The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer is a standalone book set in a world that is a bit like Gilded Age New York City, but with differences that ones sees in passing, and longs to know more about. In this world, baseline humans, who have no magic, are Solitaires. Traders are animal shape-changers, and their families tend to hold most of the wealth, though they also tend to lose their memories at younger ages, and will often live out their later years in their animal form. Traders are threatened by manticores, who eat magic and are not human but can disguise themselves in human form. Solitaires called Skinners hunt the manticores. Sylvestri have a connection to the natural world and tend to live apart, from Traders especially and Solitaires to some extent. I wanted to know more about the Sylvestri; it’s noted in passing that a larger proportion of Native American populations are Sylvestri, and the result in this time period is that they still control most of the Western United States, and have embassies elsewhere to control travel in those regions. It’s not shown whether particular magical creatures hunt Silvestri or Solitaires. I don’t think any of this was intended to be commentary on ethnic groups, as we see black people as both Solitaires and Traders; the Sylvestri we see are white and Dakota. However, I would have liked to see more of how the magic affected American history. Presumably it was a lot harder to enslave people with magical powers, and it’s unclear if that happened in this world at all. The plot involves a stage magician named Thalia Cutler, and her coming of age and into her individuality. Her parents are dead, but she works with her father’s best friend, Nutall. She’s happy with her life until they lose a booking at an entire chain of theaters due to a rival’s actions, and in the meantime she discovered much of what she knew about her parents and Nutall, and herself, is not actually true. The pace picks up quite a bit when there’s an unexpected death, and from there to the end the story moves quickly. To me, it had a YA feel and was a fun read when that was what I needed.

I found this book a little slow going to start with, as I was getting used to the world that was being presented to me. But once I had, it became a lot easier to read, and I loved it. The main character is a little annoying, but that was just my personal view, it did not take away from the character in any way. For a little twist on a turn of the century fun read, then I would suggest it.

A solid book, I enjoyed myself. The descriptions of New York's The Gilded Age was enjoyable. I love books set in this era and I had fun taking in the lush descriptions. The premise was really interesting but I found the plot to be disjointed and choppy. The ending was also a bit predictable. In terms of the characters, I liked Thalia as the protagonist. She was strong and independent and I connected to her.
Overall, this was a good book. I recommend if you're looking for a book with an interesting magic system and a strong protagonist.

I wasn't able to read the book but I will be featuring it in a series called "I Wish I'd Read That'. Text below:

When I hear Gilded Age, my eyes kind of glaze over. Needless to say, the description of The Glass Magician had me from the first sentence of the description. This tale of magic sounds truly historic, combining the New York culture of the early 1900s with a seeping darkness that seems poised to overtake the later parts of the novel. It sounds like a wonderful escape from present day, and I’m bummed I didn’t get a chance to read it this year. Read more about the author and book below, or purchase a copy for yourself. And of course, a big thank you to Tor Books for the free review copy!

Three and a half stars, rounded up.

Shapeshifters and soul-eaters in vaudeville New York, at least that is my easy way to describing this book in one sentence. Thalia is a young woman who has inherited her father's magic stage show. While traveling the vaudeville circuit, she discovers something about herself that will change her life forever. Thalia suddenly must navigate around accusations of murder and theft of intellectual property, the loss of her beloved stage show and livelihood, the abrupt disappearance of a dear friend, unfamiliar magic, and learning new skills with new friends, all while trying to preserve her own life.

A couple cons: I do wish that the characters and their relationships were developed a bit more. Things happened between the characters that did make sense with respect to the direction of the plot, but there was definitely room for more development and backstory. I also was hoping that we would learn more about the magic in the world. This was not explained enough and it would've added a lot to the world, it felt like we were just assumed to understand a lot of the fantastical elements of the story.

However, I feel that the author pulled off the vaudeville/magical turn of the century world quite well. It was a unique setting and the concept for the plot was really promising. If this was developed into a series, which the ending did kind of leave room for, I would likely read more.

Thank-you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced reader copy!

Plot: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐
Fantasy: ⭐⭐⭐
Writing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐ ½, rounded up

i really enjoyed reading this book, i loved the mixture of scifi and the time period. the characters were great and the writing style was also great.

The story is set in the Victorian era where women were expected to be dainty, demure, and focused solely on domestic duties. Thalia has just inherited her father's magic show when he supernatural powers manifest and get her into all kinds of troubles. It is during one such time that a manticore, a magic-sniffing beast is able to sense her and comes quite close to hunting her down. On top of this, her business rival mysteriously dies, bringing Thalia under scrutiny. Can she successfully succeed her father in running her father's magic show and learn how to control her powers?

This book was a bit hit and miss for me. While I liked the idea of manticores and other fantastical creatures, I found the book to be a bit bland to me. I didn't think the stakes were high enough or that Thalia struggled enough in accomplishing her goals. Also, my kindle edition seemed to have a lot of formatting errors that made the story a bit difficult to read.

I love historical fiction, but something about this fantasy story just didn't appeal to me. The plot was fairly well paced and the characters were fine but I felt quite lukewarm about the book as a whole and wasn't drawn in

Thalia Cutler, a nearly unknown stage magician, realizes she has real magic--but this new reality has both up and downsides for her burgeoning career. Suddenly drawn into the privileged world of the magically endowed, she needs to thread her way into a place into a world filled with dangers. Original, and compelling, this new YA was a delight from beginning to end.

The Glass Magician took me two full weeks to read, which is a little longer than it typically takes me to read a book of this size. It was a peculiar read. On the one hand, female magicians! People who can become animals! Stage magic! Rivalry! I love all these things and this book had them all. But there was something about this book that felt rough, like it could do with a little more polishing and smoothing out around the edges.

The premise - an up-and-coming stage magician Thalia isn't one of the Traders, those who can "trade" their human forms for animal ones - was cool. Then a trick goes wrong and she's thrust into a very different kind of world to the one she knows. But it felt like it took me forever to get into this book, to begin to enjoy that character's and care about their motives.

It is hard to review an average book. There were aspects I definitely liked, like Thalia and her job and the idea of Traders, but none of it was enough to turn this into an engrossing page turner. The Glass Magician was simply a perfectly fine and enjoyable book.

I enjoyed this novel -- the main character is interesting, and the plot moves along, spelling out the interesting ~early 1920s setting and the types of magical (or not) people, then setting up a mystery. It felt like an urban fantasy with a touch of romance to it and a character with a mysterious backstory that she doesn't even know. I'll read the sequel.

This was good! It has a female magician so it can't be bad! I loved the magic and setting. Writting was exqusite. I hope there's a sequel.

Reminiscent of The Golden and the Jinni, #The Glass Magician by #Caroline Stevermer is a magical and romantic tale set in New York’s Gilded age.
New York 1905-The Vanderbilts, The Astor’s, The Morgan’s. They are the cream of the society and Thalia Cutlia doesn’t have any of those family connections. What she does know is stage magic and dazzles audiences. Until one night a trick goes horribly awry. In surviving she discovers she can shapeshift, and has the potential to take her place among them.
But first she’ll have to learn to control that power...before the real monsters descend to feast.
Thank you,
#Netgalley,#Caroline Stevemer and #Macmillan/Tor/Forge

Thalia Cutler was a stage magician - the Lady of the Lake who escaped death by a falling sword. But in Philadelphia, when a cuff refused to open, she changed and escaped. That is how she and her partner David Nutall discovered she was a Trader, not a Solitaire. Then, in New York City, when she used a different trick - catching a rifle ball, she finds herself out of work due to a different magician's no compete clause in his contract. Then the magician was murdered performing his trick. Then the manticores, creatures who eat Traders magic, started sniffing around Thalia. She needed to solve the murder to clear her partner's name while learning to Trade into her animal form so that she was no longer under risk of the manticores. An interesting historical urban fantasy read to enjoy!

The Glass Magician is kind of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the characters and their interactions, I was pulled into the story and engaged enough to keep reading, but I felt like it was missing something. When I got toward the end I felt like some things had been rushed over. The ordeal did not feel like an ordeal, it felt a bit lackluster and underwhelming. I also felt like Thalia went from not able to trade at all (or barely) to having mastered it in a very short and unconvincing amount of time. I also felt like the ending posed a lot more questions than it really answered. I felt like the book should just be starting or somewhere in the middle instead of the end. I wanted to know more about Thalia and her family and about Nuttall. I also felt like the romance was a bit forced. The writing itself was very well done and was lovely to read, and the characters were interesting and convincing, but the story needs a little more focus and fleshing out in places.

What a delightful tale, set in an early 20th Century world in which humans are divided into ordinary Solitaires, shape-shifting Traders, and ecology-minded Silvestri. The story focuses on Thalia, a magic performer, and her manager, Nutall, who’s acted as a parental figure after the deaths of her parents. When a rival stage magician gets them booted from their gig using a noncompete clause, their future looks grim. Then the rival turns up dead and Nutall is the prime suspect. To make matters worse, Thalia, who has always believed herself to be a nonmagical Solitaire, under the stress of a trick gone dangerously wrong, shape-shifts (“Trades”). Newly fledged Traders are not yet in control of their powers and become the prey of magic-consuming manticores. Now Thalia’s very life is at risk until she can master her magic, at the same time she’s determined to prove her mentor’s innocence and unmask the real murderer. The world and its characters are beautifully, charmingly drawn, with the effortless skill of a consummate storyteller.

There’s a lot of very cool stuff about stage magic, fine characterization, a murder mystery, and a slew of plot twists. The thing that impressed me most, though, was the subtle use of swan imagery. Thalia Trades into the form of a swan, hissing in irritation at the unfairness of life when she’s not preening her feathers. But swans also appear here and there, like bits delicate, snowy down.

The Glass Magician is set in an alternative Gilded Age New York City in which magic exists beyond the stage performance. Thalia is a stage magician who realizes after watching a trick go horribly wrong for her and again on stage for someone else that there is more to her world than she knew before. It is a world of shape shifters tied by bloodline, and she is one of them after thinking she was a Solitaire (a human who doesn't shape shift) for her entire life.

I ended up feeling rather so-so about the last third of the book because it felt both melodramatic and rushed at the same time. The magic trick at the end to reveal the true killer and motive didn't seem to flow as well with the story as I would have liked, but I think that's also to do with the world building. However, it did leave me hopeful that there would be more books set in this universe because the foundation has been laid for a lot more exploration and examination.

I enjoy "quiet" novels, stories that are a bit slower and softer than the usual fantasy fare of high-octane action. I loved the setting of an alternate New York City in the Gilded Age, and I imagined magic and magic tricks revealed and performed in gas-lit rooms and lush dresses of mint and lilac and rose contrasting with the darker elements of this society and the magic therein. Most of these thoughts were more of my own projections of my enthusiasm of the era, but I enjoyed this book for what it was. I think I was left wanting because I knew there could be more - from world building to character development to character interactions. So much of it felt like a superficial magic trick. Pretty to read and to look at, but I felt like I could see right through the tricks.

I enjoyed this title so much! I thought the plot was so intriguing, and the characterization very strong! The description used by the author was so evocative I felt transported, and I kept turning until the very last page. I think the cover is very cute - I'll be sure to purchase this for my store!

I was torn on this one. There were a lot of great ideas and ideas that I loved, but I had two main issues with it. First, the pacing was rough. For the first half of the book, there’s very little magic, explanation, or plot movement. The second half was much better, but it made for a bit of a slog at the start. Second, the although the ending wasn’t bad, it did feel fairly contrived. Yes, it wrapped up the story, but it wasn’t really satisfying.

Fortunately, though, the bits I liked carried the story very well! I’m a huge fan of historical fantasy, and this one had that in spades. Similarly, it’s a bunch of fun to see a fantasy novel that focuses not only on real magic, but also stage magic. In The Glass Magician, there are three main social classes: Solitaires, who are unmagical, Traders, who are able to “trade” to an animal shape, and Sylvestri, who work magic with nature. Stage magic is the realm of Solitaires, and Thalia is an accomplished stage magician herself.

She and her partner are implicated in the murder of a rival stage magician, and Thalia must not only work to clear their names, but also to learn to control her newly revealed Trader nature.

The character interactions were entertaining to watch, although the romantic subplot fell a little flat for me. The best part of this book was definitely working to unravel the murder mystery and watching Thalia work to control her magic.

This light fantasy who done it was one that although good it wasn't anything to write home about. I think that this would have worked well with and without the magic. Although it was definitely better with the magic aspect in the story. The mystery though was kind of meh and I kind of wished that the story would have either gone darker or very light and been a high middle grade story instead.