After Daisy’s mother
died after her father disappeared, Daisy became the responsibility of her aunt
and uncle. And they would very much like to marry her off and get her out of
their hair
Daisy is not thrilled
with the chinless future planned for… and instead is more determined to find
her missing father; in the Texican Territories, a continent away
Her sister joins her
on the voyage - but when there’s a murder on her journey and an innocent man
seems likely to hang for it, she cannot justy move on; not until she tries for
justice, especially since no-one else seems willing
This is a
continuation of Shelley Adina’s Magnificent Devices series - being set
in the same world and with many excellent call outs and connections to the
characters within that series. But those connections are small, none of the
main characters are particularly intimate or involved with those characters,
those characters have not adventured with these characters and have no real
draw upon them. And I think this is important. Claire and all her friends and
family and flock are awesome characters but their stories have all progressed
to a whole new level. Between them they have vast resources, extremely
powerful, loyal friends and connections at the highest possible level of
society. They are not the plucky underdogs standing firm against the vast
world. They are integral to that vast world. That doesn’t mean Claire & co
can’t have plenty of stories yet - but the scale and scope of them, by
necessity, need to be much grander. We already saw this in the last few books -
defeating invasions of England, stopping a war between the Californios and the
Texican territory. The Story of Claire, Gloria, Alice, the Mopsies et al has,
by necessity, become far grander and far more epic than how it started
So when returning
somewhat to the root of the story, while keeping the connection and call outs
to the old books for excellent recognition and confirmation that this is the
same world, we also have a protagonist who will not be able to send up the
batsignal and expect all the arsenal of Claire’s flock to rain down. Similarly,
while you can pick up any of the books in the Magnificent Devices series
and not need to have read the previous books: but this
Also there’s Mr.
Featherstonehaugh who is sadly lacking in the chin department and so very
suitable. Alas this poor man, may he one day actually find a bride.
So we have Daisy -
and she’s a wonderful character - different again from all the previous
protagonists we’ve seen before: yet still strong, capable, determined, brave
and intelligent. It’s one of the gems of this greater world and series that we
all of these women who are so very very different from each other yet still
have their own strengths
In Daisy’s case,
she’s probably much more conservative than most of her fellow protagonists. She
doesn’t exactly rail against the mores of society exactly, and even her sister
finds her unnecessarily proper. I actually like this, especially next to the
other series, because it shows competent and capable women not just those
exceptions who move against society as competent: a common theme in the series.
But she does object to her uncle and aunt trying to pawn her off on any
suitable, albeit dull and chinless, men they can find, at least in part to
remove their duty to support her.
