312 pages

English language

Published Aug. 28, 2005 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-4821-0
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
61678826
Goodreads:
17861

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4 stars (38 reviews)

A bold fantasy in the tradition of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, The Merchant Princes is a sweeping new series from the hottest new writer in science fiction!

Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She's a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme, Miriam thinks she's found the story of the year. But when she takes it to her editor, she's fired on the spot and gets a death threat from the criminals she has uncovered.

Before the day is over, she's received a locket left by the mother she never knew-the mother who was murdered when she was an infant. Within is a knotwork pattern, which has a hypnotic effect on her. Before she knows it, she's transported herself to a parallel Earth, a world where knights on horseback …

5 editions

Review of 'The Family Trade' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. It was very readable, kept me interested and reading till the end; but also, not extremely memorable characters or details, so I doubt I'll have much memory of anything I read in a year or two. There's really only one character you get to know well, which is Miriam, the high-powered journalist who discovers she has the inherited ability to step between worlds into an alternate dimension. This ability comes to her from her family - who she has never known, being an orphan - but once on the other side, her ability identifies to her to her relatives, who turn out to be the equivalent of a massively powerful and corrupt mafia family. Now Miriam finds herself trapped in the "family business" - whether or not she wants any part of it, her ability to travel makes her highly …

Review of 'The Family Trade' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I think at some point in their lives every girl has wanted to be a princess. Unfortunately after while you realise that most princesses, don't really get to do very much cool stuff. In fact was quite often the prince, the knight, the x male hero that did all the exciting stuff and the princess is a bit disappointing in comparison.

I think this is the first book in about 20 years about princesses that hasn't induced optic nerve damaging levels of eye rolling.

This book follows Miriam. Miriam is a tech journalist, or at least she is before rapidly getting fired at the start of the book, who discovers that she is a member of an Ruling Class of a world that she can travel to buy staring at a locket that used to belong to her mother (think the Long Earth, but sort of mediaeval). Of course in …

Review of 'The family trade' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

This is the first book in a series called the Merchant Princes. I'd say it was frothy entertainment, done pretty well. A few people have the genetic ability to move back and forth between the present day and an alternate universe set on what appears to be the same planet, but to what looks like a period about 200 years earlier, and where history is a bit different. They use this remarkable ability to run a business that exploits the differences. A woman with this ability is orphaned as an infant, raised as a middle class American, and discovers her ability when she's 32. Consternation ensues.

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Subjects

  • Women journalists
  • Murder victims' families
  • Inheritance and succession
  • Fiction