Book Review: Immortal Rose, Alexandra Bracken

Books

Aug 17

A regency-era fantasy world in which perfumes are magical is the coolest concept for a book I’ve heard in a long time!

A huge thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager | Avon for sharing an advanced readers copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

In a Regency world where members of certain families have the ability to infuse fragrance with magic capable of manipulating mind, body, and emotion, a shocking murder leaves the kingdom vulnerable to a coup. The only apparent savior is a long lost relative to the ancient House Rosebourne (a prominent family in the perfumery business). After being captured, thrown in jail, and held against her will by a aristocrat and royal spymaster name Hugh, our FMC, Viola, must craft Immortal Rose—the only perfume capable of saving the King and the kingdom.

🗺️Slow world building

While reading this book, I took some notes in my Notes app, and the very first note I have written is “So slow. I’m thinking about DNFing.” Now let me start by saying that I’m so glad that I didn’t quit on this book, but I thought it was important to mention that note because it shows how hard the beginning was for me. I trudged through until nearly the half way point before things started happening that compelled me enough to really commit to keep going.

Another reviewer mentioned this same feeling and described it perfectly by saying that so much of the details of the world and magic system is implied rather than directly stated. This is why it can be confusing if you miss bits or don’t properly infer things in the way that the author expects you to infer details. Sometimes the author will tell parts of political or social stories as if they’re things we should simply know with little to no explanation. These things are then used later as background for reasonings in the plot even though the actual explanation was not explicitly stated. I think parts of the world building and magic system could have been handled differently in order to guide us readers a little better.

🍶Smells that carry magic and memories!

The idea of perfume being a vessel for magic is such an interesting concept. Throughout the book I loved how impactful the magic perfume was (as it should be), but also how much the perfumes seemed to mean to the characters in terms of recalling memories/places/people. While we don’t have magic perfumes in the real world, we do have perfumes that can mean so much to a person that it helps them to reflect on certain things. A smell that reminds you of a time in your life, a smell that is tied exclusively to your memory of a person, or so much more. Alexander Bracken mentioned on her blog how her love of perfumery deepened when she realized its impact as a form of storytelling. She said, “There’s something absolutely magical in the way a perfumer will attempt to capture a memory or moment or experience and share it with the world. It’s such a wonderful point of connection between us.”

🤯A cliffhanger ending

I mentioned the first note I had written down in my Notes app while reading this book, but the last note is also one to mention… “How DARE this book end like that? What the heck!? Who is at [redacted]… I must know today!” Now that I’ve learned about the world, understand the magic system a bit more, and am neck deep in this romance and regency plot line, I MUST know what happens next. I have never before been so upset that I was reading an ARC of a book that is not only not released yet, but also does not have a second book announced. Why must I wait??