As you all know, I’m a big fantasy-lover. I really enjoy a detailed fantasy where the worldbuilding is unique (and even daunting, I love to be daunted), the characters are complex and have interesting stories and motivations, and there’s a creative magic system. I would say The Mask of Mirrors checks all these boxes and more.
The Mask of Mirrors is a fantasy novel set in the fictional city of Nedezra, which many have compared to Venice due to the portrayal of the architecture and canal systems. I don’t think this has been confirmed by the author, but the city is described quite similarly to many European canal cities, which makes a fantastic backdrop for a mysterious fantasy.
The story is told from multiple points of view, although Ren is the main character, and the story follows her the most closely. The alternating point of views are added to give context to the story because there is a LOT going on.
Our main character, Ren, is attempting to con her way into a wealthy family to create financial security for herself and her sister. After the death of her mother, Ren was raised on the streets of the city, eventually becoming a “finger”. These are street children who learn to pickpocket, steal, and cajole coins out of others. As an adult, Ren will do anything to stay away from these street groups. From the start of the novel, we get a really layered main character with strong motivations and an interesting backstory in Ren.
The Trimentis family, the family Ren is trying to con her way into, is actually quite poor. They are facing their own issues with securing trade routes through the canals and squaring off with other charter families. As if that isn’t enough, there is a rising issue in the impoverished areas of street children, the children of groups Ren used to belong to, disappearing. The only people who seem to be investigating this crime is The Rook, a vigilante for the people, and a singular policeman, who has also been hired by the Trimentis family to investigate Ren. As I said, there’s a lot going on.
We’re dropped in the middle of these events, and while there isn’t much overtly explained, I think the author does a great job of parsing out information as needed. I didn’t feel confused by the events, relationships, rules, logic, or magic of the world, which tells me the author did a great job incorporating these elements into the story in an absorbable and understandable way.
Within Nedezra, there is a social hierarchy where the charter families, those who have held power the longest and own the trade routes throughout the city, are the richest. Merchants and street sellers seem to do well, but there are a significant amount of poor city dwellers that largely outnumber the wealthy. Part of these poor folks are an oppressed group who are facing strong tensions with the government of the city, which adds yet another layer to this multi-faceted novel.
The plot follows Ren and as she deals with her personal struggles, most of which occurred before the start of the novel, and her journey to assert herself in Nedezra. As she becomes more entangled in the social and political sphere, she also becomes entangled in the previously aforementioned plotlines. Ren is the connection between each different storyline, and we’re along for the ride as she investigates and discovers what’s really going on in the city.
It’s a really interesting and well done journey, in my opinion, because we are able to follow Ren as she becomes more and more involved in the existing elements of the story. It’s engaging to see how all of these different plots start to conjoin and revolve around Ren, and then the ending of the novel really brings them to a head.
Having said that, the main drawback of the novel, for me, is the way the author decided to write the point of view. For the most part, we follow Ren throughout the novel, and her perspective feels very purposeful and well-thought-out. Occasionally, the story will switch to another character’s POV to help explain an aspect of the story, characterization, or something that is fairly integral to moving the plot along.
We know from the beginning that there will be some POV switching, since the story actually starts in Donaia Trementis’s POV, but the switches are so infrequent that they feel like an afterthought. There is also nothing to denote the switch, not that a denotation is absolutely necessary, but this makes it feel like the author couldn’t commit to telling the story through multiple POVs.
The only time the POV switches is if Ren is incapacitated, or there is information that the author feels the reader should know that must be kept from Ren. To me, this feels like weak storytelling. I wish the author had either committed to fleshing out the multiple points of view (because the characters are plenty interesting enough to explore in this way) or told the story entirely through Ren’s lens and allowed us to find out information as she found out about it.
Something I think this author did really well was include plenty of diverse characters with their own motivations and stories. Every character we meet has a distinct personality and a detailed background. There are hardly any flat characters, and that adds a lot of depth to the story.
The author also does a great job showing multiple “sides” throughout the book. There are some obviously bad people and some obviously good people, but there are also a lot of moral gray areas that are explored, and most of the characters fall somewhere in there. I personally enjoy this because I think there is a lot of complexity added to the story when you’re not singularly rooting for one person.
The last thing I want to hit on here is that the author does a great job with queer representation. Same-sex relationships and transgender characters exist in this world very naturally. It’s addressed very casually, the same way the hetero relationships are, rather than being the cornerstone of a character’s personality, and these relationships are shown as very normalized and accepted in Nedezra.
Overall, I think The Mask of Mirrors is one of the better fantasy novels I’ve read recently, and I cannot wait to read the second book. The story ends on a lingering note that shows the author only has more to explore from here.