A Fragile Enchantment

This was everything. It had me twirling my hair and kicking my feet. It was funny, smart, and so full of heart.

i’m having a very weird feeling of deja vu as i write this review. similar to the start of last year, i am holding any reviews due to the marketing boycott for SMP titles, which wednesday books falls under. so, as i echo from my sentiment in previous boycotts… i don’t know when this review will see the light of day. but it shows the power in readership and boycotts if you do see these words. okay… onto my thoughts:

thank you to st. martin’s press, wednesday books, and netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

file under: we really need trad publishers to start using new adult as an age range.

i need to start with the one thing that will endlessly bother me about modern day traditional publishing. and it’s nothing to fault the actual story in saft’s case as these characters are well… adults (albeit still very young ones). but it’s the fact that we still do not recognize new adult as a true age range for stories following characters between 18-24. there has been an ongoing discourse about the concept of young adult versus new adult. in contemporary stories, we can distinguish it as stories set in high school versus in college (university). in fantasy it gets a bit more complicated.

but in the case of a fragile enchantment, i fully believe it should have been published as a new adult title and here’s why. the open door sex scene. i know we have run the debate about the fact that yes. teens can and do have sex. however, when we are marketing something as YA, that can bring readership as young as 13 or 14. disagree with me if you’d like, but i personally do not believe that a book that is marketed to as young as that age should have any graphic sex scenes. and the fact that this book does have a scene where it does go into explicit detail, i just don’t think that’s appropriate to be labelled as YA anymore. this has become more and more a problem as authors recognize adults, like me, are reading and enjoying YA titles, so they skew the contents up a bit more.

long story short, this is why we need to have new adult as a widely recognized age range. for stories like this one to fall neater into.

anyways, with that rant over. let’s get into the actual contents of this book. i so absolutely adored this book. this story, no matter how sappy, how predictable it was, was just an absolute gem and it’s all thanks to niamh and kit. their dynamic was beyond enticing. their banter, their tenderness. all of it was what kept me coming back into this world. into sootham. while i know others might say it’s instalove, i would disagree. the attraction. sure, that was absolutely there from the beginning. but i just loved seeing their relationship unfold, as they spoke and snuck around. gods, did it have me giggling and kicking my feet like i was also a lovesick puppy.

and while yes, the romance was at the forefront of the story — alongside niamh’s tailoring of course — the other layers of discussion woven in. the discussion of queer identities in this world, how both niamh and kit were bi (or pan), we know they don’t really have the labels so i won’t assign one specifically. how kit said “you’re like me”. that’s where i was sold. in the end we had a beautiful, little queer found family situation and i truly loved each and every one of them.

and let’s not forget the fact that niamh gave us an honest depiction of a chronic illness, one that did not let her stop her but did impact her quite often in the story. i truly, truly appreciate having this disability rep on page because i had no idea that there was any. i really appreciate how saft incorporated all of these elements into the story without them taking away or becoming a focus point away from the main political plot line.

truly, a beautiful romance wrapped in even more beautiful prose.

Saft has such a gift for writing characters who burrow their way into the reader’s heart. The side characters as well as the MCs were beautifully crafted and carefully written to where you truly couldn’t hate any of them. They were all so human.

The magic system was interesting, and the background of civil unrest and generational trauma gave this overall cozy-feeling romantasy a pinch of grittiness (which I’ve learned is something else Saft is great at writing into her stories).

Her writing style, imagery, and beautiful diction really helped bring the story together. I loved how different this one was to “A Far Wilder Magic.” There was something softer and sweeter about this one.

In comparison to “A Far Wilder Magic,” I liked that story just a bit more. The ending to this was just a little too quick-paced for me and there were some moments that felt redundant.

... okay so i enjoyed this a lot more than i expected to! I really should stop picking up random fantasy books fully knowing they're probably romantasy but this caught my eye and I was like hmm. and I did in fact almost put it down because I met Niamh and Kit and Sinclair and instantly was like ah yes every trope in the book possible but I kept going anddd well. I liked it. so. actually liked the romance and the politicizing and the writing style was wonderful. I don't have much to say about the fantasy/magic bc it is very soft but it do be intriguing if underexplored bc romance/politics took front and center which honestly makes sense in this case. anyway, fun times? quite liked the whole thing and the utter rawness of a lot of it. Flawed characters and their flawed but ultimately triumphant love, romantic or not - :)

first read of 2024 and this book gets 3 stars!!! but 3 stars as in it was simply enjoyable and not 3 stars it was borderline trash a couple of plot holes here and there’s but rosa and mariam my favorite couple made up for it one thing that disturbed me deeply was the fact that this book just ended without mentioning anything about niamh her disease? wasn’t she supposed to die? anyways yeah 3/5!

This book was so delightful. Regency-ish fantasy romance. Full of big emotions. It was absolutely a treat to read. I love this world and characters.

An utter delight!

Many thanks to the author and Netgalley for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was 100% my cup of tea. This is one of those books where I feel like I have to review it with three different hats on: my Personal reader hat, my professional/technical hat, and my Christian hat (which is really doing a double crown of Egypt thing with the Personal reader hat lol). My professional/technical review is easy, because I have really no complaints*: the characters were really nice, consistent, and fleshed out; the situations were believable; the emotions and personal discussions were well handled. The best part about this was honestly the sewing - I love cross-stitching, and have always yearned to be able to make my living doing my sewing. There was something so deeply satisfying to me about reading the descriptions of Niamh's work. It got me all fired up, which is good because I was on the precipice of a dangerous sewing slump. I loved the platonic friendships in this book too - Niamh and Sinclair, Rosa, and Miriam. I liked the dynamic between Jack and Kit. I liked Sofia a lot actually, and I was really hoping to see more of her. She deserves a whole book to herself, honestly. Sometimes books will include a character's trauma as an integral part of their story, but this book wasn't like that. Niamh turned out to be a bit of an unreliable narrator when it came to her own life, and as the story went on and Kit started calling her out on some of her more destructive tendencies, she (and the reader) came to realize that her relationship with her family was perhaps not always a healthy one. We never got details on it, aside from some suggestions that her grandmother is an extremely judgmental traditionalist, but I find I really appreciated that. Niamh doesn't "reveal" any details possibly because she doesn't see them all yet, but also (from an authorial perspective) it's not really important that we know them. We see what Kit sees: a woman who works herself to death, giving everything she can in support of her friends, and keeping or asking nothing for herself, to her own eventual detriment. We can assume that the same has been happening her whole life to harmful effect, but that really doesn't matter anymore because it's in Niamh's past. Jack and Kit's childhood trauma is handled quite differently. We are given a bit more info on their situation, partly because it's still so directly affecting their present troubles, and because what they experienced was a perhaps more clear-cut form of abuse. They are able to look back with no trouble and see that their situation was messed up. I appreciated that they discussed (ever so briefly) that children can live in the same family and have different relationships and experiences with their parents as well - Kit's relationship with his mother was completely different to Jack's, but never is either of their experience invalidated or shown to be "incorrect." Very cool. Okay, my personal hat is just making this noise: I loved Kit. I loved Niamh. I loved Kit and Niamh. What do you want me to say? I loved everything with the flowers and the gardens and the rain (view spoiler)[and the dying girl thing, surprisingly enough. I didn't think I'd like that bit, but I actually really liked it** (hide spoiler)]. I loved the magical, empath embroidery! I don't usually care about the fantasy clothes, but this book had the best fantasy clothes I've ever heard of. It was probably the magical empath embroidery, which I loved. I loved the palace vibes! I loved fantasy Ireland and fantasy regency and DID I MENTION THE MAGICAL EMPATH EMBROIDERY? Did I mention that I love Kit and Niamh?? ...??????? *ahem* Now, my Christian hat has some hesitations. Firstly, literally every character in this book experiences same-sex attraction. Niamh and Kit are obviously bisexual (since they end up in a relationship with each other), Sinclair is gay, and Rosa and Miriam are gay (or so I assume). This was a frustrating thing to include wholesale like this, especially where Kit and Niamh are concerned, because it really ultimately did not affect the story much. Kit and Niamh's sexuality is used entirely as a device to explain Sinclair's downfall. It's implied that there was some scandalous relationship between him and Kit, but I don't think anything actually happened? It was all rumor I think, which could have been contrived even if Kit weren't bi. Same with Rosa and Miriam's "romance" (as such); it felt more like it was included just to make us feel better about (view spoiler)[Kit leaving Rosa at the altar (hide spoiler)]. It just feels like they were all details added to check a box. That's not to mention that it was all handled in an amoral, relativistic way. Which brings me to my final thought - the conclusion of Niamh's personal arc bothered me a little. It had a very individualistic bent in the end, which makes sense based on her background, but didn't sit right with me. I can relate somewhat to Niamh's self-destructive people pleasing, and maybe my qualm here is just because I have a hang-up on this in real life. Nonetheless, from a Christian perspective, we are called to love others more than ourselves; this total self-sacrifice is one of the things that draws me the most to motherhood, and I think it's a good quality. Obviously it's not healthy to totally run yourself into the ground, but this is where my concerns arise - it's not "selfish" to make healthy choices for yourself. It's not selfish to sleep and eat and exercise, nor is it selfish to do those things instead of something else you need to. But it also isn't bad to do things for your family or make prudent choices! Niamh makes a quick leap from "Kit is telling me I need to rest," to "I should be able to make selfish choices for myself and take what I want from life, my family be damned." Shouldn't there be some in between?? This is less of an actual complaint, and more the start of some musings. I want to write and think (and pray) more about this idea. ALSO, I should mention (because it surprised me) that there is literally on-page sexual content in this book. It's not described explicitly, but it definitely happens; the characters have sex another time as well, but that is only implied. The rest of the book is low on strong language and has such a generally gentle vibe that I was kind of shocked that it happened. It's in the third act, (view spoiler)[in his mother's old solarium thing I believe. They're sat on a couch (hide spoiler)] . I think you'll probably be able to see it coming if you know it's there 🙃 *EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THE PRINCE REGENT'S NAME WAS JACK **(view spoiler)[We can all blame that one fanfic I read last spring for that. Made me appreciate the dying girl trope done right. It's okay, I'm confused too (no, I don't want to talk about it) (hide spoiler)]

3/3.5 stars I’m really disappointed that I didn’t love this book. I think that writing angst and tension is starting to become a lost art form. It seems to be a recurring issue with Allison Saft’s work for me. I feel like she tries to do too much in her books that everything just gets watered down in the end that nothing particularly stands out.

This book is apart of the St. Martin’s Press boycott in the United States, and though I am based internationally, I will not be leaving a review.

This was cute I loved the regency setting and magical element aspect to it and I like kit's characters.

The characters are well written but I just didn't feel connected to the romance..I didn't feel chemistry I wasn't as invested I'd have liked to have been in a romance.

This isn't a bad book as I said its good just not a new favourite.

3.25 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Massive information dump in the beginning along with flowery language so it was a lot to grasp all at once. The author was introducing so much but not fully expanding upon the fantasy world! the concept of this sounds magical but the execution wasn't the best! I felt like the book is trying to be too much all at once: historical romance fantasy with a magic element with two rival hierarchical countries with a subplot of an anonymous gossip column. Overall, the writing style didn't match my preferences and it was hard to get through.

Allison Saft’s “A Fragile Enchantment” is a fantasy romance story set in a regency era with Irish/English inspired war & class disputes and a promise of forbidden love woven together with beautiful, flowing prose.

Niamh is a seamstress from a country that has been war torn by the very royal family offering the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the seamstress for a royal wedding. Niamh is hoping for a fanciful time tailoring magical outfits in exchange for the wealth and freedom to provide for her ailing mother and grandmother. What she finds is a prickly prince, a kingdom and ruler falling apart, and a heart aching to really live.

I love fantasy romance and regency romance, so I was clearly excited for a little genre mingle. However, the regency portion of the book reminded me mostly of Bridgerton and seemed to wax and wane in appearance and importance. The fantasy portion was intriguing, but not fleshed out enough or used enough for my tastes. The romance was insta-love, didn’t feel too connected, and I didn’t feel too invested in it.

This book lacked tension. Sexual/romantic tension. Plot/conflict tension. There were many scenarios set up for angsty, tense situations (class war, family dynamics, grumpy/sunshine, forbidden love) that felt lackluster and rote. I was intrigued for the first half of the book, but then it stalled out and by the end I didn’t care much about any of the plot lines other than the sweet second romance.

Things people might want to know:

Spice: Fade-to-black
LGBTQ+: Background
Ethnic Diversity: Vague

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the digital ARC.