“It is absurd that my first thought is a desire to keep this from your mother” (25) Vincent says to Jane as he prepares to help the crew defend the ship. Which makes it all the more shocking when rakishly dressed buccaneers board their boat, robbing passengers and crew. No pirates patrol this part of the Mediterranean. That, of course, is absurd, as Jane and Vincent know. She’s heard a rumor that pirates rove the Gulf of Venice! Pirates! Bennet worthy panic as Jane and Vincent’s ship is about to depart. They have been on a mostly joyous Continental trip with the rest of Jane’s family, celebrating her sister Melody’s wedding, but Jane is glad she and Vincent will soon be alone because her mother can tend to be high strung.

To that end, they are headed to the island of Murano, famous for its glass-making artistry. That beautiful lion is forever fixed in place because glamoured images made with traditional methods cannot be moved, but Jane and Vincent hope to perfect a new way of creating glamour by weaving its threads into molten glass which could then be easily transported. I just hoped I would love Valour and Vanity as dearly as the others.Ī tip from Lord Byron sends Jane and her husband Vincent to the ruins of a Roman amphitheater where an ancient but still vibrant lion glamour roars and struts among the rubble. Still, I trust Mary Robinette Kowal’s storytelling skills so there was no way I would miss her latest. Napoleon’s wars, the Luddite uprising, and the 1816 climate disruption are integral parts of their narratives, but the new book’s plot synopsis does not hint at a similar use of history. Pirates? The Regency version of a heist film? Those may appeal to many but aren’t my preferred cup of tea.I love that the earlier books incorporate historic events into an alternate Regency world that shimmers with glamour–a magical art of illusion. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first three books of the Glamourist History series which has only gotten better as it goes on, but when I read the description of the fourth book I wasn’t positive that improving trend would continue, at least for me.

Valour and vanity