Entwined
By: Cassie Birk
Edited by: Rylee Chacon
Before adding the first book in the Entwined duology to your TBR, check out one of our reporter's thoughts in time for its release on March 10th!
BEFORE WE DIVE IN…
Genre: Romantic Fantasy and Historical Fantasy.
Age Group: Adult.
Content warnings for the following described on page: Violence, Murder, Bigotry (towards a fantasy group), Lynching, Self-Harm (via magical means).
Spice Level: Mild. With the Gilded Age-inspired setting, even a kiss could be scandalous. So kissing is what we get.
Page Count: 304 pages.
Series: This is the first in a duology, with the second book still forthcoming with an anticipated release date in 2027. While the ending isn’t a complete cliffhanger, the larger political plots and relationship dynamics still have lingering questions that will be addressed in the next book, which requires some patience.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Image Credit: Art by Gabriela Romero (@themoonborn.illustrations)
Ottilie Rushford is in hiding in Harrow, a city in the City States of Arrent. She is not human, but Entwined: a mage born with magic that is activated in a certain type of light, which makes her feared and hated by Harrow’s ruling elite. If she is found, there are only two choices for Ottilie: submit to the Sorcerer’s Guild like her oldest sister Madge, where she will be forced to produce heirs with her appointed fiancé so the government can exploit their powers in the military, or get hanged by the Zealots, extremists who roam the street trying to murder every Entwined in Harrow.
Her cover is broken when her boss disappears along with the mysterious ancient artifact he was hired to retrieve. With the help of her second sister, the renowned fugitive Pretoria, Ottilie is determined to find the artifact and finally earn her way to a new life away from Arrent. But as the nature of her employer’s fate, the powerful people seeking the artifact, and the history of the relic is tied to come to light, Ottilie has a tough decision to make. Does she leave and rejoin her estranged fiancé, the poet and soldier Lewis Illing, or does she stay and fight for the rights of the Entwined with Harrow’s underground resistance, including the dashing rogue Harden?
READER PROFILE
You might find this book a great fit for your TBR if:
The historically inspired yet magical settings of The Duke Steals Hearts and Other Body Parts by Elias Cold, The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft, and The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger are right up your street.
You are a historical fiction reader and love Gaslamp era settings like The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire series by Rod Duncan, The Invention of Hugo Cabret Brian Selznick, and The Velocipede Races by Emily June Street and are interested in exploring a fictional world with a Gilded Age twist.
You are looking for more books with the “oppressed mages” troupe like N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy or Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Entwined is the first entry in H.M. Long’s third fantasy series. She made her debut in 2021 with the first book in her The Four Pillars series, Hall of Smoke, a mythological fantasy. The first novel I read of her was Dark Water Daughter from her swashbuckling fantasy series, The Winter Sea. In addition to the second book in this duology, H.M. Long has another anticipated release for 2027, Ashmarked. In person, she is in Ontario and online she is @hmlongbooks on Instagram and TikTok.
WHAT READERS THINK
“The atmosphere is an absolute moody dream. The characters are vividly unique with their own distinct motivations and histories. The plot is a combination of your classic murder mystery and heist.” —katerzjoy, via StoryGraph
“Shades of Divine Rivals in some ways. I like the world being built here, I think the writing could have done with more editing, and I don’t think this is all it could have been but I think I’ll likely pick up the sequel anyway.” —Karyn Silverman, via GoodReads
“Entwined by HM Long had a lot of elements for an excellent book, but sadly, fell flat for me. The plot is hectic but repetitive and the protagonist rather wishy-washy, frequently taking actions that left me questioning her. There is an awful lot of action packed into the pages, but something about the writing failed to really ever draw me in. And the occasional fourth wall breaks were an odd choice. That being said, the magic system is interesting, if not fully developed, and there is certainly plenty of content for the second book in the duology to work with. I think readers would appreciate more backstory for the sisters and more development in one of the romantic subplots. All in all, okay, but not one for me” —Sarah B., via NetGalley
BOOK REPORTER’S REVIEW
This book had two things in its favor when it comes to my personal taste books; a steampunk setting and a really cool magic system. There is a lot of focus on tech optimism in the beginnings of steampunk, “The movement, the genre, the subculture are all ultimately about the creative destruction of punk merged with a unique sense of aesthetics and bolstered by an optimism about the ability of human and individual potential.” (Swerlick). More recent installments have moved away from exploring the technologies that made steampunk and used the alternative past veneer to explore current social issues. Entwined is tackling issues of oppression by policing systems as well as the hypocrisy of hating and demonizing those that are seen as “other” without hesitation to embrace them into the ranks of the military as cannon fodder to maintain global might. The wider steampunk atmosphere is sometimes sacrificed for that goal, but I think it is a worthy trade-off. The one part of the world that was well-built and utilized in a fantastic way was the magic system. It is complex and you do need to remember a lot of new terms (there are a lot of different neologisms thrown around!), but it is interesting and feels lived in for the characters. It just might be confusing and frustrating to readers who are newer to fantasy to keep track of all the different elements as they appear in action-packed scenes.
The tagline for the book I’ve seen from the publisher, “Three sisters join the hunt for a stolen magical artefact in the start of this Gilded Age fantasy duology,” did feel misleading to me (Penguin Random House). Even the rest of the book’s official description makes it pretty clear to me that the three sisters are not all on the same side and that a strong part of the dynamic between the three is the different paths they have chosen that have torn them apart. The relationship between the sisters also didn’t feel as important to the book as Ottailie’s romantic interests. I couldn’t help but think of Matched by Ally Condie, which might be a cliche when talking about a book with a government arranged marriage, but this love triangle had less of a clear winner to me, which makes me more invested in the next installment. I’m looking forward to seeing these characters, especially the sisters, develop more in the second installment!
Thank you to NetGalley and the Titan Books team for providing an advanced digital copy for this report!