Brittany Cavallaro is the author of the New York Times bestselling Charlotte Holmes series and the poetry collection Girl-King. She earned her BA in literature from Middlebury College and her MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Michigan. Find her at her website, www.brittanycavallaro.com, or on Twitter @skppingstones. You can find more of my reviews of Brittany's work here.
The year is 1893, and war is brewing in the First American Kingdom. But Claire Emerson has a bigger problem. While her father, Jeremiah, prepares to reveal the mighty weapon he's created to showcase the strength of their province, St. Cloud, at the World's Fair, Claire is crafting a plan to escape. Jeremiah is a sought-after inventor, but he believes his genius is a gift granted to him by his daughter's touch. He's kept Claire under his control for years. As St. Cloud prepares for war, Claire plans to claim her life for herself, even though her best friend, Beatrix, wants her to stay and help with the growing resistance movement that aims to see a woman on the throne. At any cost. When her father's weapon fails to fire on the fair's opening day, Claire is taken captive by Governor Remy Duchamp, St. Cloud's young, untried ruler. Remy believes that Claire's touch bestows graces he's never had, and with his governing power weakening and many political rivals planning his demise, she might be his only and best ally. But the last thing that Claire has ever wanted is to be someone else's muse. Still, affections can change as quickly as the winds of war. And Claire has a choice to make: Will she quietly remake her world from the shadows--or bring it down in flames? New York Times bestselling author Brittany Cavallaro delivers the first book in a dazzling duology about revolution, love, and friendship in a reimagined America.
I felt I could immediately relate to Claire the second she was brought to life on the page, scuttling around her city with her best friend doing everything in her power to avoid her father. In a lot of ways, this is a story about power, and the lengths one will go to attain it. Claire has some power in her abilities but not a whole lot of power elsewhere. She's not able to boldly stand up for herself; she sticks to the shadows. She maps a plan to wrest back control the only way she knows how: from passing herself from one man to the next. Pulled into an impossible power struggle, Claire has to learn the political machinations of her city fast. Who wants what is an important detail throughout the story that we as readers would do well not to forget. In the middle of spying, visiting the Fair with her Governor, conversing with her best friend Beatrix on politics, Claire's vision for her future is clouded. And, in the midst of all of this, Claire finds her voice. Even if she doesn't get to plot her own future or make those decisions as soon as she would like, Claire learns how to do the things she couldn't in the opening pages: stand up for herself, speak out against the men in her life controlling her, and make her own decisions, even if they might be bad ones.
Claire's not the only character whose story is our own. The fire-in-her-veins Beatrix is fighting for a cause that might cost her everything--even her friendship with Claire. The young Governor, suffering from a lonely past, faces accusations from all sides as he struggles to find allies in a province that overwhelms him. Captain Miller, allegiances unknown, has a hidden past of his own that makes him a strange but flimsy ally to Claire and Remy. All of these characters' choices push Claire into corners, give her breathing room, and find Claire herself questioning who to believe. Can she even trust herself? It's been a long time since I've read a book where the secondary characters felt as strong as the main characters, without the author giving them chapters in their points-of-view. Cavallaro expertly folds Beatrix, Remy, and Captain Miller into Claire's story, while taking care to give each of them a story and heart of their own.
I fell in love with the alternate United States history immediately. The way the very first chapter was titled "Preamble" and how the map of the First American Kingdom didn't come until after that was a form of world building I had never seen before. Cavallaro sticks as close to the truth as possible--her Fair resembles that of Chicago's Fair in 1893; much of the buildings her characters populate existed; the customs and traditions of the time are very much in place. And yet, Cavallaro builds a world that is distinctly her own: Claire's "magic touch" that only works on men; the presence of an army that populates the province of St. Cloud; a baseball team for the King's whim, too. It is not so difficult to imagine that this could have been our history, had those previous leaders chosen differently, and I believe that is Cavallaro's point with this unique setting. While this world isn't ours, it is, which is especially seen in the ways Claire's and Beatrix's and Miller's and Remy's fights are still our own.
Cavallaro's writing in her newest release is fierce, angry, righteous, and cackles with electricity Nikola Tesla could only dream of. The fact that women were treated as property is personified to an unimaginable (yet not unrealistic) level. The language surrounding women is all possession-based, and Claire rebels against it as forcefully as any modern day reader would. Knowing distantly that women were treated this way does little to stop the shock and horror at actually feeling it through Cavallaro's writing. It is brilliant that she makes us recognize the implications of women as property through her words and through Claire's thoughts and actions. Not only is Claire treated as property, but as a muse, an inspiration, as magic for any man who can get a hold of her--literally. Cavallaro attempts to untangle the implications of Claire's being a muse, especially for her father and for Remy. Everything from the color of Claire's clothes, the timing of certain events, and each deliberate word choice give suggestions about how everyone else views Claire. This is important so that she can uncover how she wants to view herself and how she wants to transform that perception of her.
Quite possibly my favorite moments of language during this book is when Cavallaro engages with free indirect discourse (or at least some version of free indirect discourse). When Claire's and Cavallaro's thoughts converge on the page, becoming part of the narration rather than just what's going on in Claire's thoughts, make for extremely powerful moments of prose. My favorite such instance? "No. Enough of this. I'm not without two hands and a will" (93), unitalicized lines converging Cavallaro's beliefs on the power of women and Claire's determination that she can take back some control. Absolutely brilliant and striking, and very well done!
I was absolutely struck by the ending of this book, and knew at once that no matter what the second one held, I needed it immediately. Unfortunately for me, I can't even seem to find a release date for book #2, so we're just going to have to stay tuned!
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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