A Fragile Enchantment

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

“She is common, but she is divine-blooded.”

A Fragile Enchantment was a fantasy re-imagining of the historical way the United Kingdom treated Ireland that lead to the Great Famine in the 1800s. Niamh Ó Conchobhair is an eighteen year old Machlish (Irish) girl who was born with the magical ability to infuse the clothes she sews with emotions. When a dress she sews for a common girl is seen to help her capture a member of the nobility for her to marry, Niamh's designs become popular. So popular, the Prince Regent of Avaland (England) invites her to come and sew the wedding clothes for his younger brother's wedding. Niamh sees herself responsible for her grandmother and mother's well-being and knows this to be the opportunity to make enough money to secure their futures. However, the more Niamh uses her magic, the more life force drains from her but Niamh is a martyr and thinks it's her duty to sacrifice herself for her family, the way her ancestors fought against Avaland's rule.

She had grown up on horror stories of the Avlish royal family’s power. How it had caused the Blight by depleting the soil. How during the War of Machlish Independence, briars had torn from the earth and skewered men like living bayonets. Niamh had always suspected those legends were exaggerated. Now, she wasn’t so certain what the Carmines were capable of.

When Niamh gets to Avaland, she's amazed at the opulence (it's a very Regency England setting) but realizes quickly that something itsn't quite right. The castle seems to be running on a skeleton crew and there's obvious unrest with the working class protesting and demanding reparations for how the Avlish have treated the Machlish. There's also the obvious arranged marriage feeling with the Prince Christopher (Kit) sullen and angry that he is being forced to marry the Princess Rosa. The Prince Regent, Jack, seems to constantly be harried and keeps refusing to meet with Helen, the leader of the protesters. It's a tense situation and it gets complicated more when Niamh and Kit start to notice each other more.

He had chosen her not for her skill or her craft, but to make himself look enlightened. To slither out of any accountability. She was nothing more than a novelty to point out to her fellow countrymen and say, Look, not all of you suffer here.

Since the world-building borrows and relies heavily on Irish and English historical relations, it's kind of already built in, as long as you the reader are knowledgeable about such things. The magical components also borrows some from Irish mythology, which was a fun additive but Niamh's personal plot of her magic draining her life force didn't feel quite filled out right. Without scenes with her grandmother and mother, we have to go on her word that she's forced to do this and the reasoning never had me truly buying into it. Since she's a seamstress, I thought there would more scenes of her sewing and fabric descriptions but they were fairly few, even though the story has Kit constantly telling her not to overwork herself. I just felt it needed to be a bigger discussion that while she sews, she's taking years off her life??

A girl like her wanting Kit Carmine would not—could not—end well.

This is all told from Niamh's point-of-view and I thought it took until closer to the midway point for her and Kit to show anything of their relationship. They share a kiss in the second half and get a closed door scene but I'm not sure I really felt or understood the claim that they have a burning romance, the emotions just weren't there for me. This does read Young Adult, with the occasional curse word and even though it's historical fantasy, the vernacular reads modern (leading to an uneven feeling with the supposed to be Regency England). The angst comes from Jack making Kit marry, for political reasons, but Kit and Niamh starting to want to be together. There's some secondary character friends on the side, helping and hurting the cause, a quick jaunt to a country house of the royal's that felt added in for the requisite country house scenes, and a little political intrigue.

“I am so afraid, Kit. I am afraid that I will fail, despite all the pains I have taken. I am afraid I will let everyone down. And deep down, I am afraid that I am horribly, irredeemably selfish because I am so afraid that I will die without having let myself live at all.”

I read an early ARC copy and I hate to say it, but it read more like a beta, Niamh's magical story thread needed more shoring up as it only seems to get weaker and weaker as the story goes on. The ending gave a last thirty percent third act breakup, and again, not fully constructed right with the stopping a wedding, a duel that felt madcap thrown in, and revelations that were a bit obvious regarding the political aspects. It all wraps up with a HEA and relations between the countries hopefully taking a right step toward working together. The elements were there but lack of refinement had this more of a struggle to get through than enjoyable.

This book is like a fairy tale. Usually when I say that, I mean it in the "dark, tragic, unsettling" sort of way, but this time I mean it in the "dreamy, beautiful, hopeful ending" sort of way. You've got your self-sacrificing heroine with a heart a gold and magic in her fingertips, a cranky prince surrounded by a wall of thorns (sometimes literally), and a kingdom in peril. The magic system doesn't get much detail, leaving the reader to have to accept that magic is magic, but the rest of the world building is solid - weighted heavily on real world history, including a frank look at colonization, classism, the fact that LGBT people have existed at every point in history. And yet even with all the weight, it remains a dreamy, sometimes cozy read about a gently blossoming romance between two lonely people.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy. All thoughts in this review are my own!