This is set in a city where humans live in elegant tall buildings, while fathomfolk (sirens, kelpies, sea witches, and kappa) live in the polluted waters below. Effie is full of anger and the book is about her coming to terms with the fact that anger isn’t always a good thing – it depends on how it’s used. That made it all the sweeter being able to look ahead to the summer and see two more books of the same style by Atwater coming down the pike.

Again, no spoilers, but I was really surprised with the way that Effie’s sewing came into the story. Pick up TEN THOUSAND STITCHES, and dive into another enchanting faerie tale set in Olivia Atwater’s charming, magical version of Regency England! The book even leaves it pretty open-ended whether Lord Blackthorn, as an elf, is able to feel love at all.Enter Lord Blackthorn, a faerie who is keen to learn all he can about the English, and to grow to be as virtuous as possible. While I had a hard time warming up to Effie (and lost patience with her several times throughout the story) because of her eagle eyes for every inch of her own woe and utter myopia when it came to anyone else's problems, it was when she chewed out poor Miss Buxley (and the story clearly sided with Effie) that I really stopped caring about her. He has a very small moment in HALF A SOUL, where he talks to Dora about what makes someone virtuous, which sets him on his path in this book. And there are a few references to Dora and Elias, but nothing that cannot be understood if you haven’t read the previous book.

Which makes it all the more interesting that there are still moments where he unconsciously wields privilege in a damaging way. I do not mind the phonetic representation of accents or other (for lack of a better word) "nonstandard" ways of speaking. The first book explored it from the view of nobility being forced to confront the underbelly of their glittering world. With the author's smart but funny writing, we get to see the plight of the people who work in such households and have no status, how their invisibility is considered their best quality, any wrongs done unto them have no consequences for the perpetrators but they are really powerless to do much about it. But where she sees it as a burden, Blackthorn sees it for the asset it is, and never once faults her for it.

It has both the bad side of anger, the impotent rage of the Ashbrokes that causes them to lash out and hurt those below them (without ever thinking about the fact it will hurt others), and also the anger at injustice that forces you to act. This book is a follow on from volume 1 in the series ( Half a Soul), although a rather different story, about a poor embittered maid in a Regency era country mansion. At the end of the novel, Mr Allen pilfers an expensive bottle of brandy to share with the other servants, in keeping with this stereotype.