My Rating ~ Three stars

3-gold-stars copy 2

RELEASED: 27 November 2018

Publisher: Scholastic

Format: Hardback

Pages: 359

Blurb

Sylvie has always known she deserves more. Out in the permanent twilight of the Dusklands, her guardians called her power to create illusions a curse. But Sylvie knows it gives her a place in Coeur d’Or, the palais of the Amber Empress and her highborn legacies.

So Sylvie sets off toward the Amber City, a glittering jewel under a sun that never sets, to take what is hers.

But her hope for a better life is quickly dimmed. The empress invites her in only as part of a wicked wager among her powerful courtiers. Sylvie must assume a new name, Mirage, and begin to navigate secretive social circles and deadly games of intrigue in order to claim her spot. Soon it becomes apparent that nothing is as it appears and no one, including her cruel yet captivating sponsor, Sunder, will answer her questions. As Mirage strives to assume what should be her rightful place, she’ll have to consider whether it is worth the price she must pay.

Review

Sylvie knows she is different to other people. She can create illusions, which means she has magic in her blood (called a legacy). Convinced she must be of highborn lineage, she sets out for the Amber City to join the courtiers where she believes she belongs. But once she arrives, she realises the Amber City isn’t the place she thought it would be and her legacy might not be enough to earn her a place.

I really did enjoy the story in Amber and Dusk, even though it’s starting to feel like the backbone of this type of story has just been done to death, and therefore the ‘plot twists’ are becoming a little too transparent. I liked the premise of the “legacy” magic, and the fact that we weren’t always told upfront what people’s magical talent was. The world building was quite good and there were some characters I thought were great – Sunder and Reaper among them. But, I couldn’t stand the main character, Mirage. She was so unbelievable entitled, bratish and just plain unlikeable. To walk into a place you know nothing about, with people you’ve never met, and ignore everything they tell you, insult everyone as much as possible, and tell everyone as often as you can that you “deserve more” is just – ugh. I mean there’s ambitious and then there’s just….deluded.

I was also frustrated by the made up words for things like the different times of day, hours, months, years etc. It was just confusing and took me ages to figure out (I still don’t know if I figured out the times of day correctly to be honest. It was never really explained, the words were just thrown in there).

I will still read the next book in the series, mainly because I need to see whether Mirage has any redeeming qualities at all, but I’m also interested to see what happens with the other characters I did like!