Book Review: Historical Fantasy

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Publication Date: April 9, 2024

Summary from Goodreads:

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family’s social position.

What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England’s heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king’s favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition’s wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.

Confession:

“Better to live in fear than in grinding discontent. Better to dare this new path than continue her slow, grim march down the road that had been chosen for her. At least the scenery would be different.”
― Leigh Bardugo, The Familiar

I had some mixed feelings about this story before reading it, historical fiction isn’t a genre I read that often, and I did struggle a little bit at the beginning. But once I settled into the story I ended up quite enjoying it. The writing was beautiful, the characters were intriguing and the setting was immersive.

There are several points of view throughout the book, some more interesting than others. Luzia gets the most page time and I found her to be a fierce and daring young woman. She hides herself quite well from the world as a meek and unintelligent scullery maid, but she is bright and cunning in her own way as well. Valentina, Luzia’s mistress, is also hiding her true self, although she mostly doesn’t know it and her story is one of self discovery. Santangel was perhaps the most interesting character, being a reluctant immortal. I really enjoyed his backstory, it was intriguing and quite different than the other characters. These were the three characters whose stories I was most intrigued with. There were many others, but they fell a little flat for me. I think the many varied characters was one of the things that hindered my enjoyment of this book. To many points of views just muddled the story a bit.

I really enjoyed the exploration of the Spanish Inquisition and all of the horrible things that happened during this time period. The author does a great job of conveying what it was like to live in this era and how hard it was for everyone to survive, even the lower cast of people who had some means, but not quite enough. The religious story line was also interesting, and the contest to find someone who could perform miracles was fascinating. This could have been explored a bit more, especially the other contestants. I sort of liked the romance, between Luzia and Santangel, but didn’t really feel invested in it. The fantasy aspect of this story was interesting, but not well explained, which also kind of worked.

The writing was beautiful and immersive. You do feel what it is like to live in this time period and how hard life was for everyone, but especially the marginalized populace. There were a lot of different themes explored as well, some in depth and others only touched upon, but many of them will make you think. The pacing was a bit slow at times, but the ending was well done and magical.

Overall, even though this was a bit of a slow read, and somewhat out of my comfort zone, I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. I do recommend it to fans of this author’s work, but be prepared for something totally different from her other works. This is different but in a good way.