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The Treachery of Ravens
A daring robbery. Magic out of control. One last chance to do the right thing.
All Meryl Gaspard ever wanted was to fly, but a life lived on her terms means turning her back on her mother and the Liberty Belle salon. So, she lives a secret double dutiful daughter by day, professional thief by night. Meanwhile, for a nameless young acolyte, living like a prisoner on an isolated island, using her magic to heal the sick would give meaning to all the suffering her powers have caused her. And, on the dark streets of Pelz, Inspector Michel Aubergon hunts an elusive thief while the greed and corruption around him tears at the fabric of his ideals, seeking to consume his very soul.
Soon, a skyship will arrive in Pelz carrying an object of untold value, and Meryl must steal it. But her friend, the mysterious cleric possessing forbidden magic, is under threat, and the police inspector charged with apprehending her is closing in. Meryl must stay a step ahead and pull off a high-stakes burglary, but she can’t do it alone. She needs allies, and those allies might come from some very unexpected places.
For fans of fantasy and steampunk, experience a tale of swashbuckling action and adventure set in a world where coal and steam are ascendent over alchemy and magic, and giant skyships rule the air.
All Meryl Gaspard ever wanted was to fly, but a life lived on her terms means turning her back on her mother and the Liberty Belle salon. So, she lives a secret double dutiful daughter by day, professional thief by night. Meanwhile, for a nameless young acolyte, living like a prisoner on an isolated island, using her magic to heal the sick would give meaning to all the suffering her powers have caused her. And, on the dark streets of Pelz, Inspector Michel Aubergon hunts an elusive thief while the greed and corruption around him tears at the fabric of his ideals, seeking to consume his very soul.
Soon, a skyship will arrive in Pelz carrying an object of untold value, and Meryl must steal it. But her friend, the mysterious cleric possessing forbidden magic, is under threat, and the police inspector charged with apprehending her is closing in. Meryl must stay a step ahead and pull off a high-stakes burglary, but she can’t do it alone. She needs allies, and those allies might come from some very unexpected places.
For fans of fantasy and steampunk, experience a tale of swashbuckling action and adventure set in a world where coal and steam are ascendent over alchemy and magic, and giant skyships rule the air.
614 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 4, 2024
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22 people want to read
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June 25, 2024This is not a full review. I read through the beginning of all 300 SPFBOX contest entries. This was a book I wanted to read more of.
An old warhorse with more metal in his leg than bone is tasked with escorting a lady and her child from a city aflame with rebellion in this fantastic steampunk adventure.
Sometimes over the course of this read through I’ll be lucky enough to say an opening has wow’d me. Those openings are the kind I would expect to find in a Hugo or Nebula nominated book. This is one of those openings.
The prose is sublime. It is detailed, stylistically long-winded (as in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, say), and yet completely focused. The story and the characters absolutely lead.
From the opening sentence, we see the central conflict of this opening in miniature. An old Major in the comfort of his hired coach-and-four watching the beautiful city burn. It’s almost cinema.
Nothing is obscured. We’re introduced primarily to our old Major, the catastrophe of this ongoing rebellion against the wealthy aristocracy, and his mission: go alone and escort lady and child to the airfield.
Everything is there. Absolutely everything. Character, conflict, wonderful setting details, names and ranks that fill the page with a sense of place and time, and even with the steady prosaic style of the narrative, there is a wonderful sense of action!
At over 600 pages, this novel will be much much more than the story of this opening, but it has already captured my interest in spades. I’d like to spend all day reading this—and then the rest of the week.
From the blurb, there is a promise of magic and adventure, but I feel I could follow this writing anywhere. This is finalist material for sure, and seems woefully under read! I’m wow’d! I’m in!
An old warhorse with more metal in his leg than bone is tasked with escorting a lady and her child from a city aflame with rebellion in this fantastic steampunk adventure.
Sometimes over the course of this read through I’ll be lucky enough to say an opening has wow’d me. Those openings are the kind I would expect to find in a Hugo or Nebula nominated book. This is one of those openings.
The prose is sublime. It is detailed, stylistically long-winded (as in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, say), and yet completely focused. The story and the characters absolutely lead.
From the opening sentence, we see the central conflict of this opening in miniature. An old Major in the comfort of his hired coach-and-four watching the beautiful city burn. It’s almost cinema.
Nothing is obscured. We’re introduced primarily to our old Major, the catastrophe of this ongoing rebellion against the wealthy aristocracy, and his mission: go alone and escort lady and child to the airfield.
Everything is there. Absolutely everything. Character, conflict, wonderful setting details, names and ranks that fill the page with a sense of place and time, and even with the steady prosaic style of the narrative, there is a wonderful sense of action!
At over 600 pages, this novel will be much much more than the story of this opening, but it has already captured my interest in spades. I’d like to spend all day reading this—and then the rest of the week.
From the blurb, there is a promise of magic and adventure, but I feel I could follow this writing anywhere. This is finalist material for sure, and seems woefully under read! I’m wow’d! I’m in!
September 2, 2024
I really enjoyed this tense, fast-paced, melodrama-heavy heist romp even though it has elements that would normally put me off.
Our main character is Meryl, a young woman on the edge of adulthood, brought up by a forceful and glamorous mother who runs a politically well-connected brothel. Meryl rejects that life and becomes an accomplished thief and has moved up to sophisticated industrial espionage and high-end cat burglary, aided by a mysterious mentor with a pretty cool raven-themed ultralight flying machine. She is a strong character who drives the plot well: daring to the point of rash, abused and vulnerable but also selfless and compassionate, and capable of both stealthy disguise and swift improvised action. So while I could describe her as “sassy” and “ass-kicking”, she is more broken and more interesting than most typical leading ladies of YA fantasy.
The world is also interesting. I tend to find modern Victoriana sentimental or annoying, and steampunk often pops my suspension of disbelief far too early. The alternate world here is of a more French-themed 19th century in the corrupt aftermath of a revolution. This could easily have descended into the kind of grimdark I avoid but I think the book understands some of what made Dumas more fun than Dickens: that an honourable person fighting a corrupt system is a Romantic (poetic) thing in the old sense of the word and can hook the reader onto their side, no matter how flawed they are. That’s true even if the honourable person is a rogue – to a point. There’s a strong dose of Les Miserables about the setting here too, with Meryl’s old street-kid gang chasing her and a policeman who is a bit Javert and a bit Valjean in one conflicted alcoholic package.
Anyway, Meryl’s life is increasingly catching up with her and she is forced to take on one last risky heist with the hope of a payoff that will get her completely out of the city. Except there is a lot she is not told about the reason for the heist and she won't get away from her mother quite that easily.
Weaknesses of the book: I’ve often complained about books with too many POV characters. 4-6 is normally my upper limit excluding prologues. I think this had 8 or 9, counting the prologue, though some of them are brief. You can see where this is going, probably as a sort of found-family gang (not much of a spoiler given the blurb), but it does take exasperatingly long to get there at times. And yet the other POV characters are just a bit thin in places – I didn’t take to “the acolyte” at all (too much of a fantasy archetype for now) or the policeman. But anyhow. The emotional impact of Meryl's story carried me through.
Sexual content: some, but only to demonstrate characters’ misery or create threat rather than tittilation. Hints that Meryl may be gay, but nothing definite.
Religious content: little. There is a powerful and vaguely French-Catholic church about, with individual clerics being corrupt or in thrall to the regime, but the church seems to do some charitable and medical work as well. God doesn’t really come into things at all.
I probably will read the sequel when it’s out. Also, I recommend rereading the prologue after the revelations in the last chapter. There are some fairly unsubtle hints about what might be coming.
Our main character is Meryl, a young woman on the edge of adulthood, brought up by a forceful and glamorous mother who runs a politically well-connected brothel. Meryl rejects that life and becomes an accomplished thief and has moved up to sophisticated industrial espionage and high-end cat burglary, aided by a mysterious mentor with a pretty cool raven-themed ultralight flying machine. She is a strong character who drives the plot well: daring to the point of rash, abused and vulnerable but also selfless and compassionate, and capable of both stealthy disguise and swift improvised action. So while I could describe her as “sassy” and “ass-kicking”, she is more broken and more interesting than most typical leading ladies of YA fantasy.
The world is also interesting. I tend to find modern Victoriana sentimental or annoying, and steampunk often pops my suspension of disbelief far too early. The alternate world here is of a more French-themed 19th century in the corrupt aftermath of a revolution. This could easily have descended into the kind of grimdark I avoid but I think the book understands some of what made Dumas more fun than Dickens: that an honourable person fighting a corrupt system is a Romantic (poetic) thing in the old sense of the word and can hook the reader onto their side, no matter how flawed they are. That’s true even if the honourable person is a rogue – to a point. There’s a strong dose of Les Miserables about the setting here too, with Meryl’s old street-kid gang chasing her and a policeman who is a bit Javert and a bit Valjean in one conflicted alcoholic package.
Anyway, Meryl’s life is increasingly catching up with her and she is forced to take on one last risky heist with the hope of a payoff that will get her completely out of the city. Except there is a lot she is not told about the reason for the heist and she won't get away from her mother quite that easily.
Weaknesses of the book: I’ve often complained about books with too many POV characters. 4-6 is normally my upper limit excluding prologues. I think this had 8 or 9, counting the prologue, though some of them are brief. You can see where this is going, probably as a sort of found-family gang (not much of a spoiler given the blurb), but it does take exasperatingly long to get there at times. And yet the other POV characters are just a bit thin in places – I didn’t take to “the acolyte” at all (too much of a fantasy archetype for now) or the policeman. But anyhow. The emotional impact of Meryl's story carried me through.
Sexual content: some, but only to demonstrate characters’ misery or create threat rather than tittilation. Hints that Meryl may be gay, but nothing definite.
Religious content: little. There is a powerful and vaguely French-Catholic church about, with individual clerics being corrupt or in thrall to the regime, but the church seems to do some charitable and medical work as well. God doesn’t really come into things at all.
I probably will read the sequel when it’s out. Also, I recommend rereading the prologue after the revelations in the last chapter. There are some fairly unsubtle hints about what might be coming.
May 19, 2024
In The Treachery of Ravens, the friendship between Meryl and Alys lies at the heart of the story. As Meryl sharpens her thieving skills and Alys learns to control her magic, I found myself drawn deeper and deeper into this rich new world with every turn of the page. I highly recommend this story to anyone who loves a captivating buddy tale filled with adventure!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews