If Robert Louis Stevenson Wrote Sense and Sensibility

The Sisters Mederos by Patrice Sarath
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

[Since I wrote this review, I looked at other reviews, and found that many clever people think like I do, but not everyone. I was shocked to learn that some elements of the novel that I considered highlights were things that other reviewers didn't like. Clearly, they are bastards. Or it may be that different people like different things. I guess it is what it is, caveat emptor, YMMV, IMO, etc., world without end.]

[Back to the raving. TL;DR: I liked this book a lot!]

I love finding a book like this. In addition to this series starter, I see the author already has a completed series and a stand-alone novel. All of it sounds great. I'm sold.

I knew I liked this book and the author in the first 40 pages. In an alternate world that is well-developed but not over-explained, with a pair of main characters that read like determined and adventurous Jane Austen characters (which made sense when I saw that the author's stand-alone novel was a sequel of sorts to Pride and Prejudice), with a mystery adventure plot on the knife's edge between Austen and Robert Louis Stevenson, I couldn't have been more engaged. The author's clear language, matching a proper tone to lively narration, is a nice compromise between regency language and modern sensibilities. It is a strength of the novel, being well suited to the story, and is what sold me the most.

Tesara and Yvienne Mederos are both engaging and enterprising characters, sympathetic and round, who use every tool they have to fight back against the Merchant Guild and the system which destroyed their family and took them from the heights of society to the depths of near poverty and humiliation. In a city that reads like a sort of early modern Bruges-meets-London, where merchant families are like nobility, with a rigid class system, there is little either can do to improve their lot through normal means. So they both become rogues of a sort (nicely foreshadowed by the beautiful cover), acting outside of approved gender or class roles--but they do so believably. The "believable" part includes Tesara's uncertain power which might or might not control winds and waves, the only overtly fantasy-type element of the story. (The alternate-world setting is the other significant fantastic element.) I liked both characters, and though Yvienne was probably a bit more daring, I found myself more partial to Tesara. I'd like to see what happens with both, of course, as both have promise.

The conclusion is satisfying and works well, IMO, but also leaves a lot of room for (planned, it seems) sequels. That's good, because I feel like the author has barely scratched the surface with this setting and these characters. I'd like very much to see what happens after this.

Meanwhile, I'm investigating the author's back catalog. :)

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