Tricky ... Exists in a between place that takes place in its own time but asks us to weigh its depiction of the past against the present. Stevens’ book, divided into brief cleverly-titled chapters, is attentive to the language and manners of England’s late Victorian era while also looking ahead.
Wittily updates many Victorian novel tropes, weaving in art, fakery, secrets, and queer romance ... While it feels grounded in research, the book has a breezy approach to historical fiction.
Idiosyncratic ... Flamboyantly Victorian plot. There are acts of murder and theft and betrayal and a narrator who never quite knows if she’s on the verge of total ruin or immense wealth and success ... Stevens is showing herself to be that rare thing: a writer who we can think alongside, even while she’s making things up. All the confection here in the end helps us to appreciate the steely and witty mind that seems, four books in, to have learned to delight in that hullabaloo of fakery.
