Plot intensifies. If book one is about setting the stage, then book two is about embiggening said stage and changing the stakes. It'll be interesting to see what happens next.

This was a sweet and fun story and I think I will enjoy watching it grow beyond the bounds of the first book. And, I mean, fairy stories are always kinda fun.
There are ways in which it feels unpolished and like elements of it could fit together more elegantly, but especially for a first novel, it was a nice read.

I think I read the first book in this series when it came out and then again...recent-ish?
Anyway, this book took forever to finish, although that’s because this is really a Shabbos book that I need the uninterrupted time of Saturday afternoon to sink into rather than reading it piecemeal when I can steal time during the week. But, alas, I happen to have it in kindle form.  
The premise remains kind of bonkers - what if Regency and Victorian but also the world is ending? In that respect it has the problem that so many stories have when they begin with “what if 19th century literature?” which is that they will, inevitably, diverge and then it’s just what if fantasy? 
Beckett does a shockingly good job of holding onto the Austenian flavor of the language, but the book shifts swiftly into Bronte’s register of good and evil, retribution and reward (albeit with far more modern sensibilities) and the two never fully reach detente even as the story progresses and the “what is going ON” questions finally get answered in like the last 50 pages. 
This book is 600+ pages of buildup and then an avalanche. But wow does it take a while to get going. 
And yet, Beckett is still really interesting in what he’s trying to do and I want to know what happens next. Just, you know, not quite yet. 

Wexler is one of the best writers of epic fantasy currently writing and I wish I saw his name on awards lists more often. He's not an innovator precisely, he's the kind of writer who looks at a familiar narrative and says "you know, we could make this better" and then does and it's a joy to read because of the craft.
Part of this story is the farm child swooped up for their magical powers, taken away and trained, and then coming of age into a political morass where she has to support the good guys in her order who want to help people over the evil politicking people. The other part of this story is the child who sees the evil that the powers that be can do and grows up to want burn the system down. Wexler's genius lies in how he weaves together both familiar stories.

This book is basically all of my wheelhouses: epic women, female friendships, gorgeously well-rounded characters, and, of course, fairy tales. I loved it so much.

I love that, out of all the characters Milan could have chosen to focus on for this next novella, she picks two older women and makes it all about them thumbing their nose at expectations, at stupid social conventions, and at the voices in their minds whispering poisonous “no”s in their ears. 
This is delightful, I want more like this. 
And....cool, that’s the end of the worth saga omnibus. Next book coming out next month, I believe. 

So I decided to get this book for a class I’m sort of working on refining about Jewish law and foul language because, well, research. 
It was delightful! Definitely not for the faint of tongue, but I had so much fun reading it. The historical aspects were fascinating and Mohr has a gift for contextualizing language in order to paint a broader picture of why we we use and refuse the words that we do. 
Highly recommend if this a thing you are interested in and also don’t mind a lot of four letter words. 
Special shoutout, however, to the sentence “If someone called me a fascist today in über-liberal Cambridge, Massachusetts, I would be more bemused than insulted, but in the middle of World War II in small-town New Hampshire, the word was probably more directly relevant and offensive” as the moment when I needed to flip to the front of the book and check the publication date. 2013 seems a long time ago all of a sudden.

 | I read this story in Hamilton's Battalion and if I'd figured out it was part of the Worth Saga, I probably would have inhaled the rest of the series a lot faster. I love it. I love every part of it. It's like the cheese at the end - a perfect balance of flavors.
This story is a delight and I'm so glad to revisit it.

THIS. This is what I want from a romance novel.
It's sweet, it's funny, we're never asked to forgive a character for being an unreasonable douchecanoe, the obstacles make sense, people have CONVERSATIONS when it makes sense and the heroine is the kind of person who I so wish I could be and I love when my heroes are good people.

Am I about to power through all of the books published in this series so far? Almost certainly. Do I anticipate that being a delightful experience? Absolutely. 
And I just love how Milan’s sense of justice shines through on every page.