The Revels: The must-read spellbinding historical debut of 2023

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So first let’s talk about what didn’t work for me, which is not a lot but they still need to be mentioned. Dragonfall has the now familiar structure of a multiple first-person point-of-view novel. Each chapter is told by a single character. There are three main points of view: Everen, Arcady, and Soren. I have not mentioned Soren before. Arcady and Soren have twisty minds, and I enjoyed their points of view a lot. Everen was a little less fun, but I expect him to become more interesting in the next books.

All upcoming public events are going ahead as planned and you can find more information on our events blog How does magic work? Arcady has a cylindrical amulet and does something and thinks about the dragon gods and boom, magic. The topiary had been carved into the shapes of mythical animals…" - What kind? Does this world have the same mythical creatures as ours? There is a lot of this sort of fill-in-the-blank description. This line occurs while the characters are at a ball. The only thing described in any detail is the food. We're giving 100 booklovers the chance to read Stacey Thomas' highly anticipated debut novel The Revels before it's out in July. I am fascinated by the history of witch trials and if we truly grasp the line of history, we can see there were underlying misogny towards women deemed abnormal or acting out of behaviours. Women who were thought as witched are hunted & burned at stakes, its horrible, despicable and ultimately discriminatory bcus it was pepretrated against women only. Beware of some triggering scenes in here bcus the punishments are violent and graphic. What attracted me to the book is the potrayal of the main character as he was fascinating to follow, his fondness with Althamia is quite charming and i love her too. Her strong will & passion in her interest really shined here, a very clever girl that doesnt feel afraid to be vocal about her thoughts amidst the whole event. Although, one confounding factor that detract a comfortable reading for me is the writing style, its complex & poetic nature, sometimes can get hard to read as i have to reread the sentences just to understand whats going on. Its not simple, its superflous with whimsy proses which may worked for others but a bit difficult for me.Sometimes I feel like I'll never read a good book again. Sometimes I have to settle for an "it was ok" one. Arcady doesn't like merchants or the government, and pointedly doesn't use the honorific pronoun They for them. They do use it for university people, who they respect. Their parents venerated education, so that's part of the reason, but it's a little naive. The university is very expensive (they have scholarships Arcady can't apply for lest their identity is exposed) and has a library inaccessible to the public. I struggle to see how this elitism is better than that of the merchant class who, by all accounts, are just merchants. The novel is set in London, 1645, and opens with playwright Nicholas Pearce returning home from Oxford. His brother Francis has died. Death and disappointment hang heavy in the space between Nicholas and his family. But we learn from the first line: (a great one it is!) ‘Death is a song.’ Followed by, ‘I’ve known its rhythm since birth, but I still flinch from it.’ Nicholas has a special ability. The dead sing to him and these songs are marked throughout the storyline. It will take many events over the course of the plot before he feels at ease with a gift that must be hidden. There is a real irony in this, considering the part he plays in the witch hunts.

It’s horrendous to think about. More so, when you think that this happened a lot and many, many women were killed on the lies of one man. Thank goodness therefore for Nicolas who has empathy for these women and has a special talent and belief in why he should be the one to help them. It’s a dangerous world for a man if you believe the witches… Same with "handspan of years." Handspan is a measure of distance, not time. Is it meant to be five years? It's kind of dumb that everyone in Arcady's city is identified by a stone carved with a unique seal given to them at birth. What happens if you lose it? Arcady says at one point they are warded against theft, yet their original one is stolen at the end. Why is "preterit" used for a dragon's human form? The literal meaning is something like "past," which implies dragons are humans, right? Is that the big secret? If so, is the word just a name to the dragons that use it, or are they aware of its meaning?Dragonfall is a submersive, atmospheric epic fantasy with high stakes, slow burn, and gorgeous writing. Come for the dragons, stay for the gay pining. Storytelling at its best. The Revels was born from the books I’ve read that capture so much of what I love about historical fiction from Stacey Halls’ The Familiars, Bridget Collins’ The Binding, Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Ronald Bassett’s Witchfinder General.