The Scorpion

I recently finished reading The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. This is my book club's May Book.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT

  Rating: 3.75/5 stars

"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 Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both."

I really enjoyed this one and it really reminded me of how much I just adore Leigh’s prose and style of writing. But this story has a lot of heart, and a lot of tragedy, and you can really tell Leigh put a lot of her soul in this story. This book takes place in Madrid, during Spain’s golden age - where Spain colonized, forced labor, forced religious oppression, and forced cultural assimilation. But this is also a historical fantasy about three women and an immortal, all cursed in their own ways, all trying to survive in this world that constantly tries to silence them.

Valentina - is forced to ask her husband for permission to even leave her house, while also trying to present a fake front of wealth to the upperclass society, despite not having much wealth anymore. Valentina is very desperate to gain some kind of agency, and attention from the upper class, and sees a way to do both when she notices a housemaid able to perform magic. But gaining the attention of more powerful eyes might not be a good thing for anyone. 

Luzia - works for Valentina as a housemaid, and is able to perform magic because of her Jewish ancestry she has always been forced to keep secret from the world. But because of Valentina, her secret has now spread, and she soon has a tournament to win, for a wealthy patron who wants to gain the attention of the king, who wants to keep winning his wars. Luzia is forced to walk the line of performing magic that will please, but not magic that will scare her oppressors forcing her to perform said magic. 

Santángel - the immortal who is tasked with helping train Luzia to win the competition, but who also has a lot of secrets and mystery from his own past, that keeps haunting him lifetime after lifetime. 

Hualit - Luzia’s aunt, whose story really intrigued me because she has lived her life doing everything she thinks was needed to survive. I would say that her storyline is the smallest of the four, but she impacted me so much that she needed her own bullet point! 

I really love all four of these very complex characters, very deeply! The journey of this book is what I enjoyed the most, and I think you will too if you pick it up and give it a try! It does have a slow start, but I was entertained to the end. No one writes yearning and angst like Leigh Bardugo and to write something so beautiful in a world (and real history) that is so devastating, is also a feat of magic in and of itself.

Trigger + content warnings: loss of parents in past, loss of a loved one, suicide, antisemitism, colonization, vomit, abuse, spiders, scorpions, sexual assault (forced touching), sexual assault insinuation, talk of torture, torture (including waterboarding), forced nudity, blood, fire, abandonment, blood, murder, grief, fore, violence, slavery, animal death, animal cruelty (squirrel), colonialism, misogyny, drugging, talk of infertility 

Check out The Familiar, and discover what happens when magic from her past influences her future.

Happy Reading :)