Title: A Restless Truth
Series: The Last Binding: Book Two
Author: Freya Marske
Publisher: Tordotcom
Length: 400 Pages
Category: Historical Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Maud Blythe is such an engaging heroine, and I loved her intrepid spirit even as I feared for her life at nearly every twist and turn of her adventure. This crime caper is a breathless race, from stem to stern of the Lyric, dodging spells, convincing the head of security that she’s not a jewel thief, and uncovering treachery by the nautical mile.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance!
Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady’s companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago.
What she didn’t expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s also returning home to England. Violet is everything that Maud has been trained to distrust yet can’t help but desire: a magician, an actress, and a magnet for scandal.
Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of suspects, Maud and Violet must first drop the masks that they’ve both learned to wear before they can unmask a murderer and somehow get their hands on a magical object worth killing for—without ending up dead in the water themselves.
Review: One might assume that first-class travel across the Atlantic in the early 20th century was a quiet, luxurious affair, sailing with the bon vivants, the titled and the privileged, paying handsomely to distance oneself from the hoi polloi. But one might not expect a shipboard murder to disrupt things with such immediacy. That, however, is precisely what Freya Marske delivers in this truly scrumptious follow-up to A Marvellous Light and the continuation of the danger and intrigue surrounding missing—altogether threatening should they fall into the wrong hands—magical objects.
“Chaos was rising on the Lyric.”
Maud Blythe is such an engaging heroine, and I loved her intrepid spirit even as I feared for her life at nearly every twist and turn of her adventure. Marshalling a small group of people to help her search for a piece of the Lost Contract—one not-so-willingly, one who’s in it for the money, and one who’s in it for the mischief—Maud assumes the responsibility of attempting to find a killer, to outwit them, and not only to figure out what the stolen item is but then to recover it. All while coming to terms with a jolt of the paranormal variety. This crime caper is a breathless race, from stem to stern of the Lyric, dodging spells, convincing the head of security that she’s not a jewel thief, and uncovering treachery by the nautical mile.
“Maud Blythe—for all she was young and painfully naïve—captured attention like the once upon a time of a fairy tale. Violet wanted, quite simply, to see what would happen next.”
Maud’s innocence is both a deterrent and an enticement to the worldly, delightfully provocative, cheeky and naughty Violet Debenham. This story is about Maud’s sexual awakening as much as it is a budding romance between her and the terribly guarded and impish Violet. Violet, who can’t seem to help but be drawn to Maud’s integrity and stubborn perseverance despite her continued efforts. Their affair is one of forced proximity, a perilous alliance, and pure and simple attraction. Their eventual bond is something much deeper and promises to continue as they embark on a new venture on dry land.
Their two comrades, the irascible Lord Hawthorne and the opportunistic Andy Ross, were delightful contrarians, and I wasn’t sure I was going to warm up to, let alone like, either one of them. I did. While neither could be called amiable toward each other, there was definitely a chemistry there between them that made me wonder if we’ll see them going forward. I’m desperately curious to know whether their intense aversion was actually a frisson of something more.
For readers who were intrigued by the magic system and all the mystery encompassed in A Marvellous Light, it continues to grow and morph and take shape to be a battle between right and might in A Ruthless Truth. How it will resolve in the next, and final, book, A Power Unbound, remains to be seen. It’s hard to imagine the suspense and danger won’t match, if not exceed, what the author has already built on a firm foundation of motive, murder, and corruption.
You can buy A Restless Truth here:
[zilla_button url=”https://publishing.tor.com/arestlesstruth-freyamarske/9781250788917/” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Tordotcom [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”https://books2read.com/A-Restless-Truth” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon & Other eTailers [/zilla_button]