A Marvellous Light
A Marvellous Light Book Review by Freya Marske
I finished A Marvellous Light three days ago and I’m already struggling to remember what I had to say about it. That does not bode well for Freya Marske’s debut novel.
The book is another take on magical folk in England, this time in the early 1900’s. Marske has some interesting ideas about how magic works and the society around it, but none of the details truly blew me away or gave me a breathtaking new view on magical storytelling.
Marske’s magicians are secluded amongst magical families who keep magic to themselves and their bloodlines. You get a few bits of the society interwoven throughout the plot, like their version of the government called the Assembly, and the police force called the Coopers, but overall, it’s your standard take on magical people in old-timey London.
The setting itself was small. We don’t see a great variety of locations and those that we do see as readers are often contained to homes or cottages. This is one of the first criticisms that I picked up on.
Our two main characters spend most of the novel traversing between one minuscule setting and the next. One gentleman goes by the name of Edwin Courcey, a pale, cowardly, bookish young man from a well-known magical family.
The other half of the duo, Sir Robin Blyth, finds himself mysteriously and yet inextricably tied up in a magically evil scheme even though he doesn’t have a single drop of magical blood himself and didn’t know magicians existed before his current job of working for the liaison’s office.
By taking on the job after the absence of a previous employee, Gatling, and becoming unbusheled (aka, now knowing about magic), Robin finds himself the target of strange, powerful men who are looking for an item called the Last Contract.
For his ignorance on the matter, Robin is cornered, attacked, and cursed with a spell that causes him immeasurable pain and also awakens the power of foresight within him, allowing him to see bizarre and complicated visions with no understanding of their importance.
Thus begins Edwin and Robin’s journey to lift Robin’s curse, find out what happened to Reggie Gatling, uncover the bewildering truth behind the Last Contract, and perhaps even find love and camaraderie along the way.
When I write it out like that, the book sounds solid and like it has multiple perplexing mysteries going on simultaneously that would entice and engage the reader. It…doesn’t. The book is so slow and meandering that the mysteries, while promising at the premise, are so painstaking in the delivery that the book becomes a slog to get through.
After I finished reading, I was able to sum up the book into 5 distinct events: Robin finds out about magic and is cursed, Robin and Edwin go to Edwin’s family home and are tortured by sadistic siblings, Robin and Edwin almost die in a hedge maze before Edwin inherits an estate from a deceased, old woman, and Robin and Edwin figure out the Last Contract and confront, Walt, Edwin’s bully big brother and a leading force looking for the Contract by any means necessary.
Again, it sounds like a lot, but the book is nearly 400 pages. So in between those five events, you have nearly 80 pages of just…meandering nothingness. You have a lot of scenes of them dining on toast, sipping tea, looking at books, and, most erroneously, multiple sex scenes of gratuitous length and detail.
Now, I don’t mind sex scenes in adult fiction. They’re fine. Sometimes they’re even spicy. However, I could not figure out the point of the sex scenes in Marske’s book. This book isn’t Fifty Shades of Grey, it’s sole purpose isn’t to titillate or arouse like that book is.
And it wasn’t even one sex scene, it was several very long, very detailed sex scenes. But then she would immediately delve back into the plot and want you to take it seriously as a reader. The combination didn’t work for me. I found the long, drawn out sex scenes boring after the first page or two and the takeaway was just to…have a long sex scene? I didn’t get it.
So while the plot was decent in its idea, the execution took so long in the interim and was filled with such pointless fluff that it made the book tedious from one major plot point to the next.
The characters themselves were…fine. I can admit that I would understand people liking them. Edwin, cowardly and bookish, but so smart and stubborn. Robin, fiercely loving, jovial, and athletic.
The characters had a decent amount of characterization, but I was never sold. Edwin was the most interesting because he was the most nuanced, but everyone else fell into the category of good or evil pretty concretely.
Because of that, I didn’t fall in love with any of the characters and the developing romance between Edwin and Robin didn't hook me because it was so fast and they were all-in without having any real moments to make it seem realistic to me.
I’ve been pretty harsh on this book overall, but it wasn’t the most terrible thing I’ve ever read. It was a mediocre magical fantasy with some decent characterization and interspersed action. The writing itself was a little too verbose for my taste, but Marske’s writing style fits the tone and mood of the story she’s trying to portray.
She sets up the end in a satisfying way that resolves most loose ends, but also executes the premise for book two clearly to hook the reader. As much as I can see why people might like this book, I don’t plan on reading any sequels.
Recommendation: Every aspect of this book has been done better elsewhere. Want magic and fantasy? Read Harry Potter. Want detailed sex scenes? Read Docile. Want a mystery adventure? Read Dark Rise. Want a too-long story with imperfect characters and sex scenes randomly sprinkled in? Perhaps A Marvellous Light is the book for you.
Score: 6/10
