THE MIST AND THE FLAME

St. Helen offers an enchanted tale that reimagines more than one of William Shakespeare’s plays.

Rosaline Capulet, cousin to Juliet, finds herself the unwilling object of Romeo Montague’s affection. While Juliet longs for a love match after learning she’s to be betrothed to Count Paris, Rosaline dreams only of studying magic at La Fortezza—the convent and secret magic academy to which she’s been recruited. In a last-ditch effort to help her cousin and her ill-fated admirer, Rosaline uses her limited magic skills to make the two fall in love, unknowingly setting in motion the events that would lead to their tragic deaths. At La Fortezza, however, Rosaline embraces her newfound freedom and adopts the name Foschia “Lumi” Luminosa—but before her studies begin, she meets an enigmatic teacher, Syra, who reveals the unintended harm she’s caused. Having already broken La Fortezza’s rule to “only do good,” Lumi is tasked with righting her wrong, but she’s paired with an unlikely partner: Freddi, a gifted swordswoman with surprising ties to Lumi’s past. Their mission soon expands when Syra sends them to save her long-lost son, Caliban, who’s been imprisoned on an island by the magician Prospero. Although the novel ambitiously intertwines two beloved plays (Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest) in a Shakespearean farce of hidden identities and misdirection, the ties between the narratives often feel strained, relying heavily on conveniently similar names to advance the plot. Character development is similarly thin; although both Lumi and Freddi experience growth, there’s little in the story to spark these shifts, leaving their transformations feeling sudden and unconvincing. Indeed, Juliet emerges as the most fully developed character, despite being present for only half the novel, as her willingness to embrace hardship for love (“Oh, Rosaline, laugh at me if you want but I want to love my husband”) gives her arc a clarity and emotional logic that the others lack. Lumi and Freddi, by contrast, lack the depth to elevate them beyond their proscribed roles.

A spirited and inventive concept that stumbles in its execution.