Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle meets Sally Gardner’s The Red Necklace (2008), with a hint of Jane Eyre thrown in for good measure, in this vivid and rousing debut. Set in Victorian-like Lorinar, a country at war with the fairies for several generations, this speculative-fiction romance features Nimira, a performing “trouser girl,” who left home to seek her fortune elsewhere after her mother died and her father squandered the family fortune. When Hollin Parry, a wealthy sorcerer, asks the young singer to accompany his piano-playing automaton, she thinks she has been rescued from her seedy life and is out of danger until she discovers that a fairy prince is trapped inside the mechanical man. Nimira reveals her cleverness and fortitude as she takes on a sorcerer assassin, battles the powers of dark magic and attempts to break the prince’s curse. Unlike similar and heftier tomes, this tale is kept under tight control with brisk pacing. But alas, sequels are all the rage, so readers must wait to find out the fate of the prince and his human love. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
