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In her interview with me, Mary described the plot as “Jane Austen writes Ocean’s Eleven”. This brings us to Valour and Vanity, in which Jane and Vincent find themselves involved in a con game in Venice, Italy. The previous books in the series are Shades of Milk and Honey (the most straightforward romance of the lot), Glamour and Glass (intrigue and action) (Carrie's grade: B+) and Without a Summer (very loosely based on Emma, plus politics).

One of the fun things about the series is watching Jane and Vincent, the main characters, develop more and more interesting uses for glamour. They lack many practical applications due to various limits under which the illusions can be cast and maintained. Skilled practitioners can cast illusions (glamour). The Glamourist Histories is about an alternate version of Regency England with just a smidgen of magic. I know lots of nice authors whose work doesn’t float my boat this much, so I don’t think my high opinion of Valour and Vanity is solely due to bias, but yeah, I do have some. I’ve met Mary Robinette Kowal and she was very gracious and gave me a wonderful interview (you can read both Part I and Part II), and I’m a beta reader (one of many) for her next book. This is Book Four in the Glamourist Histories series and the series keeps getting better and better with each book!īefore we go any further I want to tell you that this review is so biased that I’d prefer you think of it as a commentary on the book rather than a review, although I am giving it a grade. Valour and Vanity is not a romance novel in any conventional sense, but I encourage romance readers to try it out because of its superlative portrait of a healthy marriage.