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Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus/Jo Fletcher Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
U.S. Release Date: October 4th, 2016
464 Pages
Synopsis: Pen’s life is all about secrets: the secret of the city’s spirits, deities and Monsters her best friend Beth discovered living just beyond the notice of modern Londoners; the secret of how she got the intricate scars that disfigure her so cruelly–and the most closely guarded secret of all: Parva, her mirror-sister, forged from her reflections in a school bathroom mirror. Pen’s reflected twin is the only girl who really understands her.
Then Parva is abducted and Pen makes a terrible bargain for the means to track her down. In London-Under-Glass looks are currency, and Pen’s scares make her a rare and valuable commodity. But some in the reflected city will do anything to keep Pen from the secret of what happened to the sister who shared her face.
Gosh darn it! Once again I requested a book from NetGalley, not realizing it was a sequel. I really need to be more careful when I look at covers. Fortunately, I was able to follow this story despite not having read The City’s Son. From what I’ve read, the previous book focuses on Beth, while The Glass Republic concentrates mainly on her best friend Pen, who is now one of my favorite fantasy heroines. The book begins about six months after the conclusion of the first, which is when Pen was physically scarred in a brutal fashion by a villain known as the Wire Mistress. She’s still emotionally traumatized and understandably angry and bitter at the world in general. Feeling like she has no control over her life, when her doppelgänger, Parva, vanishes, she’s determined to rescue her, and also sees the opportunity to change her own life. In essence, she’s a character that will grab your heart and squeeze just about every drop of emotion out of it. While London-Under-Glass is full of complex and beautiful world-building, with its emphasis on physical perfection, in some ways it’s not so different from our own world. While the story is full of dark moments, there’s also just enough humor to balance things out. I don’t want to give anything away about this book, because I think it’s something you really have to experience yourself, suffice it to say, it’s imaginative and incredibly well-written. You know how there are certain authors that you’d live to take a peek inside their brains to see what makes them tick? Well, Tom Pollock is now on my personal list alongside Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. The Glass Republic is a magical read which I highly, HIGHLY recommend to fans of urban fantasy, and authors such as Gaiman.
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