LOL, by now I'm already nervous about The Magpie Lord. ;)

But $29 for a book? Nah. Only hard cover non-fiction I crave would get me to pay so much.

I'll be curious to see what you think....Seems like I'm the only one who wasn't awed. :p

Reply to post #47 (show post):
You're not the only one. It was well-written but I found the plot messy, the twists uninspired and the romance subplot was superfluous. The fact that it was actually well-written is the only bar that it sets for me personally. Most M/M is not.

If you aren't Crispy or Sara on GR then there's more. And yes, by now I have quite some trepidation going. All those laud it who can, but not always do, rec things I can't abide.

It was an okay book but not something I would reread or add to a favorites shelf. It should be a standard of writing that publishers seek as far as the talent, but I lost patience with the plot and the "now this happens" "and now THIS plot twist happens" "and NOW we have the bad guys" lead-up. If a book has a mystery as a main plotline, it should at least be carefully woven.

I saw someone say a while ago that a book was being lauded so highly because people were excited to see professional-level talent in an M/M book, that some problems with it went overlooked by readers and in editors. In my opinion, Magpie is a similar case.

Yeah the plot's sketchy, but the basis of comparison is so poor (and I'm so weary) that, idk, I could put up with it. Not to damn with faint praise but the state of play is so blah at the mo that anything with even a spark of promise was always going to take off like a rocket for me. I agree that it needed editing, but the saving grace is that Charles is an exceptional writer and will learn how to construct meaningful plots as she goes; we don't have to struggle along with her, keeping the faith that the prose will get better. Because that's all where my damn money used to go, seeing as how we were talking filthy lucre -- on the authors that were just okay enough to keep reading, until they weren't.

@Kate: why wouldn't you call this gaslight fantasy? Not Victorian enough? I agree with the lack of atmosphere comment, btw.

That was my biggest complaint in my review, tbh. I went in thinking it was a historical and it's really not....there was no atmosphere or context, and it felt lazy to me since you don't need to world build when the historical context already exists...you just have to do research. This takes me to another problem though of over-hyped books. When a book is hyped so much...you have these expectations that they are perfect...to me 5 stars means perfect. Almost everyone on my GRs list 5 starred Magpie and when I started reading I found all of these things that made it not perfect at all so I was scratching my head wondering if I'm missing something...I think I've been reading this genre for such a short time that I don't have that grateful feeling when I run across something better than the last 70 M/M books...

I'm not hating on the book or anything but...My reasoning behind the rating is that I think giving a new author a nod of perfection when the book had, to me, noticeable issues, doesn't give them much to check themselves with...which is partially why this genre is so saturated with crap. Like those awful Cut & Run books....I've tried to read a couple of them now and they're so crappy but everyone thinks they're perfect and calls themselves "minions" and act like it's the second coming...so why should she or anyone wanting to mirror her change the formula?

If that was her intention then it's different...but everyone who rec'd it that I saw screamed "historical!!!" so that's what I was expecting and was disappointed...I should also note that I really did not like one of the MCs or the dynamics between them...or their descriptions....but that's more specific to my personal taste lol. Okay, so there were a lot of reasons I 3 starred it after all.

Historical isn't what I'd go to first to describe Magpie. Someone asked when it was set in and I said I had no clue bc that wasn't important to me bc I didn't view it as a historical. If you went in with those expectations, I could see you being disappointed.

It was good for Kate & I bc we read it before most; I think. We had no clue what to expect except that Marleen, Tina, & Vio loved it.

I don't have problems with spoilers, and it may be good (hopefully) to know not to expect a historical.

Reply to post #54 (show post):
@Kate: hrmm ok I tend to associate gaslight with a strong gothic feel and/or highly stylised fantasy but I have to admit I've read very thinly in the genre. Do you have recs?