Nocturnal Book Reviews

An intricate and confusing hell of a mess just like lace gone wrong. There is some sort of pensive beauty in this novel and very dramatic flourishes in the end (you either die or get rich!), however that synopsis you've just read? It's nowhere near the real thing.

First of all there is an overabundance of POV's in this book!

Lisette - is a daughter of an impoverished aristocrat, Alexandre is an orphan and his ward, the count is a villain as De Grotte as well, Katharina is a lacemaker and there is also her sister who tries to set her free; Denis is a soldier and Chiat is a smuggler's dog.

Yep, there is dog's POV as well. So, eight characters in total unless I forgot someone. It's too much, folks. The pace crawls, the characters stagnate and muse about their life choices instead of acting. It was frustrating. It took me 15 days to get through the first half of the book and another few hours to read the second half.

I did like how Iris Anthony played with words and images, I also appreciate historical value of this book because the topic itself is pretty unknown to the general public, but overall it was an underwhelming read.