pagesofjulia

As is my more-or-less usual practice, this review will contain spoilers for the book that preceded it in the series, but not so much for this book itself.

Book two was every bit as good as book one.

We’ve made a pretty thorough shift away from that cast of characters. Robin and Edwin are still there, but off-screen. In my review of that first book, I mentioned Robin’s beloved younger sister only as such, without even giving her name: that’s how minor a character she was there, but here, Maud stars. She has been assigned (at her own insistence) the duty of bringing back from America to Britain a most important Mrs. Navenby, member of the Forsythia Club alongside the now deceased (see book one) Flora Sutton. In the novel’s opening scene, we see Mrs. Navenby murdered, onboard the ship Lyric en route to London. This leaves Maud Blyth, under the pseudonym Maud Cutler, alone in her remaining task to bring home, if not the wisdom of Mrs. Navenby, at least her piece of the Last Contract. Unfortunately Maud does not even know what form that piece might take.

In short order, the enterprising if not terribly worldly “Miss Cutler” manages to enlist the help of Lord Hawthorn (who we met in book one) and a new acquaintance, Miss Violet Debenham, a thoroughly disgraced member of a good English family who has been living in New York and acting in the theatre (horrors), although she is now set to inherit from an also somewhat disgraced but very wealthy and now dead relative. Along the way to identifying and protecting or recovering Mrs. Navenby’s magical item (piece of the Last Contract), Maud’s crew will pick up a journalist who is also a jewel thief and pornography dealer. Maud takes a special interest in the pornography; she takes advantage of this voyage to become a little more worldly. The novel’s title comes in when her new lover must confront their own resistance to the vulnerability that comes with honesty – in contrast to Maud’s fanatical unwillingness to tell a lie. Whew.

A Restless Truth, like A Marvellous Light, excels at the fine details of historical setting, the meticulous building of this magical world, and the absolute rush of discovery that comes with good love and/or sex. I am breathless with anticipation for book three.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: fantasy, historical fiction, LGBTQ, romance |