3/5

In the end this actually turned to be an intereting and different read. I have to agree tho with the people saying that this book had so much potential and wasn’t used in its fully power.

The whole concept about Traders and in general the world created were my favorite parts.
I had a few problems sometimes understating the magic, I was confused and sometimes had to re-read a few parts to see if I got it right during the first read and that turned out a little annoying.
I think the book was well executed till its 60% mark. After, all got more confusing and, at least for me, harder to follow.
And I’m saying this when I read the first half on a train journey while the second at home in my “normal and silent habitat”, so something definetly went “wrong” with the book execution.

I liked how in the end everything was wrapped up, how the story was concluded even if maybe a little rushed, but there’s always an open ending for a new chapter.
I had no problem getting into the story at the beginning, on the countrary, I was so interested and excited to start this adventure. The writing style was very good as well.

So in summary, I think that there’s definitely a good story there, a nice set of characters and a very good story/world concept. The plot development could have been worked out a little more.

Thanks to the publisher, Tor Books, and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

I received a free copy of THE GLASS MAGICIAN by Caroline Stevermer in exchange for an honest review. In New York 1905, there are primarily three types of people: there are normal people called Solitaires, shapeshifters called Traders, and a third type called the Sylvestry. Twenty-year-old Thalia Cutler is a Solitaire working the Vaudeville circuit as “The Lady of the Lake,” magician extraordinaire. Thalia, assisted by David Nutall-her father’s dearest friend, has been working the act alone since her parents’ early deaths. When a trick goes wrong, something strange happens; Thalia believes an unexpected shapeshift saves her from certain doom. However, she’s definitely not a shape Trader, so what happened? Thereafter, Nutall and Thalia investigate the phenomenon to see if it is possible that Thalia could be a Trader late to blossom, the expert assures them that it’s entirely impossible. Instead, the expert insists that Thalia’s panic simply caused her to hallucinate. The expert congratulates Thalia on being a Solitaire because, if she were a newly-shifting Trader, she would now be hunted by Manticores, warped beings who devour the magic of vulnerable Traders. Assured of Thalia’s normalcy, Thalia and Nutall travel to New York City for their next job. Once in the city, things get really interesting.

I liked this book. I would classify it as turn of the twentieth century historical urban fantasy. I recommend this tale to fans of historical fantasy (such as the Steampunk genre, the Thirteenth Child/Frontier Magic series, the Sorcery and Cecelia series, or the Sorcery and Society series) and to fans urban fantasy willing to delve into the past. Also, as a bonus, the story is seeded with beautiful woodblock-type illustrations.

#TheGlassMagician #NetGalley

Ended up DNF it after i hit the 53% mark at my kindle. I didn't get invested or interested in the story nor did i like much of the main character. It just felt a bit meh and boring to me. I really tried, but i just - i think i'd end up skimming most of it.But, i really liked the cover. Haha.

I had such a fun time reading this book. Caroline Stevermer does a beautiful job of creating a new, completely original and authentic world within New York's society and turn of the century vaudeville theater. The book reminded me a lot of The Night Circus, and that is as high a praise as I can give.

I received a copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley with many thanks.

The Glass Magician is the story of Thalia, a young woman working the Vaudeville circuit as a stage magician. She gets caught up in a serious crime and her understanding of herself and others around her is permanently challenged.

This (rather poor) description does sum up the general plot, but ignores the fantastical element to this novel which makes it so interesting. Ms Stevermer organically introduces the magical elements and has generally avoided great chunks of expositional text. I appreciate, as a reader, being treated as a person who is able grasp concepts from context, rather than assuming I need to be handheld through the created world.

Overall, this made for an interesting and engaging read. It seems to have ended with a sequel in mind and I would be very happy to return to this world.

I really wanted to love this. The cover is beautiful. Thalia seems interesting but I kept getting distracted. I would have liked more world building in the beginning. I knew it was an American very similar to ours but everything was a little off. The descriptions of places and characters were good. I could picture the costumes. I’m sure others will love this!

First off, I really REALLY hope there is a follow up to this one. I would love to see more of what happens to Thalia and her new friends and world. When I looked the book up again, I saw it compared to The Golem and the Jinni. That is one of my absolute favorites and I can see how it would apply (albeit this I would put in young adult for the content and the former mentioned as Adult fiction). I felt like more could have been added at the end to give more insight, or maybe just more information about the Silvestri, Solitaires and Traders. It kept me up to finish reading it and has been one of the few books to grab my attention recently. Also, the cover! I need a print for my wall at home. It is beautiful. It was an easy read but a fascinating one the same and I hope more is to come from the author about Thalia.

I wanted to like this book. From the description I was curious and excited about this book. I really liked the idea of this book and thought it was well written. I just felt rushed and like it fell short of it's overall goal.

This was delightful, and I'm really really hoping that it's the first book in a series (as it seems to be.) Stevermer does worldbuilding effortlessly, and Thalia Cutler and her world spring to life. There are enough details to give readers a foothold and not disorient them, but enough mystery to leave them intrigued. We know some of what Traders, Solitaires, and Sylvestri do -- but not everything; and throughout this first volume we get glimpses of power dynamics that are crying out for more exploration. Happily, Stevermer doesn't let the intriguingness of the world overtake the main plot, which proceeds at a tight but not overwhelming pace. I opened this just to get a sense of it, and ended up finishing it in one sitting -- and if the sequel were available, I'd already have preordered it.

I've long enjoyed Caroline Stevermer's works of historical fantasy from A College of Magics to The Grand Tour. Now she gives fans a taste of magic (both real and staged) in New York's Gilded Age, in The Glass Magician.

It's 1905 New York, where elite shapeshifting Traders have strong magical powers. Below them in the rungs of the societal ladder are Sylvestri, with Solitaires at the bottom. Solitaire Thalia Cutler performs stage magic, learned from her father, as the Lady of the Lake.

After she learns that she is in fact a Trader, Thalia faces great danger from a Manticore that feeds on young Traders who don't fully control their powers.

The Glass Magician has a great and unique premise. The book fell just a bit short me, another editing could helped. The book was still good, but it could have been better.

I devoured an advance copy of The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer. The story was captivating with its original take on the magic of shape-shifting and its setting in 1900's New York City.

The book is centered around a bright young woman, Thalia Cutter, a popular stage magician on the tour circuit. When a trick fails, she has an almost out of body experience as she watches her hand shift into white feathers to save her from certain injury. Overwhelmed and concerned, Thalia begins investigating her past with the help of her mentor. However, with little information available on her parents, she is left unable to explain why she should suddenly show signs of being a "Trader" at such a late age.

Their tour circuit takes them to New York where they encounter both friends and foes from her past. The story picks up pace as she loses her job, witnesses a murder, shape-shifts again and ends up living in the home of a wealthy Trader family as she tries to find her balance once again.

I read late into the night, desperate to follow her adventures and see what new information Stevermer would reveal along the way. The characters are richly developed and immensely relatable, despite the fantastical elements. The setting was at once familiar and unknown, with the New York landscape revisioned to fit her new world order.

My only complaint with this story is that it ended too soon. I am desperate for a sequel and hope that Stevermer has one in her plans.

If you are a fan of Cogman's Invisible Library series, you will fall in love with this.

This was hard, I really wanted to love this book. A woman doing magic in the Guilded age. I thought it would be a winning book. I just couldn't get into it for the life of me, I tried multiple times and it became a chore to finish. I did finish it, but I didn't enjoy myself. I think the synopsis really sucked me in, but the book wasn't what I was expecting.

I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

This novel is beautifully written however i didn't connect with the characters and it took me a while to get through this novel.

i kept having to put it down and pick it back up.

i think if this novel was a bit longer and written with more depth then maybe i would have liked it a bit better.

overall, i give this novel a 3/5 star review.

This book was received from the Author, and Publisher, in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own

The Glass Magician by Caroline Steverman, is a creative and unique fantasy set against bustling Gilded Age backdrop

1900s New York City, where wealth and power are a matter not only of birth but of magical ability.
Thalia Cutler is a stage magician, completely confident in her identity as a magicless Solitaire until a horrible life threatening accident during a magic trick forces her into a shape shift. Intriguing storyline when you peel back the layers a mystery unfolds. The book was a fast paced concept, with a strong female protagonist.
I would definitely liked if the characters were a little more fleshed out. The writing is incredibly beautiful and vibrant.

This took me a while to warm up to, but once I had gotten a handle on the 'fantasy' aspects I started to really enjoy the story. I think a bit more context about who the different types of people are: Solitaires, Traders and Sylvestri are all part of a society that seems the same as our own world but have magic qualities and the ability to transform into animals, the author threw us in without giving us the background and it made it hard to follow.

My favorite parts involved the manticores and The Skinner of New York. I would have loved to learn more about him and hope that if a sequel is written it keeps in him and gives him a back story. The scenes where Thalia was being 'hunted' were full of suspense and drama. The ending was very quick and I thought the unveiling of the killer wasn't greatly thought through. It was like a really bad magic trick, but maybe that was the point,

I liked this book and its characters enough to certainly read the next in the series. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review,

Ms. Stevermer has written, or co-written, several YA fantasy titles I really like. I was very glad to get a chance to read an early eARC of the start of her new series. At least I think it will be a series. Treat yourself to this one. And her previous if you have not already.

More of a 2,5 stars.

This is a pretty difficult book for me to review. So, bear with me while I try to sort my thoughts.

This book is about shape shifting, an interesting sort of magic system and also a murder mystery? Yeah, I know, that sounds like a lot. And that is also how I feel about this story. The way this is written is really great. I really like the writing style. But I simply think this is just too short a book to accomplish ALL OF THE THINGS really well.

It takes place in an alternate reality of 1905 in New York, where there isn't as much racism as there was at that time in the US, and where there are two types of people. Solitairs, which are basically normal people, Traders, which are people that are able to shape shift into their spirit animal, and Sylvestri, who are very in tune with nature? or something? Yeah, I don't know. Also, there are things called Manticores, which are beast-human's that feed off of young Traders' magic and are born from two Traders when there is too much interbreeding. Or something like that. I don't know how that works scientifically, but okay.

Yeah, there were some holes in this magic system. I couldn't fully connect and get a grasp of what was happening and how things worked in this world, because there simply wasn't enough time in this book to have this be handled properly. I actually felt the same way about the characters, which weren't exactly surface-level or flat characters, but weren't amazingly fleshed out either, and the plot, which was all about our MC who was actually a Trader but didn't know it and her overcoming some sort of trial in order to be a grown-up Trader and save from Manticores, but also wanting to pursue her career as a magician, but also having to find out who murdered her rival in order to save her friend.

I told you this was a lot. This book is about 288 pages long. So, yeah, I'm not quite surprised I wasn't completely on board with everything that happened here. And I even forgot to mention the start of a budding romance here!

This is a bit of a meh-book for me, but I also don't want to discredit the writing, because that was actually great. So, that's why I settled for a 2,5 star-rating, rounded up to 3.

Oh, this is marvelous. Thalia, following in the footsteps of her father, is a stage magician. She’s an independent working girl, a Solitaire, and wholly different from those stuck-up and wealthy Traders who shift forms. When one of her stage tricks goes wrong and something unexpected saves Thalia’s life, she’s thrust into an alien Trader world of wealth and danger.

This is a delightful urban fantasy set in a world vaguely reminiscent of the early 20th century. It’s peppered with stage magicians and show biz slang, which really drew me in. The exposition is cleverly integrated and slowly revealed, which makes learning about the world a treat. Thalia is strong, clever, and streetwise but not incapable of mistakes, which makes her both likable and relatable. Without spoilers, it wraps up nicely in a Sherlock Holmes-style reveal but leaves the door open for potential sequels. Highly recommended.

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Normally I am not a fan of paranormal fiction, but this book hit two buttons for me. I am a fan of turn of the century (I guess I have to specify the turn of the 20th century now) fiction, and I love stage magic. The Glass Magician is not a bad book; it came close to being excellent. Sadly, there are a few places the story let me down.

The characters are probably the best part of the book, or at least one character is. Thalia Cutler, the eponymous magician, is a fairly likable main character. She is strong-willed and competent while still exhibiting flaws and worries enough to be interesting. Stevermer hit a good balance with Cutler, making me care about what happened to her through the story, which is one of the most important parts of an engaging novel. Thalia also has a decent character arc through the novel, developing enough to make the journey feel like it had a real impact on her.

The rest of the characters were not as well fleshed out, which is something of a disappointment. Except for a few of the major supporting cast, most of the people Thalia meets throughout the story are just cardboard cutouts, easily identified by their position in the story and left at that, with no fleshing out or unique personalities.

The plot itself is fine, if not amazing. The mystery is fine if the conclusion a bit of a letdown. The romance is fine, if not completely compelling. I did not dislike the way the story unfolded; it just did not end up going anywhere interesting enough to make it a highlight of the book

The real issue this book suffers from is in its world-building. While I have some small issue with the way different groups are sorted, my main issue with the world-building isn’t in its structure, but how it’s communicated to the reader. I’m a fan of small details being mentioned and never explained to make the world feel full, but for key points the author needs to spend time to tell the reader what these ideas are. More importantly, this needs to be done early enough that I don’t get lost and lose the narrative. Stevermer does get around to explaining Solitaires, Traders, Silvestri, and Manticors, but it takes way to long. I probably read the word Trader a hundred times, including several in-depth conversations, before the author decided to tell me what everything meant. The effect of this meant I spent the first quarter of the book trying to figure out what was going on, which continually pulled me out of the narrative, ruining my enjoyment of it. To compound the problem, what explanations we do eventually get do not go nearly far enough in explaining the key concepts I need to know to understand how the world works.

Had Stevermer done a better job explaining the world building, this had a chance of being a good book, even with the plot being somewhat average. The world-building is poorly communicated enough to drop it from three stars to two.