I received a free copy of this book from Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

Surviving in 1789 Paris is hard for Camille Durbonne - made harder when the smallpox epidemic kills her parents and weakens her sister. Camille is left to struggle for rent money on her own while her brother drinks and gambles the little he earns. But Camille has a trick up her sleeve - La Magie - a special form of magic that runs in her blood and allows her to glamour herself into a wealthy baronness to play cards against the aristocrats of Versailles.

I loved the rich glamour of this book. We got some glimpses into the worst part of Paris, while the French Revolution rumbled into fruition, and the aristocrats turned up their nose at the beggars but the looks at Versailles and the opulence just dazzled me. The writing in this is quite detailed and lovely, and I did for the most part really feel for Camille and her struggled. I felt hugely frustrated from the very start at her dead end brother, and the disregard and violence he showed towards his sisters.

For me, the book took a while to really take off and I did begin to wonder after a while what Camille's end goals were. Yes, she needed money to save her sister and herself from poverty but after that, what else? And then Camille seemed to hate the aristocrats so much but enjoyed playacting as one, but she never seemed to really have a solution to the issues plaguing the French people at the time, except for the odd mention of her father's pamphlets.

The romance was sweet, and I did genuinely like Lazare. They did actually spend a little bit of time together before she really seemed to fall for him, and I liked that - it felt like proper dating/courting. It was also good to see a little bit of POC representation due to Lazare being biracial, and his words about how he was often treated by the French (and the racism served to him by Seguin) are hard to hear but important as well.

I definitely think there was a trick missed hear in regards to the LGBTQIA+ community. Considering we are already in a world where magic exists, and people know that magic existed at least once, if not scarcely in the present story, I would have liked to have seen a Versailles/Paris in which queer people didn't have to hide themselves or their relationships. Considering the already flamboyant, glamorous life Camille enters within Versailles, it would have good to have a full-bodied acceptance of the queer community as well.

There were a lot of great parts in this book. I would have liked to have felt the pace quicken up a bit, and a bit more action, and a bit more solidity in Camille's plans for her future. I also would have loved more history on the the type of magic she has - rather than the brief lessons she's given. It would have been wonderful to have seen something about one of her relatives and their part in Versailles magic. Even a proper visit or something to her grandmother and a history lesson served up there.