Book #43: A Spy in the House, by Y.S. Lee
Dec. 10th, 2011 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityI have a confession. I bought this book in JUNE, started reading it in the coffeeshop right away, and then got distracted by things like DRIVING ACROSS THE COUNTRY and GOING TO JORDAN and THE SCORPIO RACES and NANO and...yeah. Please understand that my insane life is not an indication of the quality of this book.
Somewhat hilariously, where I stopped reading the book for NaNo? Was precisely three pages before the book became ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Let that be a lesson for you: keep turning the pages.
Victorians, spies, girls who are awesome, intrigue, repeated use of the word pianoforte, etc.
SPOILERS BELOW
OH, VICTORIANS!
Because of the way I read the book, it is split entirely into halves: the first part, where there was something weird about Mary that I couldn't put my finger on, and the second part, where Mary explained herself and my heart broke 10,000 times.
I loved Mary's determination, her quick thinking and her wit (several times I laughed out loud). I loved that she didn't exactly fall in love with James (even if he is quite in love with her). And, naturally, I loved the part where she rescued him, despite his best efforts to "keep her safe".
I loved the number of friendships between female characters. I loved that Angelica sort of became a human being at the end, or at least acknowledged her own faults and took some agency in her life.
The title of the series is "The Agency", and really, that's what the story is about: giving women (and girls), AGENCY in a time when they had very little to work with. It's interesting because the guys in the story have somewhat limited agency, mostly because there is the absolute minimum number of them, and it was interesting to read.
Lee has also done impeccable research (obviously: she holds a PhD in Victorian Lit and Culture, but that doesn't always transfer when an author writes fiction), and the details behind the Lascars' Refuge and Mary's familial situation (not to mention the lies she is able to tell to protect herself), ring so true it hurts.
Also, I'm pretty sure there was a cleverly concealed hint that Mary's father might be alive, albeit living in slavery in the West Indies. So...there's that to look forward to. :)
This book had SO MUCH more to love than I was expecting. And it's a VICTORIAN SPY NOVEL, so I was expecting to love it quite a bit. I am SO GLAD there are sequels ("The Body in the Tower" now and another one in February). I'm glad that Lee won the award she did, and I'm VERY glad that she's relatively local, so someday I may get to tell her she is awesome in person. :)
So 9/10, for historical accuracy, Dealing With Stuff, corsets and waistcoats, and the parts where it's a VICTORIAN SPY NOVEL.
I am totally not thinking about fanfiction where 10-year-old Helen Magnus meets Mary Lang and decides that she should be a spy too...
Somewhat hilariously, where I stopped reading the book for NaNo? Was precisely three pages before the book became ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Let that be a lesson for you: keep turning the pages.
Victorians, spies, girls who are awesome, intrigue, repeated use of the word pianoforte, etc.
SPOILERS BELOW
OH, VICTORIANS!
Because of the way I read the book, it is split entirely into halves: the first part, where there was something weird about Mary that I couldn't put my finger on, and the second part, where Mary explained herself and my heart broke 10,000 times.
I loved Mary's determination, her quick thinking and her wit (several times I laughed out loud). I loved that she didn't exactly fall in love with James (even if he is quite in love with her). And, naturally, I loved the part where she rescued him, despite his best efforts to "keep her safe".
I loved the number of friendships between female characters. I loved that Angelica sort of became a human being at the end, or at least acknowledged her own faults and took some agency in her life.
The title of the series is "The Agency", and really, that's what the story is about: giving women (and girls), AGENCY in a time when they had very little to work with. It's interesting because the guys in the story have somewhat limited agency, mostly because there is the absolute minimum number of them, and it was interesting to read.
Lee has also done impeccable research (obviously: she holds a PhD in Victorian Lit and Culture, but that doesn't always transfer when an author writes fiction), and the details behind the Lascars' Refuge and Mary's familial situation (not to mention the lies she is able to tell to protect herself), ring so true it hurts.
Also, I'm pretty sure there was a cleverly concealed hint that Mary's father might be alive, albeit living in slavery in the West Indies. So...there's that to look forward to. :)
This book had SO MUCH more to love than I was expecting. And it's a VICTORIAN SPY NOVEL, so I was expecting to love it quite a bit. I am SO GLAD there are sequels ("The Body in the Tower" now and another one in February). I'm glad that Lee won the award she did, and I'm VERY glad that she's relatively local, so someday I may get to tell her she is awesome in person. :)
So 9/10, for historical accuracy, Dealing With Stuff, corsets and waistcoats, and the parts where it's a VICTORIAN SPY NOVEL.
I am totally not thinking about fanfiction where 10-year-old Helen Magnus meets Mary Lang and decides that she should be a spy too...
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 05:56 pm (UTC)I just read this article and thought of you. You need to give it a look and see if it sparks any ideas for getting your novels out there. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-i-became-a-best-selling-author-.html
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-22 05:55 pm (UTC)