Review: Claws and Contrivances

Claws and Contrivances by Stephanie Burgis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the first in this series, featuring the sister of this one's heroine, and this book is equally fun. It does stretch plausibility to the utmost in order that certain revelations can come at dramatic moments; the hero doesn't realise for 75% of the book that the heroine is the person he has a letter for (from her sister, updating her on the events of Book 1), because he gets her surname wrong and she never quite finishes correcting him in the course of their hectic conversations in the middle of various crises, and even when he does figure it out, he doesn't actually give her the letter until the 92% mark, because he doesn't want to distract her from her plans to foil the villain. There are always reasons for these unlikely delays and miscommunications - it's not just "so the plot can happen" - but it did strain my suspension of disbelief almost to the breaking point. It makes for a fun plot, though, and I forgive it.

Apart from one "into" that should be "in to" (yes, it matters), I spotted no mechanical errors apart from the fact that, by my count, there should be 26 fewer commas than there are - mostly between adjectives, because hardly anyone knows the coordinate comma rule. This doesn't quite count as "well edited" by my standards, but it's close. The Regency setting, as in the first book, feels more authentic than most Regency romances (despite the presence of small dragons with magic powers); it's not just 21st-century people shoved into crinolines. But, again as with the first book, the form the hero's admiration takes for the heroine - listening to her seriously and respecting her abilities - is modern, while also feeling like it fits into the time period. By the way, that's also a much healthier standard of interaction between hero and heroine than you'll find in the average Regency romance (or, probably, the average romance of any period, including contemporary; I mostly restrict my romance reads to Regency, fantasy, or, as in this case, both, so I can't say this for sure, but that's the impression I've gained).

The plot is a delight, lurching from one crisis to another, mostly caused by the characters being who they are: the heroine is principled and devoted to looking after others ahead of herself, the hero principled and absent-minded, the heroine's cousins include an airhead dramatic fan of Gothic romance and a bluff and confident and basically out lesbian (inasmuch as you could be an out lesbian in the early 19th century), and the villain is an avaricious and manipulative rake. The dragons are cute, the resolution is satisfying, and I look forward to the third book.

I'm confident that there will be a third book, because there's a third sister, the earnest but dreamy mathematician Harry. I thought when I finished the first book that she would be paired with the hero of this book, the earnest but dreamy dragon expert Mr Aubrey, but I now see that the author is smarter than I am; that would have been too much dreaminess all in one place. The hero of the first book has a handsome brother, who I initially thought would end up with the heroine of this book, so... we shall see.

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