While many elements regarding the fae and a love triangle will feel familiar to fans of the genre, and the magic could have been more fleshed out, discussions of power, inequity, trust, and hope expand the worldbuilding in refreshing ways.

In the process she discovers love, historical secrets, atrocities, and her own hidden strength. When Jas’ contract is sold to the fae, Brie braves the golden Seelie queen’s court, meets the noble Prince Ronan, and travels on to the Unseelie king’s shadow court. While the land of Faerie tempts other girls with word of a castle, a lavish ball, and a fae prince seeking a wife, Brie mistrusts the creatures who capitalize on humanity’s greed.

Brie struggles to meet the payments for the magical contracts binding their lives to Madame Vivias, supplementing her cleaning work by stealing from the rich. Brown’s sophomore tale offers a riveting mix of mystery, romance and history, paced with enough chapter-ending cliffhangers to ensure that its readers cannot-and will not-put this down expect readers to clamor for more of Anna’s adventures.Ī must-read for fans of historical fantasyīrie risks the deadly land of the Fae to save her sister.īrie doesn’t trust many people other than Jas, her eternally hopeful sister, and Sebastian, mage apprentice and Brie’s secret love (as if she had time for romance). To make her footing even less steady, she meets another handsome performer who makes her question her longstanding feelings for the aloof Cole. In a new country and with no certainties anywhere, Anna must use her powers-both psychic and physical-to find the perpetrator before it’s too late. As she puzzles out which members she deems trustworthy, others start disappearing or, even worse, are found murdered. In England, her affiliation with the Society for Psychical Research deepens as she familiarizes herself with many of its members. In this stark departure from its predecessor, Born of Illusion (2013), and its glittering Jazz Age backdrop of séances and speak-easies, Anna finds herself in dreary London alongside her beau, Cole, performing at the top of the bill with a new troupe. American Anna Van Housen, gifted teenage empath and illusionist, finds herself newly expatriated in Europe, but the dangers (and romantic tension) are just as great across the pond.

Born of Illusion by Teri Brown