Review: Enchantée by Gita Trelease – Blog Tour

Genre: Young Adult, Historical, Fantasy

Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books

Publication Date: 5th February 2019

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Synopsis

Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries—and magicians…

When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail, naive sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic—la magie ordinaire—Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

With dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into the ‘Baroness de la Fontaine’ and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for la magie. There, she gambles at cards, desperate to have enough to keep herself and her sister safe. Yet the longer she stays at court, the more difficult it becomes to reconcile her resentment of the nobles with the enchantments of Versailles. And when she returns to Paris, Camille meets a handsome young balloonist—who dares her to hope that love and liberty may both be possible.

But la magie has its costs. And when Camille loses control of her secrets, the game she’s playing turns deadly. Then revolution erupts, and she must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, freedom or magic—before Paris burns…

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Review

“A printing press took the thoughts from someone’s mind and inked them on to a piece of paper anyone might read. It was a kind of magic. A magic to alter the world.”

A combination of YA, Historical and Fantasy is usually right up my alley and Enchantée was no different. I really enjoyed this one.

In this book, we follow Camille living under extreme poverty with her younger sister. Since smallpox claimed the lives of her parents, she has had to do whatever it took to take care of her siblings. Freedom of press was snatched away by the monarchy when her father was alive, and as a daughter of a printer she knew no other skill beside the magic her mother taught her. To put food on the table, she is forced to use her own sorrow to fuel the magic required to change metal scraps into coins.

Her desperation at her situation grows further because her older brother repeatedly gambles away whatever she makes, so when she decides to open a mysterious box her parents left behind but always warned against opening, she discovers the secret of Glamoire – the magic of transforming oneself – and uses this to form herself a completely new identity. Together with a new face and magic, Camille goes to gamble at the court of Versailles, change cards to her favour, and win. Soon, she finds herself unable to resist the allure of the court, despite winning enough to sustain herself, and realises that the longer she stays, the higher the dangers get.

I am purposely being vague about the plot here because I believe the magic of this book comes from knowing just this much and discovering the rest along the way. I did use the word ‘magic’ because reading it felt a little bit like magic. I found the writing to be part of the reason why and the backdrop of France just prior to the French Revolution was also something I found interesting learning about through a fictional point of view.

I think I can safely say that I speak for most readers when I say that the romance was one of the highlights of this book. Though it developed quite quickly, I did found it to be believable, and I thought that the progression of the relationship was beautifully done.

The characters in this book are flawed, well developed and interesting to read about, and their interactions in scenes, particularly those that take place in the court, were my favourite. The way the magic works in this world was also refreshing compared to the way most YA fantasies include magic. The one minor thing I have against this book is that I found it overly wordy and descriptive at times which distracted me from the plot.

Overall, I highly recommend this. It’s magical and romantic (I mean, it’s set in Paris), with characters that will win you over. I am looking forward to reading the sequel.

Rating

Thank you to Macmillan Children’s book for sending me an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review. 

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