Well, that was cheerful. ( )

This reminded me a lot of Mark Gatiss' Lucifer Box series, with more violence and less tongue-in-cheek humour. I agree with a lot of previous reviewers that it kind of starts in the middle of a conversation none of us were having - the writer casually drops names and places with no explanation or introduction. This would have been less of a problem if it took place in our own world, but it is set in a fictional city with elements drawn from New York or London in the 1920s and 30s. Think Bright Young Things gone spy thriller. It took me a couple of chapters to feel familiar enough with the setting to be interested and then I really got attached to Aristide and Cyril in a way that made the ending a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. Now I eagerly await the sequel. ( )

I was fascinated by this book from the moment I saw the cover. I found the story fast paced and enthralling. The characters were flamboyant, brooding, and understandable at their core. I saw an update on the author's website that there will be two more books. They will be added to my TBR the moment the titles are announced. ( )

This was grimmer than I usually go for, so I couldn't get into it as much as the world-painting and ambiance deserved, although the very end took a sharp upturn, so I'll probably read the next book. Inexorable facist takeovers fueled by rising conservatism to crack down on queer people, the arts, and sex workers is a little too on the nose right now to be my preferred bed time reading. But I did love the atmosphere of the theatre scene, the glam cover on everything, and how the writing style flowed and created very clear sensory images. ( )

Not really sure genre to call this. It's not fantasy, because there's no magic. It's not alternate history, because it's set in an invented world. I'm honestly not quite sure why it isn't just alternate history, when several blurbs compare Amberlough City to Weimar Berlin, and can only speculate that it's because the author was less interested in the real history than in the invented world and characters.

I mention this because the book feels pretty shallow all the way through. We get most of our politics shoved into the first quarter or less, and then it's supposed to resonate deeply with us as four-state Gedda goes into political upheaval. But there were some fundamental things that I either never figured out or I forgot: Why do the Ospies, the fascist party, want to unite Gedda instead of strengthening their nationalism and conservativism in their own separatist "country"? With some old-religion practices still above the boards, it feels like they haven't consolidated their power at home enough to start looking beyond their borders. I think a four-country/state parliament was mentioned--do we assume that's gone just because the Ospie leader came into power? If marriages of all pairings and more and high-ranking working women are the norm, why is it so easy for the Ospies to find people who oppose those social norms?

I feel like the sense of depth and urgency that you can get with historical fiction is missing. The country names aren't cleverly-disguised versions of existing countries (or if they are, they are too cleverly disguised for me to recognize them), so there isn't the historical resonance that you feel when you read about interwar Germany and Europe. And it all seems so simplistic: a violent, conservative, fascist government takes over a free-wheeling, fun-loving place. Black-and-white, good-and-bad. Why do the Ospies care what happens in Amberlough? There's such complexity in the world, as we've seen in the U.S. pre-, during-, and post-Trump, that Amberlough feels a bit reductionist.

All that said, I still enjoyed the book. Entertaining enough during the slower start to keep me going, then exciting once the setup was in place and we finally got to the spy-thriller elements. (No mystery, though--this is about what happens to the cards on the table, not how they got there.) Aristide and Cordelia are fascinating characters and I wish we'd had even more of them. I can't say I was as interested in Cyril, with his upper-class background, until the consequences of his plot-starting failure kicked in about halfway through. Even then, Aristide and Cordelia were cleverer and more resourceful and just more fun to be along with. For all that people kept saying that Cyril was a good spy, he never seemed to have backup plans like Aristide or good improv skills like Cordelia.

The world was rich and lush, even though I can't necessarily call it world-building when most of the world seems grounded in historical reality. Gender roles may have been different from ours, but they were seamless--once you know that "razors" are butch working women who cut their hair short, you see them commuting and hanging out at bars in the background; a realistic number of people in multiple professions have partners and spouses of the same sex, not just in the arts. I would have liked to see more of the cabaret/theater world, especially when what happens during one undescribed act costs the life of a fun minor character.

A tiny part of me wishes we could have hopped on this train halfway through the book, but then that shallowness of political history would be even more noticeable. But the character who grows and changes most in this story is Cordelia, and I wish I could have gone just a little further with her. Amberlough does not have a cliffhanger ending, even if all the ends are open: you can stop here, if you're not inclined to go further. And, since I just liked the book instead of loved it, and the pages have run out and I don't have the sequel at my fingertips, I think I will be stopping here. ( )