This book was the next on the list as I continue to make my way through Harriet's favorite books, and you guys. I loved the first two books of the Lymond Chronicles. LOVED them. But this book was genuinely so much more than I was expecting. I thought I was prepared. I WAS NOT.
Where do I even start with this post. Probably I should put everything behind a cut, because let me tell you something: you do not want to be spoiled before reading this book. That has been true for every book of the series so far, but I think it's actually even more true for this one than it is for the first one.
OKAY. Part of the reason why being unspoiled is so important is because Dunnett does something truly astonishing YET AGAIN: no matter whose POV we're getting in this book, the narrator is unreliable, and there's always something hidden going on, and things you think were done for one reason were actually done for a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ONE. The reader is genuinely in the dark, and as a result the scene in which Francis finally reveals what was actually going on is so completely thrilling I could barely stand it. I don't know if it's because I've gotten better at reading these books, or if Dunnett's writing somehow got better between books 1 and 3 (both are likely), but the moment when I finally realized what was actually happening felt like my entire understanding of the world got reordered in an instant. I laughed out loud from shock and disbelief and sheer JOY so many times during the last third of this book, even when genuinely terrible things were revealed, because it was so masterfully done. It felt like a book that was written just for me, I can't even explain it.
The other thing that's so incredible about Dunnett's writing is that she never recycles an emotional punch. Each time she breaks your heart it's in a completely new way, even if it involves the same characters. I would not have predicted that Richard could publicly denounce and disavow Francis again and that it would break my heart the way it did, or that the moment Richard is back on his side again would be so meaningful, because we already had that in book 1 over the death of their sister, which is kind of a big deal! And yet, because the reader is so skillfully denied the truth, that narrative sequence in book 3 also makes complete sense, and lands exactly the way it needs to. Francis behaves appallingly, but not exactly in the way the reader is led to believe, and certainly not in the way that Richard thinks Francis does. We can infer slightly more than Richard can, simply because of what we get to see in the rest of the narration, but there isn't enough revealed that we can understand why Francis behaves the way he does, until it all comes pouring out. The book raises the stakes over and over and over again, and the actual plot points are incredibly melodramatic (secret hidden baby! evil staring us all in the face! betrayal at every turn! ALL OF THE FUCKED UP SEX STUFF MY GOD), but the real human emotions and reactions in the book are what ground all of that nonsense. Francis's relationship with Kate Somerville, in particular, tells us so much with such economy about who and what Francis really is, even when everything happening around him is bananas.
SPEAKING OF BANANAS: holy shit, Gabriel. I want to go back and attempt to figure out when I first started to suspect him, because he is such a great villain, and Dunnett does such an amazing job of diverting the reader's attention away from what he's actually doing. Everything in Malta is incredible, because you have the Grand Master, who is terrible in every way, plus Jerott, who is even more obnoxiously pious and self-righteous than Gabriel is, and those two characters combine beautifully to deflect suspicion away from Gabriel. He's so obviously a mirror character for Francis, and what's great about Francis as a hero is that he is so flawed and such a dick so much of the time that his mirrorverse character doesn't necessarily have to be evil by default in order to be his mirror. And instead he's actually the worst kind of mirror, a monster who shines so brightly no one can see his flaws, and all Gabriel's actions do is illuminate the most unlikable character traits that Francis has. It's so perfectly done it makes me mad, honestly.
This post is actually a remarkably calm depiction of all of my feelings; for the past three or four days all I could think about is how much I love Philippa and Jerott (even when he is being the most precious idiot) and Archie and ADAM and Will and Kate and Sybilla and Richard. There was a point when I said out loud with a complete lack of irony OH MY SON about Francis. Everything about this book speaks to me, and I knew that I was completely done for when Francis calls Joleta a peach the first time he meets her, because that moment is deliberately referenced in The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay the first time Diarmuid meets Jennifer, and the inversion of tropes and meaning there literally gave me shivers. I've written before about how fascinating it is to read a series that inspired some of my favorite authors after I read their works, and the parallels and callbacks between Diarmuid in that book and Francis in this one affected me so much.
I was talking with another friend of mine who's also reading this series for the first time, and we were saying how it feels like we've spent our entire lives preparing to properly love Francis Crawford. I don't know if I can express it better than that, because I feel like this book just fully cracked open my heart.
Grade: A
Where do I even start with this post. Probably I should put everything behind a cut, because let me tell you something: you do not want to be spoiled before reading this book. That has been true for every book of the series so far, but I think it's actually even more true for this one than it is for the first one.
OKAY. Part of the reason why being unspoiled is so important is because Dunnett does something truly astonishing YET AGAIN: no matter whose POV we're getting in this book, the narrator is unreliable, and there's always something hidden going on, and things you think were done for one reason were actually done for a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ONE. The reader is genuinely in the dark, and as a result the scene in which Francis finally reveals what was actually going on is so completely thrilling I could barely stand it. I don't know if it's because I've gotten better at reading these books, or if Dunnett's writing somehow got better between books 1 and 3 (both are likely), but the moment when I finally realized what was actually happening felt like my entire understanding of the world got reordered in an instant. I laughed out loud from shock and disbelief and sheer JOY so many times during the last third of this book, even when genuinely terrible things were revealed, because it was so masterfully done. It felt like a book that was written just for me, I can't even explain it.
The other thing that's so incredible about Dunnett's writing is that she never recycles an emotional punch. Each time she breaks your heart it's in a completely new way, even if it involves the same characters. I would not have predicted that Richard could publicly denounce and disavow Francis again and that it would break my heart the way it did, or that the moment Richard is back on his side again would be so meaningful, because we already had that in book 1 over the death of their sister, which is kind of a big deal! And yet, because the reader is so skillfully denied the truth, that narrative sequence in book 3 also makes complete sense, and lands exactly the way it needs to. Francis behaves appallingly, but not exactly in the way the reader is led to believe, and certainly not in the way that Richard thinks Francis does. We can infer slightly more than Richard can, simply because of what we get to see in the rest of the narration, but there isn't enough revealed that we can understand why Francis behaves the way he does, until it all comes pouring out. The book raises the stakes over and over and over again, and the actual plot points are incredibly melodramatic (secret hidden baby! evil staring us all in the face! betrayal at every turn! ALL OF THE FUCKED UP SEX STUFF MY GOD), but the real human emotions and reactions in the book are what ground all of that nonsense. Francis's relationship with Kate Somerville, in particular, tells us so much with such economy about who and what Francis really is, even when everything happening around him is bananas.
SPEAKING OF BANANAS: holy shit, Gabriel. I want to go back and attempt to figure out when I first started to suspect him, because he is such a great villain, and Dunnett does such an amazing job of diverting the reader's attention away from what he's actually doing. Everything in Malta is incredible, because you have the Grand Master, who is terrible in every way, plus Jerott, who is even more obnoxiously pious and self-righteous than Gabriel is, and those two characters combine beautifully to deflect suspicion away from Gabriel. He's so obviously a mirror character for Francis, and what's great about Francis as a hero is that he is so flawed and such a dick so much of the time that his mirrorverse character doesn't necessarily have to be evil by default in order to be his mirror. And instead he's actually the worst kind of mirror, a monster who shines so brightly no one can see his flaws, and all Gabriel's actions do is illuminate the most unlikable character traits that Francis has. It's so perfectly done it makes me mad, honestly.
This post is actually a remarkably calm depiction of all of my feelings; for the past three or four days all I could think about is how much I love Philippa and Jerott (even when he is being the most precious idiot) and Archie and ADAM and Will and Kate and Sybilla and Richard. There was a point when I said out loud with a complete lack of irony OH MY SON about Francis. Everything about this book speaks to me, and I knew that I was completely done for when Francis calls Joleta a peach the first time he meets her, because that moment is deliberately referenced in The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay the first time Diarmuid meets Jennifer, and the inversion of tropes and meaning there literally gave me shivers. I've written before about how fascinating it is to read a series that inspired some of my favorite authors after I read their works, and the parallels and callbacks between Diarmuid in that book and Francis in this one affected me so much.
I was talking with another friend of mine who's also reading this series for the first time, and we were saying how it feels like we've spent our entire lives preparing to properly love Francis Crawford. I don't know if I can express it better than that, because I feel like this book just fully cracked open my heart.
Grade: A
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