The most important thing to know, if you're going to read this, is that this is not a standalone novel! This is part 1 of 2 and it does not end with a resolution. I considered quitting at the halfway point, but I made myself hold on to find out how it ended ... and it didn't.

A basic summary: In a magical version of late eighteenth century Europe, change is brewing. In England, Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce want to improve things for Commoner magicians (who aren't allowed to do magic) and achieve the abolition of slavery, both through sensible incremental legal means; in France, Commoner magicians rise up against the Aristocrats, led by Robespierre, a secret necromancer with the power of mesmerism, backed by a mysterious, powerful benefactor. On Haiti, the potion that keeps enslaved people docile zombies has failed, allowing a violent rebellion against white plantation owners.

The writing is very good, and I truly came to care about the characters. Robespierre in particular is compelling - he has a real emotional journey, and of course, a tragic end.

Altogether, though, I don't think it deserves the comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I see where they come from, but ultimately, JSMN is a novel that stands on its own feet, with sparse but extremely consistent worldbuilding, and very strongly drawn characters. This novel is, again, not a standalone, and I found the worldbuilding pretty erratic and the characters a bit samey. Where JSMN is extraordinarily intricate, with a constantly moving plot, this novel seemed to have a lot of filler - it certainly could have handled the whole plot in one book, rather than leaving it to a second to finish.

I'm also uncomfortable with the way that the Caribbean plotline is so sidelined. The prologue is Fina's perspective as a child being stolen into slavery and drugged with the potion that will make her placid and obedient. This sets up the horror of slavery as a central pillar of the story ... but it actually isn't. Fina gets much less page time than the other characters; Pitt and Wilberforce concentrate on abolition quite a bit at the beginning, but it gradually loses out to the situation in France. It seems weird to me that nobody involved in the editing process, in this day and age, threw up a stop sign and made a change.