I received a free copy and am leaving my honest review.

The author creates a glittering, magical alternate world. Occuring in the early 1900s, the book centers on a young female magician. Her character, as are all the others, is written beautifully.

I finished the book wanting more. I sincerely hope there is a sequel.

3.5 stars

I ended up putting this book down for 2 weeks after reading the first chapter but once I came backed to it and got a little farther in, I was intrigued. The magic in the world was interesting. There are 3 types of people:
Solitaires: (muggles I suppose)
Traders: People able to trade into an animal form while retaining their human mind but have a shortened life-span.
There are also Manticores which are a sub-group of Traders.
Sylvestri: Not a lot of information was given about them and I wish that had not been the case but they seem to primarily Native Americans or Native Americans are primarily Sylvestri. Either way, I wish I had more information on them.

I had hoped for a more exciting Ordeal at the end but it fell a little short of the mark. The twist at the end has me curious enough for a 2nd book so fingers crossed.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

I was intrigued by the original sounding premise of this book. Set in New York, turn-of-the-century time period, and some type of new class system that is based around one's magical ability to turn into an animal. All sounds like cool concepts and all put together, I really had no idea what to expect from this book. Unfortunately, it didn't really turn out to be much of anything at all, so no expectations was about right.

After inheriting her father's magic business, Thalia has been making her living as a stage magician. Not blessed with actual magical abilities that would vault her into the upper class of New York society, she is still managing to make a name for herself by performing wondrous and dangerous tricks in her act. One night, however, a trick goes wrong and Thalia discovers there is more within her than she had ever known. Now with abilities she doesn't know how to control and a murder added to the mix, Thalia's life is beginning to change. Will it be for the better or for the worse?

For the pros for this book, I will say that I still liked the uniqueness of the time period during which it was set and the choice to have it take place in New York City. It's always a breath of fresh air to find a fantasy novel that isn't set in some generic "medieval times" setting. And even more so to find one that is set in a city that exists today. However, I do think the author left a lot on the table with regards to what all could have been done with these two elements. The other positive worth noting was the writing itself. It didn't stand out to me in any particular way, but it was of the sort that is strong enough to get the job done without distracting the reader. And, considering that I didn't love much about this book, I think it's a real strength of the writing that it was strong enough that I didn't ever really feel like just putting the book down for good.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned with the time period and the setting, it felt like the author came up with some cool, individual ideas, but didn't spend any time really building up the world or system around them. Like, people have this magic to turn into animals and society has been built in such a way that possessing this ability puts you into an elite class. But the why or how of this is never really explained. The history of how this system came to be in place is lacking. And there is really not magic system of any kind to explain the rules, limitations, or even, to some extent, the benefits of having these abilities. The entire world that has been created depends on these magical factors, and yet we get next to nothing about what they really are. It felt like the author simply didn't want to bother with the details of these things, instead wanting to just jump into her heroine's own story.

But there, too, I had problems. Thalia is an interesting enough character on her own, but the book simply didn't have enough story for her. The entire book feels made up of either Thalia struggling to learn to control her new abilities or making small bits of progress solving a murder mystery. I was pretty surprised, actually, when the murder mystery aspect of it became apparent since there wasn't any hint of that in the general description. But I'm all for historical murder mysteries, so this should have been a benefit to the story. Instead, again, it felt like only the most basic aspects of this part of the story were really explored. Things all come way too easily to Thalia, with people often behaving against their own best interest or out of character to help her on her way.

To make up page time for the lack of world-building, magic system, or complications in the murder mystery, we instead spend an incredible amount of time just in Thalia's mind exploring her feelings. I don't have a problem with books that center largely around the introspective thoughts of a main character, but there just has to be more to the story itself to support this. I also didn't love the romance we were given. It felt forced and lacked chemistry.

I also have to spend a moment on that cover. Yikes. It's the kind of thing that immediately attracts the eye (indeed, I clicked on it in NetGalley just because of the swan motif), but the more you look at it, the worse it gets. It's all kinds of creepy with the teeth and eyes, and I'm not sure it really represents well the book we have. Instead, if I had noticed these details when choosing the book off the shelf, I think I would have most likely put it back just due to how unnerving I find it all.

Overall, I wasn't impressed with this book. It felt like the author had some really neat ideas at the very core of it, but didn't spend enough time to fully develop anything. The writing was strong enough, but there wasn't enough story to go around.

Rating 6: Lack luster and thin, this book didn't hold up to the promises of its premise.

(Link will go live 5/27/2020)

Thalia is a stage magician with her show as Lady of The Lake. When her livelihood is threatened she will start a cascade of events which will eventually allow her to learn her true self and her true powers.

There was a lot in this novel. Besides Thalia being a stage magician and pretty emancipated around the start of the 20th century, there is a whole magic world related to it. You see, real magic and stage magic combined. Thalia believes she is a simple Solitaire, as opposed to Traders (shapeshifters who for some reasons make up the crème de la crème of New York society) and Sylvestri (nature people who are never really well explained but must have some kind of power also). Add to this the gruesome Manticores, who hunt unexperienced Traders in order to suck their magic out of them, and a murder charge, and it is quite a lot.

However, it was an interesting read and while I had hoped that some parts of the worldbuilding would have been explained a bit better without turning it into an infodump, I liked this version of New York. I was a bit worried in the beginning that by throwing all these things at the reader the story would feel overcrowded, but it didn’t really. Still, I had the feeling it was missing a little something that I can’t really put in words.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

What’s better than a book involving stage magic? A book that combines it with REAL magic and manages to respectfully keep them separate.

This was such a fun read. As a reader, I’m always a sucker for magic, especially stage magic as it is truly an art form. The author manages to bring her own world of magic and introduce a vivid story involving a well-balanced cast of characters. I hope there’s a sequel in the future because I definitely want to see more from this world.

This was more of a mystery than a fantasy and whilst the storyline was good, I found it a little boring in places.

An elegant, compact, clean-cut fusion of fantasy and historical fiction. I enjoyed this book a lot, though its quick, stark prose was occasionally interrupted by moments of excessive technicality that rather broke up the flow of things. There were pieces of worldbuilding that were not executed terribly cleanly, and while some parts were fantastic--the concept of Trading, for instance--there were others that didn't make sense, such as what exactly the Sylvestri are.

Nevertheless, the book was an enjoyable read, with a creative premise and a scrappy heroine I was happy to root for (not to mention her feisty young protege, Nell), and I am rounding my 3.5-star review up for the purposes of a standard star-review.

A more comprehensive review is forthcoming on my blog.

I tried to restart this book several times, but I really had problems with the style. Also, Thalia learned she had a Trader parent in the laziest way. There was no creativity in holding a secret until she discovered it on her own. I liked some parts, to be honest, but this wasn't a book for me. because of those two reasons.

What a delightful story this ended up being.

I had semi-consciously put off reading this, as the blurb didn't particularly grab me, but was pleasantly surprised to be fully immersed in the story within a matter of pages.

Set in the New York vaudeville circuit in the early 20th century, the theme of stage magic is perfectly balanced with the magical side of the story. Society is made up of three classes of people – Solitaires, Traders, and Sylvestri. While the Sylvestri are left as far more of a mystery in the book, Traders are shape-shifters, people can share their soul with that of an animal's and learn to transform between the two at will.

Hinted at in the story are elements of privilege and classism, and even appropriation. It feels slightly wasted that this wasn't explored a little more explicitly.

The final test, the ordeal, ends up feeling a little anti-climactic, only due to being built up both in the reader's experience and in the in-world narrative. However it didn't detract from the magic of the story.

While the writing style is a little simplistic at times, it makes it an easy read.

I'm often put off from books that are classed as fantasy because High Fantasy rarely appeals to me, however this kind of story, set in the real world that just has more magic than ours, is exactly my kind of thing.

Rating: 3.5/5, rounded up

4 stars. Solid, but didn’t bowl me over. The world is rich (I’m no historian, but the atmosphere seems pretty authentic), and the characters are quite fun to spend time with. Bonus: the book is fairly clean.

The downsides: let’s start with the beginning. The beginning was really hard to get through; I had to read it repeatedly. A lot of world building jumped on me at once. I’m glad I read through it, though! A couple of times, I felt that there was some discontinuity (but as the book was quite packed with detail, I may have overlooked something); and the idea of the Ordeal didn’t make all that much sense to me.

All in all, it was a pleasant read.

I received a free copy of the ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For some reason, I have the hardest time writing reviews for books that strike me as mediocre. I don’t have anything bad to say, but I don’t have much good to say, either. The Glass Magician was one of those for me. It wasn’t bad. It was fine. A perfectly adequate book. But I doubt I’ll remember anything about it in a couple of months.

Thalia Cutler is a stage magician, following in her deceased father’s footsteps. (I had to grab my copy of the book and look up her name, because I had already forgotten. See what I mean?) Thalia’s story takes place in an alternate New York City in 1905, a world in which humanity is divided into three subgroups: Solitaires, who are your average humans; Sylvestri, who commune very closely with nature; and Traders, who have an animal form in addition to their human one, and whose souls encompass both forms equally. These variances make for a world of interesting dynamics, where a magical-based classism has replaced racism and other forms of prejudice.

I enjoyed the (very brief) exhibitions of stage magic, though the last scenes including stage magic were eye-rollingly overdramatic. I enjoyed the setting, and can see where this novel could almost be considered a fantasy of manners. I just wish it had been a bit more fleshed out. The characters were fine. They weren’t especially fleshed out, but they also weren’t obnoxious. There were brief glimpses of humor. The plot wasn’t really unique, but it was compelling enough to keep me turning pages. The writing wasn’t bad; it was perfectly serviceable. All in all, I’d relate my experience with The Glass Magician as the literary equivalent of waiting room television or elevator music.

This book was filled with magic and some fantasy aspects, things that I usually enjoy in a book. I found the book to be enjoyable and unique, but at times it was very slow with limited action. There was also some loose ends that were not tied up in the end and made the book feel rushed and unfinished. That being said, I loved Thalia’s character which made this book fun for me and I also enjoyed the fantasy elements as well.

The book starts really fast and confusing to be honest. I guess the character development is important and I love how the magic part is used in this book, but it was really hard for me to get into the story because I didn't understand a lot of words in the beginning.

It also has a medieval setting, which is always pretty hard on me, so I ended up only reading halfway through. I might finish it someday when I feel like reading a medieval magic story, but it was really hard to identify with the characters and the language.

The concept for this was pretty amazing and intrigued me right away. I really wanted to see people turning into animals and how that was incorporated in their lives. These animal shifters or Traders seem to all be wealthy and successful and I wanted to understand how they used their animal skills to their benefit. Did businessmen turn into lions and terrify their rivals into submission? Did racoon shifters make excellent thieves? Did hawk shifters work as military scouts using their excellent vision to spot the enemy? There were so many potential scenarios that I was eager to see explored.

Unfortunately the shifting/Trading played a very small part in the story. No one changes to their animal form until about 40% in and even then it is anti-climactic. The animal forms seem to have little or no influence on the people’s lives which was really disappointing. There is little reason or significance to the Trading and it seems to have no consequence other than having the urge to swim in the river. There is no explanation for how this class of people became wealthy or why. For such a hugely exciting element it was tragically underused and under explored.

One smaller feature that drove me crazy was how every single person mentioned, even if they are completely unimportant and referred to only in passing are distinguished by their race. It was completely unnecessary and had absolutely no bearing on anything and it took me right out of the story each time. Oddly there seems to only be black and white people in New York. There is a mention of one Asian family of acrobats and one Romani woman but I couldn’t understand how it was possible that there were no other races in the city at this time. Why the extreme emphasis on black vs. white? It felt very strange.

While the story had great potential it didn’t live up to any of it and was a disappointment for me. It was readable but not super engaging and the weird emphasis on race really bothered me. I’m not sure what the intention was behind that but it left a bad taste in my mouth and tainted the whole book. This one definitely sounded better than it actually turned out to be.

Thank you to Tor Books for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

First of all, the cover is just sooooo beautiful. The title and the cover are apt for the book. The title 'The Glass Magician' occurs only once in the book, but it proved to be really strong.
The story is set in 1905 New York (although the story started Philadelphia). The story revolves around Thalia Cutler, a stage magician, known on the stage as lady of the lake. She lives along with her late father's friend and her stage manager, David Nutall. One night, one of her act goes horribly wrong which could've have resulted her death. But something even worse happens, she realizes that she is a trader. To make matters worse, she is fired from her job, she and Nutall unknowingly get involved in the murder of their arch-nemesis/business competitor, and worst of all, she is being chased by a manticore. Meanwhile, Thalia meets some really generous and genuine friends who remain by her side throughout the story.
The magic system in this book was really nice: Solitares, Traders and Sylvestri. The character building is done beautifully. The chemistry between Ryker and Thalia was really nice. But I wanted more of them. Overall, it a great mixture of historical fantasy and murder mystery. I wouldn't think twice giving this book a 5/5, because this book is exactly my cup of tea!
I sincerely thank Macmillan/Tor-Forge and NetGalley for giving me this amazing opportunity! I am eagerly waiting for further books by Caroline Stevermer, because now, I am her fan.

For me, this book was neither bad nor good. I liked Thalia and her job as a stage magician (wish we'd seen more of it tho) but apart for Nell all the other characters were a big meh for me. The magical part of the story seemed interesting but was not explained enough. More world building would have been nice. I also feel like not much happened? Everything was so slow I struggled at times to keep reading. I did become more invested near the end but it still wasn't enough for me.

The Glass Magician had a lot of promise and was a decent read, but unfortunately fell short for me. A lot of my issues stemmed from lack of development, exploration, and detail. The bones of the story were present and decent, but there needed to be more depth in the pages. As it was, the construction of the novel felt quite choppy, both in writing style and format. The narrative left a lot of gaps to fill.

Set in the Gilded Age, which happens to be one of my favorite eras, there was a lot of chance for the establishment of posh society vs. poor and the creation of a world that felt magical even in the mundane. There was a little bit of this, but not enough. There was description of some of the more fancy homes and restaurants, some touching on fashion of the era, and obviously the mention of vaudeville, but the time period definitely didn't come through as strongly as I think was possible.

When it came to the magic system, I found myself highly frustrated. While I was interested in the world being created, it wasn't very well-developed and lacked a lot in explanation. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of the story, almost as if I had missed the first book and this was a sequel. There was no easing into things or even a simple info dump to present the world. Instead, I was gathering pieces from beginning to end, trying to figure out exactly what a Solitaire was, along with the other categories. In fact, I still don't understand if the references to white Solitaire and black Solitaire had to do with something other than skin color. And if they didn't, then the constant reference to individuals as one or the other was certainly excessive as they often weren't given any other description. While some revelation along the way is fine and can certainly add tension to the story, this method felt more frustrating than mysterious.

The plot was good and the writing was fine, but everything just felt overly rushed. I feel like things could have truly been exemplary if a little more time would have been taken to flush out details and set up scenes more carefully. The talent is there, just not fully explored. For example, the discussion about an "ordeal" is repeatedly addressed with stress to how important and challenging it is. However, when this event actually takes place, it felt overly mundane -- uneventful and not very harrowing at all. That was incredibly disappointing.

Though the overall story was still enjoyable, there was not enough there to push it into the higher star ratings for me.

I wanted to be enchanted by this fantasy, but it didn’t quite happen. The plot and the world in which it is set both captured my interest, but I was never fully swept away by the story.

The setting is an alternate version of New York in 1905. Magicless humans referred to as Solitaires coexist with the Silvestri, who have nature magic, and Traders, who have the ability to shift into an animal form. Traders have become a powerful and wealthy upper class, but their power has its drawbacks. One of which is that they may give birth to Manticores, monstrous creatures that can shift to look human but only have basic animal cunning. Manticores are driven to consume the magic of young Traders who cannot yet control their shifting, so Trader youth must be protected to keep them from being drained and killed.

The main character, Thalia, is a Solitaire who performs stage magic for a living. Or she thinks she’s a Solitaire, anyway, until a trick gone wrong leads her to suspect that she might be a Trader after all. That’s so unbelievable that she pushes it aside, but then she faces a second crisis; a rival magician has stolen Thalia’s signature trick, and circumstances surrounding the theft cause her to lose her job. But wait, there’s more! The thieving magician is murdered onstage while performing the stolen act, and the police suspect that Thalia may be involved. Oh, and on top of that, Manticores have been seen roaming in New York, posing a threat to unguarded young Traders. Good thing Thalia isn’t one after all. Oh, wait . . .

So, it’s an interesting set up, and the different threads of the plot kept me reading. I never fully got invested in Thalia as a character, though. I’m not even sure why, to be honest. She just seemed a bit flat to me. A couple of the secondary characters have a little more spark, but since the book is written from Thalia’s POV, they don’t get as much page time as I might have liked. There’s a hint of romance, but only a hint; I would have preferred a bit more development of that part of the story. I would also have liked a bit more insight into the world the story is set in, such as more information about the nature of the powers of the Silvestri, for example.

The end of the novel sets the stage for a second book, though, and I’m curious enough about what the author plans for Thalia and the other characters that I’ll probably give it a try.

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

I liked the Glass Magician, it was a very interesting story with a new spin to the supernatural world of shapeshifters. It tells the story of Thalia, a young stage magician that after an almost failed act, learns that she might not be like the other solitaires. While she and her manager, Nutall, travel to New York for a change of scenery and a new venue, she meets the Ryker siblings that can trade (shift) into seals and otters. As Thalia learns more about her past and the changes she is going through. But as time goes by there are creatures that start to hunt her and endanger those around her.

I’m a fan of fantasy stories, and in the Glass Magician, it was a nice touch to read about stage magicians and stories centered around their acts. While there are more mystical things about the characters and the magic in the world, reading about the mechanics for their stage acts was something that I didn’t like this much, it even makes me want to see a magic act in public.

I liked the characters of Thalia and the Ryker siblings, both Roger and Nell help Thalia in different ways but still want her to be part of their family. Most of the other characters were okay, and I would have liked to read more about Madam Ostrova and her family.

In the case of the narrative, I believed the explanations of the different humans come somewhat late. Since the beginning, the characters use the words, Trader, Solitaire, and Sylvestity but don’t explain for the reader to follow along until later. If it’s a standalone story, then it left out some world-building details that might have made the story easier to follow along, but if there is a second book then it should be explained more.

One of my favorite things was Trader trials and their learning about their transformation. It’s different from the other shapeshifter stories and the idea of having passed a trial to enter society and survive adulthood.

If there is a second book, then I would like to know more about Thalia’s parents and who they actually were. Their story could open more subplots for Thalia and friends to interact with.

If you are a fan of Caroline Stevermer and her work, then I recommend The Glass Magician. In this world of change, innovation, and magic, a stage magician learns that she is more than what she once believed after surviving a failed act with a sword.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

In the acknowledgments, the author thanks Patricia C. Wrede for helping this book come about; once I read that I realized that yes, this book felt like an echo from reading Wrede’s books in my youth. Some of the same DNA was there—a plucky heroine in an interesting time learning to harness her own power and make her way in the world—but this book felt a bit flatter to me.
The bulk of this flatness is, I think, the extremely slow pacing. The world and its magic system/lore isn’t really explained until about three-quarters of the way through the book, and the terms “Solitare,” “Trader,” and “Sylvestri” are thrown around casually with only “Trader” getting a decent definition in the first half of the book. Even having finished the story I’m not 100% sure what a Sylvestri is, as the description seemed to be a mishmash of druids and fey somewhat overlapping Native Americans in general. The life changing crime that is described in the description takes place at about the 40% mark, and while the book’s pacing does start to pick up from there it makes me wonder how much of the first third of the story was necessary.
Overall this was fine, if not my particular cup of tea. If you have a middle grades student that has already worked their way through the Patricia C. Wrede cannon, this may hold them over for a day or two.