Wow.

No, seriously. Wow.

I've got to admit, the first time I read this I considered it the least of the series. It was still awesome, but it wasn't quite on the same level as the others. I gave it 4 stars, opposed to the 4.5 I handed the other two.

I had to ramp it straight up to 5 after my second reading. It was bloody brilliant. I loved it to bits.

This is a rich, complex, detailed book. I wish everything I read were this good. The characterization, the worldbuilding, the tangents that turn out to be anything but.... I love it all.

But I can still see why I didn't initially enjoy this quite so much as the others. The characters are still front and centre, but the book feels much more plot-based than the previous two. There's a ton of political stuff going down, and the characters are basically just along for the ride. They still have a stake in things, but it's not quite as personal as it was in the first two books.

Mehitabel also threw me off a bit. I liked her, I really did, but I had far more invested in Mildmay and Felix. I didn't know how I felt about her as a narrator.

None of that mattered this time around. No, that's not quite true; it mattered, but it wasn't a negative. I loved all the plot stuff. I found it fascinating. THE MIRADOR is rife with historical mysteries, twisty dealings and dark secrets. The subplots have subplots. I found myself grinning with delight on more than one occasion. Even when things take a turn for the worse--and you just know they're gonna--Monette pulls it off so well that you can't help but revel in the way everything comes together. It's gorgeous as all hell, and it serves as the perfect vehicle for these characters. They may not have an obvious personal stake in what's going down, but they're still involved. They're still forced to change and grow as the story barrels along. They've all got a hell of a lot of baggage, and the plot stuff helps them come to terms with it. Some of them come further than others, of course--if you've read the first two books, three guesses who backslides big time--but there's progress all around.

I also discovered that I did like Mehitabel as a narrator. I liked her very, very much. She does a great deal to further the all-important plot, and I loved her voice. And you'd better believe that her theatrical career delighted the hell out of me. I am unabashedly biased towards anything that so much as mentions the theatre. You give me a book with scads of theatrical talk and I'm there. I really have no idea why the theatrical stuff didn't do it for me last time.

I just plain loved it, from the first word to the last. I enjoyed it so much that I almost didn't want to continue on to CORAMBIS (though I quickly got over that). I could have drowned in this book, and I'd've died happy. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). ( )

Summary: After fixing the Virtu, wizard Felix and his blood-bound ex-assassin brother Mildmay have settled down in the Mirador where they try to resume a semblance of normal life. However, the past soon rises to bite them, and Mildmay digs up a plot against the Lord Protectorship that may put all of them in danger.

Review: I love this series. The Doctrine of Labyrinth books are some of the best fantasy being written nowadays with a complicated magical system that reads smooth and intelligent and philosophical. Monette’s world reminds me a lot of Renaissance Europe with that sort of burgeoning, innovative beauty mixed with the dirt and grit of the lower classes. The way she uses names, the way she adapts real life objects like tarot, the way she twists language to create new but fitting expressions, all wow me.

Now, The Mirador. It’s a much more domestic book than the first two books in the series. No one goes gallivanting on an adventure here, and for the most part the problems are domestic too. Felix and his lover are having trouble getting along, Mehitabel (who becomes a POV character) becomes the lover of the Lord Protector, and Mildmay has trouble putting the ghosts of his past to rest. The real dramatic action doesn’t happen until the fourth part of the book, so most of The Mirador feels like a slow prelude.

I enjoyed most of it, but the slowness and inaction kept it from being as great a book as its predecessors. It’s still a very good book but it’s not my favourite of the series. Not only did the plot take its sweet time, Felix and Mildmay don’t interact as much, and I find that their interactions, their prickly relationship, is part of what gives the series its spice.

On the subject of Mildmay, let me just say that I am in love. One of my favourite literary characters. I want to pick him out of the pages and put him in my fricking pocket.

Conclusion: The third book in a fantastically elegant series. Not as good as the other books but still worth a read. ( )

Warning: This review contains massive spoilers. I talk about the end of the book. Read at your own peril.

I love this series and this book and I'm very distressed that the next book isn't due out until 2009.

This time around there were scenes from Mehitabel's point of view as well as Mildmay's and a few from Felix. I thought her story was interesting, but I was still more focused on Felix and Mildmay.

The scenes from Felix's point of view were the fewest and usually the shortest. I'd really like to have more from his point of view. It's been the same in the other two books though, so I'm wondering if Monette doesn't particularly like him. God knows, he's an arrogant bastard most of the time (and deservedly so) and I wouldn't want to spend the amount of time in his head I'd have to to be able to write his point of view, but as a reader I'd like to know more.

The theme of this book seemed to be about the parallels in Mildmay and Felix's lives, particularly the hold their Keepers have on them. Well, Mildmay's keeper and for Felix the man who bought him from his keeper.

The characters are definitely growing and developing, but in a more realistic way than in most stories, I think. They have to learn the same lessons more than once for them to stick. But they do try and make changes.

Much of the angst in this book still comes from the fact that Mildmay and Felix just won't talk to each other. This, too, is believable. They've both had great traumas in their lives, and neither one of them ever had anyone they can truly trust. And as Mildmay points out, Felix isn't trustworthy either. And I think Mildmay is right. As Felix's old friend was when he suggested that Felix wanted to tarquin a tarquin and Felix says he wouldn't. Felix wouldn't intend to do anything, just as most of the time he doesn't really intend to betray Midlmay's trust, but it still happens.

I did feel like we were cheated out of some important scenes. There are references to important fights where Mildmay and Felix crossed lines that can't be uncrossed, but we don't know what was actually said. How far across the lines did they go?

And as broken as Mildmay was at the end of the last book, I felt like his outer recovery was too swift (clearly he was still broken, he just didn't realize it).

It was good to see that binding by forms or no, Mildmay still had some autonomy. And it was good to see that he could still resist Felix, though I'm not really sure how that was possible.

I'm not sure where we go from here. In earlier books there were some hints that Mildmay and Felix might eventually get together, despite the fact that Mildmay is straight. There were still pointed reminders about incest in this book, and by the end we're rid of the romantic partners of both Felix and Mildmay. But I'm not sure now if Monette intends for them to end up together of if she's trying to get Felix to realize how to have intimacy without sex.

I have mixed feelings about leaving Melusine. I really like the city. It's rich and complex and I know most of the key players. I think it'd be interesting to see what happens now that Mehitabel has her own power base and if and how things change when Stephen has a wife. And yet, I think if Felix and Mildmay are going to work together, as lovers or simply as friends, they need some place neutral, where neither of them have ties. Of course, I imagine Felix is still going to be greatly privileged while Mildmay is not.

As for Giddeon, I liked him better in the first book. I can certainly understand not wanting to be out around other people, but I can also understand why it's frustrating for Felix. I'm not really sure what the solution would have been, I think they were doomed from the start. ( )

With this third book of the Melusine series we see a few things quite different from the first two books; in particular a more ambiguous political plot and a third point of view in the former governess returned to actress, Mehitabel Parr. These changes made for a different feel to the story from the first two. We rejoin Felix, Mildmay and Mehitabel 2 years after the end of the Virtu to find our hero(ine)s all continuing to try and cope with the aftermath of their foray into the Bastion along with, of course, flaying each other with their personalities. As they each follow their own personal quests it soon becomes clear that there is a larger menace at work, one that could shake the foundation of Melusine's hierarchy.

I have to say after reading these three books that Felix Harrowgate has to be one of the most exasperating characters I've ever read, it would be so easy to hate him except that I do so enjoy him! He just can't seem to help himself from his schizophrenic personality shifts going from nice guy to complete jerk in the space of a half a paragraph. His page time POV seemed to be whittled down in this story although he still had some interesting epiphanies along the way. Mildmay and Mehitabel seemed to rule the majority of page space and their disparate POVs were interesting as well. Since the plot and hierarchy of the overarching story confused the heck out of me I have to say I liked the character development parts of the story the best and I felt they were very well done. Overall I really enjoyed this book, as I did both its predecessors, and I'm looking forward to the release of the next novel of the series in the upcoming months. ( )

Monette has had me trapped in her complex, claustrophobic and varied world for the last six days it has taken me to read the three books in this series. She writes cliffhanger novels and the next one won't be out for seven months! I found Felix, Mildmay and Mehitabel to be intoxicating characters -- I look forward to reading about them-- or whatever Monette wants to write about for many years to come. ( )