Book Title: The Illusions
Author: Liz Hyder
Date Started: November 6th 2023
Date Completed: November 23rd 2023
Genres: Historical, Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Star
Final Rating: Four Stars
Review:
All done with kindness. It’s a phrase that’s repeated throughout this novel but characters and is even handwritten by the author herself at the start from the lovely signed edition I found at my local independent bookshop - in fact it’s the reason I was drawn to pick it up, and it feels so utterly perfect for the novel I then got to read.
Perhaps that’s misleading, because it was also the promise of two female heroines from the worlds of theatre and filmmaking that fully convinced me. From a personal place, I fell in love with theatre from a young age and then fell even further head over heels for the moving image, partially because of a French filmmaker called Georges Méliès (and later Alice Guy-Blanche) who was one of the first to invent in camera trickery and ‘special effects’. I go into this because this book is palpable for that same adoration of performance and almost literal magic both from an audience seat and through a camera. This book was a joy to read because it was like reliving my discovery of those things all over again, and not least through two fantastically courageous and inventive heroines who were finding their own feet in those spaces all by themselves.
That’s not to say that this book relies on a personal love of these performance arts, it’s a fantastically exciting and touching book full of twists and humour, and even literal magic at some points. It’s a book that perhaps tries to tick too many boxes - it’s a shame the magic didn’t actually end up playing an integral part, some exposition ended up easily forgotten, and the romance was drawn out - but it’s one that takes you with it as it sneaks into all the nooks and crannies. You live alongside these characters (and it’s a hefty cast to keep track of) for a short while, and by the time you get to the end it’s unputdownable.
I would say it leans slightly towards the Young Adult audience though it’s marketed as adult, with that token ensemble of peers and the often lighthearted resolutions to what in other contexts could be very dark themes. But regardless it’s a genuine enjoyable read I wish I could experience all over again. A warm hug of a book, and one personally beloved to me.
