Con artists, masked vigilantes, political intrigue, alluring sword fights, sharply tuned dialogue, an elaborate magic system, and a whole lot of drama that renders you physically incapable of closing the book before you get to the ending is what you’ll find in The Mask of Mirrors ... I’m completely in awe of the extensive and complex worldbuilding in this book ... Carrick’s depictions [...] are equally vivid and detailed ... The Mask of Mirrors is quite a large book, and I suppose many readers might find the pacing sluggish at times. That being said, personally I found the slow momentum suited the story perfectly, allowing the authors time to introduce the setting and the characters in a way that won’t be overwhelming, and the readers to savour the suspenseful plot thoroughly ... Overall, The Mask of Mirrors is a fantastic beginning to a trilogy I’m harbouring high hopes for, and I can’t wait to see where the second book in the Rook & Rose trilogy takes us! If you are a fan of fantasy fiction, The Mask of Mirrors is a book that should definitely be on your radar!

This historical urban fantasy is for those who like their revenge plots served with the intrigue of The Goblin Emperor, the colonial conflict of The City of Brass, the panache of Swordspoint, and the richly detailed settings of Guy Gavriel Kay.

[The Mask of Mirrors] reminds me strikingly of the Astreiant novels of Melissa Scott and the late Lisa A. Barnett’s Astreiant novels, albeit more in worldbuilding and tone than in characters and concerns ... The Mask of Mirrors gives us a rich world—a compellingly-drawn city—with a depth of history and layers of competing agendas. It has multiple different kinds of magic, from the more upper-class science of numinat and the more artisanal imbuing, to the influence of astrology and of patterning—card-reading that can reveal a person’s future, or fate. And it gives us layered, compelling characters, who’re sympathetic and understandable, and a plot that mounts with carefully-measured tension and nested capers and revelations to an explosive climax.

The Mask of Mirrors is a long and complicated book ... It is very high praise indeed when I say that it kept my attention and had me reading along to see what will happen next, while also pausing to linger on the amazing world-building details. This is a fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy, that begins as a con-artist story and transitions into a political and magical epic ... This book is slow-paced until the last third of the book when a lot of violent and magical things happen at one time. I actually liked the slower-paced parts of the book because I enjoyed the attention to detail ... I liked the slow character building, especially since there are so many characters and point-of-view switches often. At first there does not seem to be any magic in the book, but it gradually becomes part of the narrative until things literally and figuratively explode in the latter third of the story ... Readers who like political scheming, fashion as a weapon and a tool, secrets, and swashbuckling will enjoy this, and as a special treat for Tarot fans the characters have their own form of cartomancy which is described in detail in the book. I recommend this to fans of epic trilogies with a lot of intrigue.

... intricately detailed doorstopper ... The authors devote much of this volume to detailing the names, places, and belief systems of this sometimes tediously complex world, causing the pace to drag. But readers who persevere will be rewarded with a tightly laced plot dripping with political intrigue. Carrick has built a strong foundation for things to come.