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Interesting premise – an alternate history of the Enlightenment era/French and Haitian revolutions, ft. magic – and I liked the author's writing style, but unfortunately, my feelings on the book as a whole were mostly "deeply annoyed."
The most positive thing I can say is that I was charmed by the friendship dynamic of William Pitt (the Younger) and William Wilberforce, probably because I had absolutely no prior knowledge about either of them other than the fact that Pitt was a person who existed. (Confession: I had to Google whether the same was true of Wilberforce.) I was not a fan of the French Revolution storyline for precisely the same (opposite?) reason— I was obsessed with that period of history in 8th-9th grade, and have a lot of prior knowledge about those events and historical figures. The Haitian revolution storyline had the benefit of being told through the POV of an original character, but I had some other issues with it I'll get into under the cut.
( Spoilers )
The most positive thing I can say is that I was charmed by the friendship dynamic of William Pitt (the Younger) and William Wilberforce, probably because I had absolutely no prior knowledge about either of them other than the fact that Pitt was a person who existed. (Confession: I had to Google whether the same was true of Wilberforce.) I was not a fan of the French Revolution storyline for precisely the same (opposite?) reason— I was obsessed with that period of history in 8th-9th grade, and have a lot of prior knowledge about those events and historical figures. The Haitian revolution storyline had the benefit of being told through the POV of an original character, but I had some other issues with it I'll get into under the cut.
( Spoilers )
