events for Ren’s con to work) and Giuna never really does anything about it. If anything, she also seems to get over really quickly, and it is never truly a problem for Ren that Giuna found out. If anything, Giuna ends up helping her even more than she did before she learned of her true identity. [SPOILER END] The stakes were set so high for this con but we never really saw any lasting consequences. There was no reason for me to be anxious about Ren’s fate because it never felt like she was in any real danger.

[SPOILER?] My last issue, but the one that made me the most upset: why does the two-faced villain always have to be the bisexual character? One of the authors very kindly answered my question on Goodreads when I brought up this issue, (here is the link to that conversation) and while I can see why they made this decision, in the current climate of the abundance of this "betrayer" arc for bisexual character I simply didn't enjoy it. Again, this is a personal issue and since one of the authors is bi herself I am certainly not trying to call them out or anything like that. :) [SPOILER END]

Unsure?

I would tell anyone thinking of picking this book up to prepare for a steep learning curve. You are thrown into a world with different terms and lore, and since the POV characters are already familiar with them (none of the “remote village boy who is ignorant of the ways of the world” here) it can be very confusing to keep up with the avalanche of names and politics and history. It speaks to the deep world-building which I appreciate, but, at the same time, it was definitely difficult to get through the first half of the book. I don’t see this as a negative because, again, with world-building this intricate, it is necessary for the reader to put some effort into learning the background, and I think the authors did as good a job handling this conundrum as they could.

Lastly, I have a very personal issue that I do not count against the book-I love Giuna, and I really wish we had gotten more time with her to explore her character. She feels very reactive in this novel, only there to serve as plot fodder or build up other character’s arcs and personalities, but I can sense that she could be so much more. I hope to see more of her in future books!