Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Niamh Ó Conchobhair has never let herself long for more. The magic in her blood that lets her stitch emotions and memories into fabric is the same magic that will eventually kill her. Determined to spend the little time she has left guaranteeing a better life for her family, Niamh jumps at the chance to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding in the neighboring kingdom of Avaland.
But Avaland is far from the fairytale that she imagined. While young nobles attend candlelit balls and elegant garden parties, unrest brews amid the working class. The groom himself, Kit Carmine, is prickly, abrasive, and begrudgingly being dragged to the altar as a political pawn. But when Niamh and Kit grow closer, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more—until an anonymous gossip columnist starts buzzing about their chemistry, promising to leave them alone only if Niamh helps to uncover the royal family’s secrets. The rot at the heart of Avaland runs deep, but exposing it could risk a future she never let herself dream of, and a love she never thought possible."
I should start a series where I review books that are not YA but get classified that way because they're fantasy novels written by women with female main characters. Owlcrate, take note! Do your due diligence and put actual YA books in your YA subscription boxes instead of adult fantasy masquerading as YA.
Anyway, having gotten that off my chest...this book was fine. Strong "inspired by Bridgerton" vibes, but maybe having a mysterious, anonymous gossip who publishes scandalous things and seems to know everything that happens is a common conceit in regency era novels and I just haven't read enough to know that. That being said, the anonymous gossip columnist in this book honestly features more heavily in the synopsis than in the actual book. "Buzzing about their chemistry," no. "Publishes one vague rumor that was basically a non-issue and in no way connected Niamh to Kit," yes.
This was a common theme in the book and probably the main reason I rated it as low as I did - there were a lot of threads (ha, because she's a seamstress) that were picked up and dropped in a very random way, almost like there were too many moving pieces and Allison Saft kept forgetting about things and then realizing fifty pages later that they hadn't come up in a while and shoving them in again. Which is weird, because frankly...there weren't a lot of moving pieces. And at the end of the day, the central drama to the story didn't really feel all that dramatic. It was very manufactured.
Manufactured drama aside, the book was fine. I didn't love Niamh, and Kit was eh. But some of the side characters were very intriguing (Kit's best friend, the princess and her...advisor? Lady's maid? And Kit's sister-in-law, loved them). If they had featured more heavily, I might have bumped this up a star. It was just too much of Niamh in her own head and very mercurial interactions between her and Kit, that was fine at first, but a whole book of it, yeesh, give me some variety.
Well...it's late, and I've been sick all weekend. So that's about all I've got to say about this book. As mentioned, I got this in an Owlcrate box, and it has a very gorgeous cover and sprayed edges. If you go into it not expecting a masterpiece, it's an enjoyable dessert read.
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