Tag Archives: The Glittering Court

Review: The Emerald Sea (The Glittering Court #3) by Richelle Mead

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Title: The Emerald Sea
Author:  Richelle Mead
Publisher/Year:  Penguin Publishing 6/26/18
Length:   496 Pages
Series:  The Glittering Court #3

Overview

Tamsin Wright is unstoppable. She must become the Glittering Court’s diamond: the girl with the highest test scores, the most glamorous wardrobe, and the greatest opportunities to match with an elite suitor in the New World. Training alongside other girls in the Glittering Court, Tamsin immerses herself completely in lessons about etiquette, history, and music–everything a high-society wife would need to know. Once she’s married, she’ll be able to afford a better life for her family, so the sacrifice is worth it if she can be the best.

When her friendship with Mira and Adelaide, her roommates at the Glittering Court, threatens her status as the top-ranked prospect, she does the only thing she knows will keep her on track: she cuts them out of her life. But when her voyage across the sea goes off course, Tamsin must use her unrelenting grit and determination to survive the harsh winter far north of her intended destination in hopes of making it back to the Glittering Court in time to secure a proposal–and a comfortable future for her family.

Experiencing new cultures and beliefs for the first time, Tamsin realizes that her careful studies haven’t prepared her for everything, and with new alliances formed with roguish tradesman Jago Robinson and good-natured minister Gideon Stewart, Tamsin’s heart begins to be pulled in different directions. But she can’t let her brewing attraction get in the way of her ultimate goal: protecting the secret she holds closest to her heart, the one that would unravel everything she’s worked for if it’s uncovered.

My Thoughts

I LOVE this series.  not going to lie here.  I think that each time we get a new story about one of the girls, we’re taken on a journey that honestly we had no idea about.  I think that the dynamic between Adelaide, Mira and Tamsin was always a great one, but i think there was so much more to Tamsin’s story that no one knew about, that it’s amazing to see how it all panned out.

When Tamsin reappeared in each of the preceding stories, we knew that she and the other Gray Gull court girls had survived by being saved by a bunch of Heirs, but there’s clearly so much more to the story.

Tamsin was driven while learning to be polished in the Glittering Court.  She had one goal in mind, to snag the best bachelor, and someone who wouldn’t judge her for her past – which we had no idea about before.  So to see how that all panned out – how she lost her place and chance to get the best offer, then got routed off track from a storm, ended up with a colony of people who didn’t believe what she did and critiqued her for it all.  And all the while, managing to become the most wanted female there – with Gideon, a Jr. minister fawning over her from day one, Jago being smitten from the moment go.  and well, everyone else wondering if she  was some type of otherwordly being.

The way that this installment was written makes you see this whole journey as something completely different than what it was.  There’s so much strife, so many forces against Tamsin, that if she weren’t so focused, and confident, there would have been 20 girls and a chaperone that would have been lost.  You want to root for her yet you also want to hope that she’ll lose some of her harsh edge.

This truly is a roller coaster installment.  Hope, fear, hear break, relationship growth, insane romance etc.  I think that i’m going to be really sad if this truly is the end of the series – if we only get the stories of these three ladies instead of the other 40 perhaps. …but i guess i’ll survive.  Enjoy!

Review: Midnight Jewel (The Glittering Court #2) by Richelle Mead

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Title: Midnight Jewel
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher/Year: Penguin Young Readers 6/27/17
Length:   416 Pages
Series:  The Glittering Court #2

Overview

he Selection meets Reign in this dazzling trilogy of interwoven novels about three girls on a quest for freedom and true love from #1 internationally bestselling author Richelle Mead.

Mira is not like the other Glittering Court girls. She is a war refugee, cast out of her home country and thrust into another, where she has learned to fight against the many injustices around her. For some, the Glittering Court offers a chance at a life they’ve only ever dreamed of, one of luxury, glamour, and leisure. But for Mira, it’s simply a means to an end. In the new world, she plans to earn off her marriage contract price, and finally be free.

Mira pitches herself as an asset to one of the passengers on board the ship: the sardonic and aloof Grant Elliot, whom she’s discovered is a spy for the prestigious McGraw Agency—and her ticket to buying her freedom. His cover blown, Grant has little choice but to take her on. Mira applies herself by day, learning the etiquette and customs that will help to earn her anonymity. By night, she dons a mask and slips into the city, fighting injustice and corruption on her own terms—and impressing Grant with her extraordinary abilities and insights into a brewing rebellion. But the rebellion isn’t all they’re fighting…

Neither of them can ignore the attraction burning between them—an attraction so powerful, it threatens to unravel everything Mira’s worked so hard for. With freedom finally within her grasp, can Mira risk it all for love?

My Thoughts

After getting to see the full depth of Adelaide’s story in the first book, you knew that the story we would see for Mira would be amazing.  She was such a mystery and we got glimpses of the interesting life she led while in the court – so it’s definitely no disappointment to see what happens in this story that’s focused on her.

The summary above gives us a good idea of what we’re going to get, but there’s so much more.  We recalled from the first book how the journey from one land to another ended in catastrophe, and i have to admit that i didn’t remember all the sad and troubling details since it’s been a while since i read book 1, so it was a nice surprise to me to recall it all.

On the ship, when we had a different perspective during book 1, we get to see how Mira really lived her days there. We still met Mr Elliot, but his role was completely different here, seeing as how the attention that we saw put on Adelaide before turned into something much more devious with Mira.

Then once we got to the house, and the season started, where we saw Adelaide being pursued by so many people, we saw Mria’s different approach to it all, knowing that she was there in Adoria to find her brother and get him released from his contract and hopefully get herself out of a contract.  Where the story gets even more complex is seeing that all the times we knew that Mira snuck out of the house before, it was really because she  was an ‘asset’ in a spy network, and that she also ended up working double time for Tom Shortsleeves, who’s essentially like Robin Hood.

you can imagine how things are kept moving at a fast pace especially since Mira’s got so much motivating her that others don’t.  She’s given an out of her contract through a pairing with an elderly gentlemen and to see how that friendship grows and what the resolution there is towards the end makes you want to have faith that not everyone is motivated by money or ‘mad’.

Then there’s Grant – there’s clearly a connection between them, and it reminds me of how kids are when they have a crush but act as though they hate each other.  There’s so much animosity between them that you wonder what’s going to be the point that makes a change and forces a turning point in their relationship .

There’s more death, angst, coming back from the dead, killing, attempted killing and bits of romance peppered into this story that make it a must read.  Ms Mead does a great job of giving us two very different and dynamic installments to the series since these characters and their motives are quite different and it makes it that much more enjoyable.  Now what we need is Tamsin’s story since she’s really the one that got under the radar and under my skin.  I feel like there’s so much more to get from what she went through that it’ll make that next story so amazing.  Enjoy!

Review: The Glittering Court (The Glittering Court #1) by Richelle Mead

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Title: The Glittering Court
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher/Year: Penguin Publishing 4/5/16
Length:   357Pages
Series:  The Glittering Court #1

Overview

For a select group of girls, the Glittering Court offers a shot at a life they’ve only ever dreamed of, one of luxury, glamour, and leisure. To high-born Adelaide, whose wealthy family is forcing her into a loveless marriage, the Glittering Court represents something else: the chance to chart her own destiny, and adventure in an unspoiled, prosperous new land across the sea.

After a chance meeting with the dazzling Cedric Thorn, Adelaide poses as a servant to join the crop of impoverished girls he promises to transform into proper ladies. But her familiarity with upper class life comes with a price: she must hide her identity from her new friends, mysterious refugee Mira and fiery former laundress Tamsin, and most importantly, from Cedric himself—even though she’s falling in love with him.

Everything begins to crumble when Cedric discovers Adelaide’s ruse, and she catches the eye of a powerful young governor, who wants her for a wife. She didn’t leave the gilded cage of her old life behind just to become someone else’s property. But nothing is as daunting—or as wonderful—as the potent, forbidden attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. One that, if acted on, would make them both outcasts in a wild, dangerous, uncharted world, and possibly lead them to their deaths.

My Thoughts

When i read that this was a bit like The Selection and a bit like Reign, well i felt like it was something i needed to pick up.  What we have here is a nice story / series intro of a girl who’s coming of age in a time when nobility and title mean everything and maintaining airs is what keeps the world going.  Elizabeth, or Adelaide as we come to know her later in the story is our leading lady and a girl who’s found herself in need of a husband to secure the livlihood of her family given that their finances are in disrepair, but that’s not enough for her as she’s grown up trying to be her own woman since the passing of her parents.

Throughout this story, we see her transform into Adelaide, a maid who has to hide who she truly is but grow into someone else entirely because it’s what’s right.  We take the journey with her from her high end home to a finishing school of sorts where she’s being taught to be a lady, and at the same time, she teaches herself how to be a friend.  All with the end goal of finding something wonderful, a new adventure and hopefully romance in the new world.

If only that were enough right?  Once they set foot on the new world, she finds herself in chaos – where she’s the belle of the ball of course, yet she’s being torn at making the right decision for everyone.  She’s chosen against her best friend in the past and that turned out mortally wrong, and then she’s made choices that her head and heart don’t agree on.  It’s how she comes into her own, but of course that’s not the entire point right?

We see throughout this first installment the interesting web of lies that comes into play – we know that her grandmother is searching for her and that’s part of the stress, but we also know that people aren’t quite what they seem in this story.  There are suitors that have motives that we’re not quite sure about, there are religious dealings that come into play and we see that romance and the idea of love is still quite important, but how that pans out, well, you know that it’s likely to be more romeo and juliette than a happy ending right?

All in all, a sweet story.  What i always tend to have trouble with in stories like this is really pinpointing not only the time that we’re in but the locale.  I never quite put my finger on where they were living to begin with and where the new world was (is it an England v. America thing?) and then there are all the other nationalities that are brought in throughout the story to raise fear for us.  Regardless, it helps add color to the story and i can’t wait to see what’s next for both Mira and Tamasin since i believe that’s the objective of the other 2 books in the series.  So, onto the next.  have a great day all!