Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales)

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Whole scenes were written and discarded until I finally settled on starting the book properly from the scene where Benedict first comes home and runs into Effie. French maids were considered to be a mark of class, but real French maids could command a higher salary because of this. The staff of the household in which Effie works are seen as barely human by their employers: their names are interchangeable, if not outright forgotten, and the burden of work they are given is barely spared a second thought. Yes, his help leads to some disasters but he is too endearing to be very angry at, and I know Effie will agree with me.

During this period, footmen had a reputation for being hired based on their looks; they were considered to be tall, lovely men with nice calves and almost no intelligence. And, again, the author has done an excellent job of using her magical elements to highlight and explore the injustices present in British society during this time period. The tone reminded me a lot of one of my favorite childhood books, THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, in the way that absurd situations are treated with upmost seriousness, and abstract concepts are frequently manifested in concrete ways.And though I hate to say it, the best scene of the entire book took place in faerie with a cameo character from book one — I say that I hate this because you want the subsequent characters to outshine the ones that came before and yet this was the highlight (though to be fair it is mostly a coincidence as Effie and Jubilee did sparkle by themselves in this particular moment). We are so used to reading about the lords and dukes in historical fiction, so this was a nice change because our POV is a maid in a household where none of the servants are treated well. For the greatest obstacle to Effie’s happiness might well prove to be Lord Blackthorn's overwhelmingly good intentions. Benedict fall in love with her within one hundred days and ten thousand stitches of embroidery on Lord Blackthorn’s jacket, or she will become the maid at Blackthorn instead. For those new to Olivia Atwood, this can be read as a standalone, even though there are a couple of side characters who carry over from the previous story.

Rating 8: While comic relief and romantic hero may be a hard combo, this story was just as sweet and fun as the first book! I won’t spoil how it all worked, but, again, it was a perfect marriage of fantasy alongside very real world dilemmas and solutions. It is SO focused on the protagonist's specific grievances that it doesn't even notice the double standards and hypocrisy. When she told her second-grade history teacher that she wanted to work with history someday, she is fairly certain this isn't what either party had in mind.However, I don’t think Lord Blackthorn acted in a malicious way because he feels that he’s trying to help her but his actions are misguided. While overall I really loved it, it’s a hard balance to have your romantic hero also play the main comedy role. 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. Either commit to having the way she speaks be something integral to our experience of her as readers, or just tell us her accent changed and let us imagine it for ourselves.

I LOVED the way Ms Atwater chose to flip this trope on its head and leaned into the somewhat grimier underbelly that typical Cinderella retellings shy away from. Loving the themes that prop up these books, love that we did get a little more worldbuilding (or at least a sense of why the faerie are in this world) as I wanted, and Mr. I also ended up reading The Latch Key, a novella set in the world of the Regency Faerie Tales that takes place after the events of Half a Soul. The latter had a grain of truth: butlers held the key to the wine cellar, and were therefore capable of sneaking drinks from the good stuff.From the description, I thought we were heading down much more of a “Rumpelstiltskin” path with an impossible task, but that really wasn’t the case. Atwater's stubborn, quietly radical characters defy the expectations of both society and fairy tales as they blaze new paths towards love and decency.

Here’s hoping I’ll get my copy of Longshadow from Orbit soon because I’m even more excited to read it now. Pick up TEN THOUSAND STITCHES, and dive into another enchanting faerie tale set in Olivia Atwater’s charming, magical version of Regency England! I'm all for open-endedness, and for two people learning that they might not put the word "love" to the same emotions. They have every right to be angry at their dire circumstances and do something about it if possible, stand together with each other to demand better working conditions.I don’t want to spoil it, but there was a character in the second book who only popped up in the final quarter but stole the show the moment they did. Effie is sure that this is the man she loves, and she feels in her heart that if only she were a lady, he’d love her too. In a moment, she has fallen for h Effie is one of my favorite historical romance heroines thus far, seriously stubborn and determined to find love no matter the cost.