Shades of Milk and Honey
Author – Mary Robinette Kowal
Hardcover
Pages: 304
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: August 3rd, 2010
ISBN-10: 076532556X
ISBN-13: 978-0765325563
Cliché as it might sound, if Jane Austen had sat down to pen a fantasy, this is the book she would have written.
—Intergalactic Medicine Show
It might be a cliche, but it seems almost impossible to avoid commenting on Mary Robinette Kowal’s debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, without referring to Jane Austen and her classic works of literature. It’s a comparison encouraged by Kowal (who cites Austen as an inspiration for the novel) and her publishers, but lifts expectations to sky-high proportions. For those unfamiliar with Austen the draw of the novel is more likely the melding of classic period literature with the fantastic in the form of glamour, a type of soft magic used by high-society to decorate their homes and enhance theatre. It wouldn’t be unfair of a reader to think of the novel as Beauty and the Beast told from the perspective of the Beast, a play on the classic tale that Kowal herself subverts with some tongue-in-cheek within in the pages of Shades of Milk and Honey; or, if you’re feeling very coy, you might describe it as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies without the zombies.
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