REVIEW: Melusine by Sarah Monette

Melu­sine by Sarah Mon­ette was a bril­liant read. An excel­lent fan­tasy novel that I inhaled. It’s a gritty, dark fan­tasy novel set in the city of Melu­sine. A city of dark magic, blood-witches, ghosts and ghouls and much, much more.

The book is described thus:

 Mélusine-a city of secrets and lies, plea­sure and pain, magic and cor­rup­tion. It is here that wiz­ard Felix Har­row­gate and cat-burglar Mild­may the Fox will find their des­tinies inter­twined in a world of sen­su­al­ity and savagery.

This is a world that I didn’t want to leave. The author’s imag­i­na­tion is absolutely won­der­ful. She could come back to this world again and again and I wouldn’t tire of it. Also, this story is char­ac­ter dri­ven. It is told through the eyes of wiz­ard Felix Har­row­gate and Mild­may the Fox who come from two com­pletely dif­fer­ent worlds. The author does a bril­liant job of pick­ing up the story where the other left off. I wasn’t con­fused or bored or tired of the nar­ra­tive voice. Each voice was very dis­tinc­tive. Each story grip­ping and inter­est­ing in its own right. Each char­ac­ter start out in dif­fer­ent places in the story and then the author brings them together in the end. It was brilliant.

The story cen­ters around the city of Melu­sine and its deca­dence. Our narrator, Felix is a pow­er­ful wiz­ard or hocus of the Mirador.  The Virtu is a crys­tal that is kept at the Mirador that har­bors or pro­tects the magic and spells of the city of Melu­sine. Felix is a hocus but his ori­gins are con­tentious and dan­ger­ous. He was not born a noble­man even though his mas­ter, Malkhar raised him as one and helped him become a pow­er­ful wiz­ard. When the Virtu gets bro­ken, Felix goes mad and most of his story is cen­tered around his mad­ness and his help­less­ness at explain­ing what hap­pened or clear­ing his name. I found it gripping.

Then there’s Mil­day the Fox or Mild­may, the sec­ond nar­ra­tor of the story. He’s a kept-thief, cat-burglar and trained assas­sin who is the com­plete oppo­site of Felix and comes from a dif­fer­ent world. Mildmay accepts a job to take back some jew­els for a young woman, Ginerva, that turns out to be more dan­ger­ous than he orig­i­nally thought. I thought Mildmay’s story was a bit more fascinating. Mildmay ends up hav­ing to save Gin­erva, who decided to sell her jew­els. Only she doesn’t know that her buyer is a dan­ger­ous blood-witch. They meet up with the blood witch in a ceme­tery where the atmos­phere is down­right creepy. Need­less to say, every­thing doesn’t go right and Mild­may and Gin­erva end up run­ning for their lives. That’s just the start of it.

There’s plenty of creepy moments and sus­pense. Plenty of crea­tures and sto­ries of gods, ghouls, ghosts, witches and evil spir­its.  The world build­ing is excel­lent. As a reader, I felt the author had a excel­lent grasp on her char­ac­ters and her world. The world she cre­ates is gritty and dark. The story opens as if we are dropped in the “mid­dle of a story”. I wasn’t lost. The lan­guage took some get­ting use to but it wasn’t dis­tract­ing. I thought a dic­tio­nary of terms tacked to the back of the book would have been help­ful but not nec­es­sary since intu­itively you can guess the mean­ing. The author seems to be com­pared to or try­ing to attract the audi­ence for Jacque­line Carey. I’ve never read Carey’s work but I know that I will make it a priority.

There’s very lit­tle romance, if any. This is a solid fan­tasy novel that is gritty and dark. I found the story fas­ci­nat­ing. Sorry if I keep repeat­ing that but I did. The char­ac­ter devel­op­ment: bril­liant. The char­ac­ters live and breathed off the page. I must admit that there were moments where Felix’s mad­ness was more than I could bear but that was the only complaint. Rest assured, I haven’t spoiled this story for you. Trust me. What I’ve men­tioned thus far isn’t even the half of it. There’s plenty of adven­ture, plenty of action, plenty of every­thing to keep you turn­ing the pages. I couldn’t put this book down. I went back to reread­ing it as soon as I was finished.

The Melu­sine was a bril­liant fan­tasy novel. A com­plex story that flowed smoothly. I highly rec­om­mend it for those who enjoy fan­tasy. The Melu­sine was an A read for me. I am cur­rently read­ing The Virtu, the sequel that was released this year. It’s avail­able to down­load at Fic­tion­wise but the first book is not avail­able as a ebook (boo) and The Virtu doesn’t stand alone very well.