At some 700 pages, The Schimmering is not a quick read. But I happily picked up this book during my reading times throughout the day, and quickly became engrossed in the tale of our three ‘heroes’.
What I love about this author’s writing is her originality. Her characters and her stories rarely fit neatly into any boxy genre and The Schimmering, while it is fantasy, is no exception. You can’t anticipate how things will work out, what will happen to the characters, to the plot itself. Which makes for excellent reading.
The Schimmering is set in a richly described world with vague echoes of steampunk (another of Peel’s genres), and subtle echoes of our own world in terms of who rules whom, an increasingly divided populace broken into factions and cults – some religious, some not – prejudices, and motivations.
Our protagonists come from very different backgrounds. De Gayne is a soldier who is a lord because of the untimely death of his much revered brother, whose standards De Gayne never lived up to from his family’s point of view; Florrie is the self-confident daughter of a well-off middle class family, where the father believed (unusually) that she should be as well educated, and as skilled in arms, as her brothers; and Jorrit, who grew up in a circus as an acrobat. They work together as a team of investigators, their skills complementary. And that’s all fine, until the Queen’s Secretary employs them to undertake investigations in which the state has an interest.
Not only overt interests, it turns out. The three are introduced to the veiled world of the schimmering, and to those who travel the ancient, hidden pathways. Suddenly, the stakes are much, much higher.
How high, and how each of them deals with their new experiences, is the thrust of the tale. Watching what is essentially the core of each character emerge – like butterflies from their chrysalis to borrow an analogy from the book – makes fascinating reading. Highly recommended.
Find The Schimmering here.
Thank you so very mush for a fantastic review, Cheryl. I am so happy that you liked it!
A pleasure to read!