I had a hard time reading this, but a lot had to do with my arc/ebook being very choppy with random digits appearing in the middle of the text. I did read through all that but it was very distracting. Anyways the story was pretty good, I enjoyed the concept. The world building maybe could of been a little more polished but it was interesting and ubique.

DNF.

Sadly I couldn't get through this. The world building left a lot to be desired. There were moments that I felt at a loss at what was going on. I would find myself reading without retaining much information no matter how many times I reread a paragraph. I actually did start from the beginning again once, but it didn't really help. What I did read had some nice writing at times.

The Glass Magician unveils an early 1900s world with people who are magicians, can change into animals, and have some wonderful and terrifying adventures going across these worlds. As always, when there are multiple races, in this case three, there are enemies. Without giving away much, people who are the product of forbidden love between the groups have an even tougher time. I really enjoyed the characters, and bought into the premise. I would be happy to learn more about these folks.

The concept of this book was incredibly unique, but unfortunately, it fell a bit short of what I was hoping for. In Thalia's world, there are three classes of people: Solitaires, Sylvestri, and Traders. Traders are able to turn into an animal at will, while Solitaires are just regular people. I wasn't entirely sure what Sylvestri were, but they are generally incredibly wealthy and exclusive.
The main character, Thalia, grew up thinking she was a Solitaire, as well as taking over her father's profession as a stage magician. However, when something goes wrong during a performance, Thalia discovers that she is, in fact, a Trader, taking the form of a swan. I thought this part was so interesting, and I really liked how Thalia is welcomed into the Rykers' home by Nathaniel Ryker and his sister Nell.
However, the mystery aspect of the book, concerning the murder of another stage magician, von Faber, didn't interest me as much, While I wanted to learn more about Traders and their culture, I found myself less engaged when reading about the murder investigation.
Other than that, the characters weren't as developed as they could have been, although I really liked Nell and her relationships with both her brother and with Thalia.
I might continue on with this series, if only in hopes that I learn more about Traders and the way they live (as well as the mystery of Thalia's mother and brother!) 2.5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Books for this book in return for an honest review.

I really, really liked this book. The main character, Thalia, is so realistic in actions. I don't know very much about the time period this is sent in - the early 1900s - but it felt like her personality and strength could really transcend times to today. I love a good female character that is strong but doesn't fall into tropes of being overtly tomboy. Thalia was both strong and feminine and I find that isn't super common.

The writing was quite captivating, with a unique world that held interesting magic. However, I found that it wasn't fully explained. There seemed to be three distinct "races" of humans; Solitaire, Trader, and Sylvestri. Only two were ever really fleshed out. Perhaps it was because of the main characters POV that we don't explore Sylvestri, but it would have been nice to get a fuller backstory about this world.

As for the other two, it was still confusing as to what made a Trader. The actual magic wasn't really well explained and left me wanting a bit more in that aspect. The actual plot of the story revolved around a mystery and the discover of magic. While the beginning dragged, it did speed up towards the end to lead to quite an exciting climax. I don't know if this is part of a series, but it would be really nice to actually explore the world and the relationship between the three "races" a bit more.

I originally selected this book due to its lavishly beautiful cover and its fun premise. The summary makes it sound like a cross between "The Wild Swans" by Hans Christian Anderson, "Bluecrest" by Madame d'Aulnoy, "The White Deer" also by Madame d'Aulnoy and the works of Erin Morgenstern. It's basically advertisted as a fairytale retelling. However, "The Glass Magician" adopts its own mythology and story. That's one of the strongest reasons to enjoy this book. I give major props to Stevermer for creating such a rich magical world.

Something I don't like is when fantasy books expose the reader to the world and don't explain all the rules at first. This is what reading "The Glass Magician" felt like. Too quickly I was thrown into the magical world with no time to adapt. Between all the characters with complicated names and quick pacing, it was difficult for me to keep up. I couldn't relate to any of the characters, and even the beauitful theater setting felt rushed. I want to dive back into this gorgeous magical world, but hopefully with more detail and a simpler plot. The concept is really creative and shows great promise, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

Caroline Stevermer has written a wonderfully realized world for three different types of people-Solitaires, Traders and Silvestro-inhabiting New York City. They are fully developed and we learn bits about the background of each in this detailed interesting story of the interactions they have with each other. I was drawn in by the lure of the magician who performs in a vaudeville type setting but was quickly transported to the entire world and the problems and divisions of each group. This novel is dense and involved but very enjoyable. Be prepared for it to stick with you. Thank you to #netgalley for #theglassmagician to read ahead of publication.

Okay. So I was super excited when I first saw this book. I’m totally into books nowadays that deal with royalty/the elite and privileged/magic! So I definitely wanted to give this book a shot!

It was disappointing though that it fell short in regards to my expectations. I really do think that the author had a good concept and probably had the vision for the book all planned out, but the execution needed work 😞 it kind of droned on at times, and some moments felt like they could’ve had a little more work put into the details!

I think maybe if the author did some revisions and made things more detailed and exciting, it would definitely get a higher rating ^_^

What to say about The Glass Magician? Is it suspenseful? No. Is it gripping? No. Is its world building something fantastic and sweeping? Nope, not that either. Is it about a woman who turns into a swan when she's afraid for her life? Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
The novel feels a bit steampunk, which should be cool. However, it lacks the points of fascination that a regular steampunk piece has. There's magic within the pages, both illusion based stage magic and real skin to feathers transformation, and yet it still falls flat. There's no rush to any of the book. No heated romance. No mystery begging to be solved right this second.
It's fine. It's not bad. It's the wheat bread of the literary world.

This is an interesting book with intriguing ideas behind it but it really does lack that certain oomph it needed to really make it special and sparkle like I hoped it would. I believe it had the real potential with a backstory that could have been the basis for a great tale if it had been explained more fully but I needed more information on certain areas. It should have been fantastic but for me it was just a little lacklustre

DNF @ 17%

I'm sorry but I can't continue with this book. I cannot for the life of me get into it. I keep getting distracted and thinking of moving on to other things. i even found myself wanting to just skip to the end! This just isn't for me.

Thalia Cutler is a stage magician and a Solitaire which means that she is one of the people in this world that do not have powers. This novel was a bit slow paced for me but it was overall a good book. I really like the world in which the it takes place, it's set in a very interesting time period: New York in 1905 and the magic system is really fascinating. The characters were a bit underdeveloped for my taste, I think the main character has so much potential and the romance was also cute but I wasn't very invested in it, sadly. Something that I thought was unnecessary were the descriptions of skin color which I found quite offensive... The plot had a slow start but I was pleasantly surprised when it finally picked up! I thought the ending was quite anti-climactic and I would like to see more of the characters in the future but the writing was beautiful and descriptive. I think this is one of those books that you need to give a chance to before you DNF it. It takes a while to get into, but in my experience it was worth it!
Overall I liked the book quite a lot and I gave it 3.5 stars.
Thank you to Tor/Forge and NetGalley for providing me with an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I didn’t like this one.

It seemed like they used detail more as a page filler than to tell the story. And the way some of the characters were described... well, without any spoilers, it didn’t really seem appropriate to me. The ending also seemed rushed, like it was just thrown together really quick to finish it off. I like the idea of the story and the book cover.

This book really intrigued me. The magic system was unique and the world was interesting. The differentiating of people by Black or White Trader/Black or White Solitaire was off putting because it didn’t really add anything to the plot besides their skin color. If it was a different ranking system, it would be one thing, but why not just describe each Trader as their descriptive features instead of separating them completely by skin color? The author writes beautifully, though I found the plot slow at some points. I found myself skimming at times because I was eager to get done with the book. I think that others may enjoy this book much more than I did, but as I did not find myself fully immersed, I cannot give an honest review of the work.

This is one of those books where the basic premise is interesting but the way in which it's developed fails to bear it out - in short, it's just a clunky, talk-heavy bit of a mess.

The Glass Magician is set in turn of the century New York for the most part, but a New York where there are 3 distinct groups of people - Solitaires, Traders and Sylvestri. Traders are the most financially powerful of the three, as well as being able to change (or Trade) between human and animal forms at will. They look down on the Solitaires for not having that ability, even though they seem to make up the majority of the population. Meanwhile the Sylvestri are the (less-defined) outsiders, a mixture of Native Americans and everyone else not accepted by polite society but with control over the West of the country.

Our protagonist, Thalia, is a stage magician whose parents both died, leaving her in the care of their friend who works as Thalia's manager. They make a reasonable living, travelling from city to city, and the part of the story which actually revolved around them doing this was the most interesting part of the book. During an act on stage, Thalia almost dies and is convinced that she partly Traded in order to save her own life, though her friend is sceptical. Unfortunately, it also causes a massive 'as you know Bob' style conversation between them that acts as an info-dump to set up the world building that had me almost giving up entirely.

Shortly after their arrival in New York, circumstances force Thalia to stop performing on stage and financial needs mean she agrees to take on the tutoring of a young Trader woman in the art of stage magic. This puts her into close proximity with said woman's brother, who's doubtless being lined up as a love interest in future books, but the time she spends in their house (as a visitor and then later, when her True History is revealed, as a guest) is pretty dull in the most part. There's a sub-plot around the murder of their main rival which is much more interesting but gets sucked into the overall one-note of the book.

There's a lot of talking and a lot of explaining, some of which necessary world-building could surely have been done in some other way? It's ironic that a book ostensibly about a stage magician could have spent so much time with that character not being that. Those were the best bits, shame about the rest of the book.

I did not finish this book, I only made it to 36%. I found the world really interesting, it was set in the early 1900’s and focuses on stage magicians in the Vaudeville circuit. But the world had 3 classes of people, the Solitaire which seem to have no magic. The Traders who can change form into animals, and the Sylvetri who have some sort of affinity with nature. There was the start of some great world building and some interesting dynamics. There are some stolen ticks that seemed to be leading to a bigger conspiracy, and I know there is a murder in the future, but I didn’t get far enough in the book to find out what happened.
The reason I didn’t finish the book is the author describes people by color, they are white Solitaire or black Solitaire, a white Trader or a black Trader. At first, I hoped that it was describing if they were good or bad, but as the book went on I was disappointed to find it really was describing their skin color and I found it offensive and therefore did not finish the book. I feel like there was no need for the descriptions based on skin color and it just made the book very un-enjoyable for me.

Thalia Cutler is an up-and-coming stage magician known as The Lady of the Lake. Despite being an ordinary Solitaire (think Muggle), she's good at what she does and her stage manager David Nutall is always ready to protect her in a risky, fiercely competitive profession. When a dangerous trick goes wrong one night, however, Nutall can't save her—so she saves herself. Which is great, except for the fact that her escape forces her to question everything Nutall has told her about who she really is. Not long afterward, Thalia's number one rival doesn't fare as well when his act hits a snag. Even worse, Nutall soon becomes the prime suspect in his death. And Nutall's a Sylvestri, not a Solitaire, as he's told Thalia for as long as she can remember. Her entire life suddenly seems as false as the “magic” she fools audiences with every night.

Lately I've been reading mostly mysteries and crime fiction, so a YA fantasy novel set in the Gilded Age seemed like it would be a nice change of pace. Oddly enough, the novel ended up being more of a mystery than a fantasy, which was fine with me. Stevermer's descriptions of the alternate New York City are vivid and well written, especially the scenes that focus on Thalia's magic act. The animal illustrations throughout the book are gorgeous and the characters intrigued me, for the most part. Last but not least, I liked the idea of the three different classes of beings: the underprivileged, hard-working Solitaires, the wealthy, shape-shifting Traders and the peaceful Sylvestri, who are closely attuned to nature. We don't get much background on the classes, but I expect Stevermer may flesh them out in future books if she continues with the series.

What didn't work for me: first, the formatting. This won't affect future readers, but it was God Awful, to the point where I almost didn't finish the book. Though I liked the plot and thought Stevermer did a nice job of weaving separate storylines together, the ending felt a bit rushed, a bit anti-climactic – particularly the section about Thalia's “Ordeal.” That said, it was still a light-hearted, fun, quirky read.

Much thanks to Tor/Forge and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was disappointing, as I've enjoyed Stevermer's work in the past, but this latest offering is kind of ... meh. I liked the setting in turn-of-the-century NY (19th, not 20th). However, the magic world-building left a lot to be desired; humankind appears to be divided into 3 (1/2) races: Traders, Solitaires, and Silvestri. Traders are rich and can change shape - cause and effect here is not fully explained. Silvestri _appear_ to be vaguely first-nations, but, again, it's very unclear. And everyone else is a Solitaire, and what that means is never defined at all except that it seems to be somewhat under-privileged. The 1/2 a race are Manticores, who prey on young Traders. Thalia, the protagonist, thinks she's a Solitaire but turns out to be a Trader and everything she thinks she's known about herself is not true. Things are not resolved at the end, really. There's a certain amount of pleasure to be obtained getting there, but it is certainly not a "must read" and I think could do with a fair bit of revision and reworking.

I was intrigued by the alternate history of this book and what the author does with it, especially concerning Native Americans. The book was enjoyable, but it could have used more world-building and a tighter plot.

Thalia is a young woman working as a stage magician towards the end of the 19th century. She performs her magic tricks, keeps her audience engaged, and looks forward to her next gig. With her parents dead, the stage and her manager, Mr. Nutall, her father's best friend, become her family and joy in life. Until a rival stage magician steals their act and their job. Suddenly, secrets emerge about Thalia's parents' background, and even Mr. Nutall isn't the man he pretended to be. Relying on the beneficence of her new wealthy friends, Thalia must figure out who she is and what she can do, if she wishes to be safe again.

Basically, there are 3 types of people, divided by magical ability (or lack of), that make up the different classes of society. I didn't understand why having the ability to trade shapes between human and an animal usually meant their family was rich. As far as I could tell, there was no correlation between the animal shapes people took on and their ability to earn a living. But that was hardly the most important issue, so I'll let that go.

The mysteries and the stage magic made for a good read. It was a nice light fantasy/mystery book set in an alternate late 19th century America. The characters were interesting. Some of them had some good secrets, but other than that, the side characters felt kind of flat. There's one guy who just kept being too generous against his will, and he was too nice and kind and giving - he basically had no backbone or anything about him I could respect.

Overall, the story was interesting - particularly the secrets that Thalia uncovers at the end about her family. But while it was an ok read with a good alternate world, I wasn't particularly intrigued by the plot or the characters.

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.