NetGalley offered a sneak peek of The Glittering Court, a novel of romance and intrigue set in a fantasy world similar to ours of 500 years ago. This is considered fantasy due to the imaginary world, but there were no magical events or any of the other elements we think of as “fantasy”.
The story is straightforward: The Countess of Rothford has a title and ancient family name but little money. She is to marry a distant cousin and quickly decides this man is not for her. She sends her maid, Adelaide, back to her family and takes Adelaide’s name and her place in the Glittering Court. The Court is a school to train lower-born girls to act, dress and talk like upper class ladies so they can find rich husbands in the New World. Adelaide’s only challenge is to not succeed too much because she needs to remain safely anonymous.
Adelaide faces the threat of exposure and forced return while around her society and her country Osfrid are churning with religious strife and the fallout from the civil war in neighboring Sirminica. She is intrigued with man who recruited her, Cedric, and it’s clear from the sneak peek that they are falling in love. That’s a problem because Cedric’s family runs the Glittering Court to supply classy wives to the frontier men, not to find a classy wife themselves. And Cedric adheres to the outlawed religion; discovery could mean he dies.
The Glittering Court is aimed at teens, 7th grade and up. The writing style – language, scene changes, themes – are sufficiently engaging that many adults will enjoy the book too. I didn’t find any of the “and a miracle happens” events nor the abrupt switches among viewpoints that make some teen novels so disappointing and hard to read. Author Mead does a good job presenting the situations, giving us reasonable dialogue and events, then finishing the scene before moving on.
While I was not intrigued enough to seek out the full novel, I do recommend this to older teen girls and adults who enjoy a romance with fantasy elements.
I received a free copy of the sneak peek in the expectation of an honest review.
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