The Glittering Court Trilogy

Time for a "Recent Reads" and Book Review ...

Trilogies seem to be SO popular these days. This one had a unique approach, one I haven't really encountered anywhere in my reading experience. These three books are completely connected, but not building on each other chronologically. Parts of each overlap each other, from different perspectives, each book a different point of view. I have seen that done in novellas, as an add on or extra scene to a full length novel, and I'll always remember Anne McAffery's Dragonriders of Pern series. Two different trilogies, that had points where they overlapped, and I'd see a scene from a different perspective. But here ... it's three full length books, each on from the point of view of one of the main girls. Adelaide, Mira and Tamsen. All three girls play pivotal parts in all three books, but each one comes from a different perspective, giving light to scenes not seen in the other stories.

This trilogy has a fantasy feel ... but there is no magic, nothing paranormal. This could be traditional England and the American colonies, but it isn't. It's a made-up world that mirrors our own. More mock-historical. Men have gone to the new world to colonize. Women are scarce, so a sort of "mail order bride" situation is set up. The Glittering Court.   A company entices women who want something better. Promising them education, presentation and the opportunity to pick a wealthy partner and start a new life. The men in the colonies will get a chance to woo the women.  The women basically will have a "price" paid by the men to the company (reimbursement for the time/travel/lodging/education/clothing ... and a little profit). A win/win/win project really.  It is all above board (if it wasn't, that could be a different story).

• The Glittering Court: Introduces Elizabeth, a high ranking lady who feels stuck in her life. She chooses to take the place of her servant girl, entering the Glittering Court in disguise. She is then "Adelaide" for most of the trilogy. 
• Midnight Jewel: Is Mira's tale. It actually starts a bit before Adelaide's story in a prologue, then jumps to all the girls together. It fills in some details, some events we heard about in Adelaide's story, but we get much more of Mira's adventures.
• The Emerald Sea: Is Tamsen's tale ... it starts a bit further in, still repeating scenes we've already seen (some twice), and again, giving new information, as Adelaide and Mira weren't together with Tamsen the entire time.

It was just really odd to read something new, but knowing what was going to happen (because you'd already read it from a different perspective). Ironically, this made me LESS likely to be compelled to continue immediately, like I often am ... especially with books that end in a cliffhanger. Here, each story pretty much wrapped up, and when I did get back to the series, it was easy to get back into. Normally I'm a little concerned I might forget some storyline or something if I wait between books, but here ... while I can't say the books could really be stand-alone novels, and you would want to read them in the above order ... they are telling the same story. So much was repeated, that I didn't feel like I necessarily had to remember what came before.   

I'd read Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series and really liked it. I enjoyed all the books in the Bloodlines spin-off too. This ... didn't pack the same punch for me. I liked it okay ... didn't love it. In fact, after the first book, I wasn't sure I was even going to continue (thus my wait in-between books). 

When I finally decided to go back to the series, I picked up book 2. My library had it in audiobook format, so I selected that. I'd listened to the first book too. Book 2 was a different narrator ... normally I like consistency in a series, but here, as the POV was changed, a different narrator was actually a good thing. Except here ... it was NOT working for me. Nothing against the narrator's voice really, it was the accent. Or the lack thereof.  Mira is the one telling the story, and Mira has a very distinct (English as a second language) accent. One that was part of her character. An accent that had been introduced in book one. An accent that was used when Mira spoke ... but not when she was "narrating" the rest of the story.  Again ... it's perfectly fine not to have an entire book told in an accent generally, if it's third person, a generic narrator ... but when it IS the character telling the story, she would still have the same sound when she's thinking as when she'd speaking. My brain could not handle it. I had to stop the audiobook, and get the Kindle copy from the library and read it on my own (and MY imagination had the accent the entire time).

My favorite was book 3. Maybe because I was already invested in the story by this time ... or maybe I just liked Tamsen best. Even after the first two tales, there were some things in Tamsen's storyline that had been left unaddressed. So with the third and final book, we finally got those answers.

Overall - I do think I'd recommend the series.