Armistice

When we last left Amberlough, former burlesque dancer Cordelia was leading an underground rebellion against the fascist government, burnt spy Cyril had been caught trying to escape with fake papers for his lover, and flamboyant cabaret emcee Ari had fled the city back to his home village. Three years later, Ari is a famous political refugee in the nearby island nation of Berer and runs into the newly arrived Cordelia, who finally had to flee Amberlough in disguise after blowing up a few train depots. Their tentative alliance is tested when they’re cornered by journalist-turned-triple-agent Lillian DePaul, Cyril’s sister, who threatens to expose their anti-fascist plans if they don’t help her rescue her young son from the clutches show more of the head of the Ospie government.

While the characters and setting and politics are still just as vivid as the first book, this one really suffers from middle-book-syndrome. Nothing really new is introduced, and nothing is wrapped up. Lillian is even more complex of a character than Cyril was, but I found it more pleasant to be in her head than his. Cordelia is still my favorite, and I liked learning what she had been up to in the intervening years. Ari was a bit too depressed and drunk in this book to be entertaining. I’m looking forward to finishing the trilogy. show less

This was wonderful. I enjoyed it even more than the first one, the vivid and fragile characters, the twists of their secrets, the inexorable coil of their motivations, the way they tangle and chafe. It's so perfectly poised for so much of it that the spate of things-getting-done at the end is almost a shock, but also utterly satisfying.

And oh, Lillian DePaul. MY GOSH I LOVE HER.

3 and a half stars. great world, and i loved the first book in the series, but this second outing was not as good. what felt like a whole lot of exposition largely wrapped up the plotlines of Book 1, but could more usefully have been edited down and attached to that book. and although a lot of new characters and a whole new country were introduced, not much attention was paid to developing them. sophomore writing problems, maybe? it felt rushed, forced rather than organic, and sketchy. still worth following, but hopefully Book 3 will attach itself to firmer ground, which this one finally finds in the more introspective last third of the narrative.

I wanted my high expectations to pan out for this one, but I was a little disappointed.

It's not a bad book by any definition, but it kinda picks up with the same characters under wildly different circumstances. From stage performance and spywork and blowing up the art district to becoming a revolutionary grunt or rubbing nobs with diplomats years down the line.

It might have been rather cool. In concept, it might even work. But in this particular instance, the enjoyment I had with the previous novel went down the drain for a pretty long stretch until the new/old characters came back to life... figuratively and literally.

Spies, bombers, and angling for a full civil war did manage to keep this from being unentertaining. The writing has a show more lot of quite cool moments and the end makes up for much of the meh. It's occupation Europe in a lite-fantasy setting, after all. We've all seen a lot of this in literature and movies, and this one doesn't even have any fantastical elements. Just the names have changed.

I can't say it's at all bad, but it isn't wonderful. The one thing it has going for it is the LGBT elements. show less

DNF at 42 pages. This is one of my harder DNFs because I absolutely loved the first book. War-time intrigue with a sexually ambiguous male lead! This one... it's from the POV of different characters, takes place at a different time and different place, and it's just... maybe too ambitious. The author threw in a bunch more characters, nationalities, countries, etc. that made the plot hard to keep a hold of. Maybe if I re-read the first one and then went straight into this one I'd have an easier go of it but this one is going back in the stack.

Met new characters and caught up with some older ones. Again, there are intrigues everywhere. Like her brother, Lillian DePaul is blackmailed into working for the OSPies. Novel had a satisfying conclusion as opposed to the first book's cliffhangers. I look forward to reading the next book.