The Illusionist's Apprentice

Part Romance, part mystery. Maybe this is standard practice for Romance, but the writing was somewhat overwrought.

I tried to start this a couple times a few months ago and never got past the first chapter or two. Thanks to a group read, I dove in and soon found myself entirely absorbed. Then I had the opposite problem of being unable to lay the book down at all!

The mystery of Peale and his double death soon morphs into a bigger mystery of who is calling the shots in a very literal sense. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the Prohibition years and the unique character Wren is. Add to that Elliot and his fascination with Wren and her art of illusion, and we have all the elements for a good tale. The story has several shocker twists that left my mouth ajar.

I didn't care for the lack of specification about what a seance could do (for those who don't know, it is a summons of demons)...it was rather chuckled as a materialistic fraud, but the portion of the story that dealt with actual spiritualism was somewhat dismissed as being unreal. Spiritualism as a sort of religion wasn't mentioned or defined beyond using the word to describe characters and to mention seances to contact the dead as a mainstay of their philosophy. Wren and Elliot speak of faith and prayer and make a few comments about “only one man ever rose” as an oblique reference to Christ (which isn't truth anyway, since they are talking of people being summoned from death—Jesus was different because He had the power to raise up from the dead without being summoned—He Himself restored many, including Lazarus, Jairus's daughter, the widow's son, and the saints at His death). In a story so full of spiritual cloak-and-dagger, I missed Jesus. I needed to see that clear ending conclusion that the Jesus way was the ultimate answer to the claims of the spiritualists.

Also, several phrases were too modern for the twenties...most notably “gone missing,” a 1990s term used more than once. “Alright” used for “all right” also bugged me.

But, overall, a beautifully written book that is worth a read and very hard to put down!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free copy for an honest review.