Shades of Milk and Honey

This book hit a very good sweet spot for me and sucked me in, hook, line and sinker. I want to purchase my own copy to reread and the series is going to be high on my wishlist.

This is a romance, a story that feels like a Jane Austen Novel but with added magic. A magic of illusion, glamour. This magic is something pretty trivial, it creates an illusion of movement in pictures, a picturescape to accompany music, allows a dress designer to show a customer what the dress would look like when complete in miniature, serves as an alarm for a hunter. Small things. It's considered a skill all accomplished women should have, and uses fabric-like language to describe it.

Jane is an accomplished weaver of glamour, she has resigned herself to show more spinsterhood as she's twenty-eight and plain. Her sister has more prospect of marriage than she does and she is content with that. However she finds herself caught up in a situation that requires her to push herself to her limits and along the way finds that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to find love.

This drew me in and kept me reading. I sincerely didn't want to leave it until I finished it and look forward to some day re-reading it. The characters came across as if they had stepped out of a period fiction of the regency and had comfortably settled into this one. It just didn't misstep for me at any stage and this one will go on my favourites shelf on book sites. show less

This book is an obvious homage to Austen and in some respects Kowal pulls it off. In others, it just comes off as trying too hard.

Overall I did like the book. The magic system was fascinating tho I wish the world-building was a bit more fleshed our (says the world-building junkie). Jane, for the most part, was a character I liked and rooted for.

BUT.

I loathed Melody. I wanted to shove her into the midden. I suppose one can argue that Melody was in character for that time period because females were considered worthless except for their ability to make a good match. But Melody's over-the-top me me me act got old really fast. If I had been Jane I would not have been nearly as accommodating to her sister's selfish and self-centered show more behavior.

Mrs. Ellsworth needed a good slapping too.

Aside from the characters, the pacing was also off. The ending was super rushed, particularly the big climax which was actually a bit confusing because of insufficient narrative.

Despite all that, I did enjoy it and would probably read a second book by the author. show less

Shades of Milk and Honey is a novel set in an alternate Regency England where genteel young women are expected to learn how to cast glamours as well as cover screens and knit purses. In an early scene, the protagonist Jane—a talented user of such glamours, though overlooked by many because of her plainness—tutors another young woman about glamours, showing her how the folds of light she's making are too clumsy, her stitches too obvious, the overall effect crude. This is, sadly, a good analogy of the book as a whole.

It's an amazing idea, an Austenian-inspired world in which magic is largely a female discipline, dismissed and undervalued, and the right author could make this funny and charming, like the best of Heyer, or full of wit show more and irony, like Austen. Kowal is not that author. The book plods, the pacing is terrible, the romance paint-by-numbers, the characterisation is completely lacking in nuance—the main characters, Jane and Melody, are both unlikeable. One is a pushover whom we're told is smart but who often acts like an idiot; the other is a vulgar brat, who acts like a more juvenile version of Marianne from Sense and Sensibility. You've probably also worked out from the latter's name that verisimilitude is not a priority of Kowal. I lost count of the number of times when I said, "But no one in Regency England would have behaved like that/said that/could have acted that way without raising numerous eyebrows." The ending descends into farce, exactly the kind of tosh that Austen was mocking in Northanger Abbey.

I want someone to take this and rewrite it. I want someone to write a Regency England with gendered magic, with a heroine who's got Lizzy Bennett's fire, who chafes at the dismissal of her abilities, who is nobody's muse. Now that is a book I would read with great satisfaction; I'm not moved to read the remainder of this trilogy at all. show less

Jane Austen's novels put in a blender, except that everyone doesn't turn out to have a good heart after all (and there's some incidental magic). That would be TERRIBLE except that Austen novels are so endlessly pleasurable, they could use a little cynicism, and the magic here is daringly plot-irrelevant while also pretty unusual--it's far more closely akin to painting and music than to anything more epic or practical. Lots of fun and well-executed. I just wish the awful little sister didn't have to exclaim "La!" all the time.

I don't think I'm in the target demographic for this book. But I enjoyed it, anyway. I bought it as a gift for my daughter with the degree in English Lit and read it before she could take it home. Since I don't have much background in historical romance, specifically Jane Austen, it's difficult for me to make comparisons in that realm. I just allowed the story to take me where it wanted.

Where it took me was to a genteel world of preaning society, where appearances and reputations are put above personal needs and desires. It's a world where art and culture take precedence over doing real work and the magical art of glamour has been added to the mix. To my naive perceptions and untrained modern eye, the author does a fine job of bringing show more this world alive, weaving together the fantasy and romantic aspects of the novel in a way that kept me turning pages right through to the end.

I wish a few more mysteries had been introduced sooner. It took a while for the tension to build, other than the romantic frustrations of the main character. Some reviewers argue that the impact of this magical art ought to have had a greater impact on society than what is depicted here. But since we are seeing only a small corner of the world, essentially a couple of country estates, I think it is difficult to make that judgement. And while the actual Jane Austen may have intended to make deeper commentary on her society, I don't think that's how this homage was intended at all. It's really just a light entertainment, and (to quote Mr. Vincent from the novel) "Illusions should be entrancing without someone looking behind the scenes to see how they are made." show less

Jane Ellsworth is not blessed with the beauty of her younger sister Melody, but she excels in artistic pursuits such as music, painting, and "glamour," or the ability to manipulate magic to create illusions. Both Jane and Melody wish to marry well, but opportunities in their quiet neighborhood are scarce, and Jane, with her plain features, has nearly resigned herself to the fate of a spinster. Will love ever come her way?

Kowal does a good job of echoing Austen's tone, though Kowal's novel is simpler than any of Austen's. The plot is reminiscent of Sense and Sensibility, but it's not just a lifeless copy -- Kowal's story is a gracefully balanced homage with plenty of unique details. The magic system is a perfect fit for this sort of show more story, enhancing but not overpowering the plot. I look forward to reading more by this author. show less

Shades of Milk and Honey
4 Stars

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." - Emma

The Ellsworth sisters, Jane and Melody, are as different as two siblings could be. Quiet, reserved and plain, Jane is well aware that she will never attract the notice of a man yet longs for marriage and family. In contrast, flighty and frivolous Melody is an acknowledged beauty with more suitors than she can handle. Nevertheless, it is Jane whose skill with glamour will play a pivotal role in saving her family from ruin.

Mary Robinette Kowal's debut novel is a well-written and engaging Austen-style Regency romance that closely adheres to the language, setting, tone and mannerisms of the historical time period (which is not always show more the case with recent historical romances). Fans of Austen's works will recognize some of the classic character types and plot tropes inherent to her works, yet Kowal has added a unique touch of her own to the traditional format with the inclusion of glamour, i.e., an ability to reshape reality that is a mix of art, music and science.

In terms of the specific plot, the heroine, Jane, is a compelling mix of Marianne Dashwood and Lizzie Bennett while her sister, Melody is an obvious simulacrum of Kitty Bennett with her inability to consider the consequences of her selfish actions. The two sisters appear to vie for the same suitors, yet it is clear that despite her feelings of inadequacy as compared to her beautiful sister, it is actually Jane who is the more accomplished, and therefore, the more appealing sister to men capable of discerning her true worth. Who will Jane end up with - the charming yet artful Captain Livingston, the elegant and proud Mr. Dunkirk, or the abrasive Mr. Vincent?

As with Austen's works, there is a great deal of social critique with depictions of shallow, superficial and hypocritical society alongside the revelations of various characters and their questionable pasts.

All in all, Kowal has captured the true essence of Austen's writing with her delightful mix of wit, romance, and social criticism. I look forward to continuing with the series. show less