The Virtu

More pretty brokenness. Prick being even more of a prick. I may not forgive him. ( )

I totally failed to love Melusine, but The Virtu was leaps and bounds better. The characters aren't so unrelentingly unlikeable, the situations aren't quite so unbearably awful, and the book ends on a definite up note.

That being said, this is a book with some very strange pacing issues. The travel is richly detailed and occupies the first half of the book - other than the daring prison rescue, which takes up about ten pages. The second half is all careful relationship-building - very well done, but again, the actual major plot point is quickly dealt with and quickly tossed aside. And the final adventure is oddly placed - it isn't even hinted at until the very end of the book, and it becomes clear that it won't be a cliffhanger simply by looking at how many pages are remaining, but it seems tacked-on to the overall story.

None of these scenes are bad, they're just handled a little oddly. Overall, The Virtu made me much more excited to finish the series. ( )

Okay, sometimes I want to strangle Felix. He treats Mildmay like shit most of the time. Despite that I love this book as much as I liked the first. The language is just as good, the interactions between characters still relatable. It's a twisted sort of story. It's dark, dirty, and twists your emotions all over the place. There's something about these books that I can't really put my finger on that keeps me coming back and back and back. Maybe because Monette does get down and dirties her hands in the unattractive emotions like greed and selfishness. She digs deep into the ugly side of any and every person. And weaves it all into fantastic story. Looking for a darker fantasy novel? Try this one. ( )

Melusine and the books following are The Doctrine of Labyrinth series, which refers to the labyrinths that play an important part of the magic in her universe as well as important roles in each of the four books in the series. For me, they really are one long book broken into four volumes.

In Melusine, the characters of Felix Harrowgate, a Cabaline wizard, and Mildmay the Fox, a cat burglar, were introduced. Felix was used by his evil mentor, Malkar, a blood wizard, to destroy the Virtu, the globe that channeled the magic powers and spells of the Mirador’s wizards, an act which drove Felix insame. It isn’t giving much away to say that Felix turns out to be the half-brother of Mildmay, a development that even I, an inexperienced fantasy reader, figured out early on.

The Virtu picks up almost immediately after the conclusion of Melusine, and details how the half-brothers journey back to the Mirador, in the city of Melusine. Accompanying them on their travels is Mehitabel Farr, an actress with a secret past. Felix is convinced he can fix the Virtu and hopes he will have the chance before tried and executed for its destruction. Back in the Mirador, Mildmay becomes a pawn in Malkar’s plot to ensnare Felix once again.

Upon finishing this, I jumped immediately to the third book, and then the fourth. To do justice to these books without giving much away or without going into details that might spoil the joy of reading these books is darn near impossible. The characters are what makes this series.

Felix and Mildmay, both sold to thief keepers by their prostitute mother, grew up in Melusine’s Lower City, but the paths their lives took were very different. After being a thief, Felix ends up working in a brothel, where he’s found by Malkar and taught how to pass for an aristocrat, which led him to become a wizard of the Mirador.

Mildmay also began as a kept-thief at an early age, but by the time he was 14, had been trained as an assassin, finally breaking away from his keeper and earning a living as a cat burglar and cardsharp. Where Felix is arrogant and vain, the taciturn Mildmay is humble to a fault, living on the edge and old beyond his years. Where Felix is educated, Mildmay is barely able to read. Where Felix has magic, Mildmay has his fists and his tenacity. Their strengths and weaknesses are both complementary and cause for conflict, with each causing the other pain, both intended and not. Entwined in their adventures is the slow progress of their relationship over time as they learn to trust each other and their own feelings. Throw in various forms of magic and magic theory, and the books have a strong foundation.

Told in alternating first person povs, the narratives have distinct voices that will get into your head and stay with you a long time. Because I have a lot of books still waiting to be read, I’ll resist the urge to reread these now. But I doubt I’ll be able to hold out for long. ( )

Felix and Mildmay return to Mélusine, where the Virtu, a powerful enchanted artifact that is crucial to the integrity of the community of wizards that protect the city, has been damaged. Neither of them are expecting a welcome on their homecoming— but Felix is the only person with a chance to repair the Virtu before the neighboring Kekropian Empire takes advantage of Mélusine’s weakness. And the solution involves a labyrinth beneath the Mirador itself. This book resolves the significant threads left hanging from Mélusine. While our heroes have clearly learned from their journey, they still have a lot of room to grow. ( )