It can be my own fault that I don't give this story a higher rating - I had not seen on the cover and in the description that it was book 9 of the series!
Knowing this the story could go incredibly well / be meh or a disaster. To me, it was meh, as I could not find myself there AT ALL. I know this is my fault.
The story without going for the bigger plot good, and I think it was a rather smooth read when I went just for the standalone matter, as I had not read any books in this series.
Read other books. It can change your opinion.

Well written mystery. Storyline is especially interesting in first half of the book. The second half fates a bit for me but I still enjoyed how The author created the world in this book and made it flow nicely in a form of a good storyline.

Although this book is the ninth in the Aelf Fen series it can be read as a standalone.
I find this Author's ability to bring the sights and scents of the times alive central to all her books - greatly enhancing my enjoyment .

A vagrant is found dead with a lustrous pearl in his hand propped up against the wall outside Grurdyman's house.
Who is he and why did he die - is there a connection toGurdyman's past or is there a link to his magico-mystical knowledge.?
Gurydman ask his pupil , healer Lassair to accompany him Spain but dangers await them at every turn - is Lassair being tested or is it Gurdyman's atonement that takes them down the roads they must follow .

I found the book full of mysticism , with the main characters tested at every turn - to what end !

I did not find this book as enjoyable as those previously in the series , but will I continue to read future novels
by the Author .

I was given an arc of this book by the Publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review .

I like to read a series in order, but although this book is the ninth in the Aelf Fen series, I haven’t read its predecessors. I enjoyed the story and enjoyed the first half particularly;I felt the book lost pace once the main characters arrived at the titular City of Pearl. I can see that to readers of the series, the events of this book would be more relevant and offer answers and insights not necessarily significant to me. However I enjoyed the historical aspects of the story, particularly how hard travel could be during the winter months. Details of Lassair’s life in Cambridge have inspired me enough to go back and begin the series properly. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I haven't read any of the books in this series before but plan to do so now. I found the characters engaging and the plot well written and researched.

Medieval realism knocks on the door of medieval mysticism

A presence fills the alleys near Gurdyman's house. A vagrant is found dead with a lustrous pearl in his hand propped up against the wall outside Grurdyman's house. Gurdyman is panicked. He knows he's being called back by his past to the places of his childhood and his growth in magico-mystical knowledge.
Lassair is feeling isolated. Jack Chevestrier has sent her away and she finds no place but Gurdyman's. When Gurdyman asks her to accompany him to Spain, despite it being near to winter, she agrees. After all healer Lassair is Gurdyman's pupil and as is pointed out, 'it is a part of his duty to ensure that [she] encounter others who are so much further advanced in the arts.’ These words are those of Lassair's aunt, healer Edild. Edild is now married to Hrype, who first introduced Lassair to Gurdyman. Hrype knows what Gurdyman is and what Lassair could be. He also feels that Gurdyman is exposing Lassair to danger.
Along the road to Santiago Lassair and Gurdyman turn off. New fears and experiences become joined. Lassair has become part of what Gurdyman must do. An atonement? Lassair's journey becomes more complex. Lassair and Gurdyman have been pulled into a hidden mystic community and Lassair is being tested.
Meanwhile Jack and Hrype both meet after sensing a malicious presence in Gurdyman's vacant home. They feel the need to follow that presence towards Lassair. Their journey that will involve Lassair's grandfather Thorfinn, an "Icelander whose nickname was the Silver Dragon" who'd given Lassair "a powerful heirloom known as the shining stone."
This is a novel full of unexpected twists and turns. I must admit I'm a tad conflicted. Reading this I felt like I'd wandered into a lookalike set of Shrangrila, although located in medieval times in the Pyrenees, where esotericism is practiced in a secret valley hidden beneath and beyond the mountains.
I am also unsure of how I feel about the ending?... Lassair obviously must follow her path, even if (as I think), Gurdyman has been somewhat duplicitous in everything. Is Lassair cautious enough? She hasn't been that before. And what of Jack? How will things eventually resolve? We are left with the thought that Jack might be more than he appears. That his solidness is meaningful in some way. For a brief moment there seems to be some sort of positive, even hopeful tension between him and Lassair.
Some of the community Lassair encounters seem to think that some deaths are expendable in the big picture. I do wonder if the healer in Lassair will come into conflict with this viewpoint.
Change and growth are a pivotal point for Lassair. How she gets there is dangerous and challenging.
I must say I'm glad I read the previous novel in the series as there might've been gaps that would've annoyed me otherwise. I am also anxious to see where Clare is leading us.

A Severn House ARC via NetGalley

I read other books in this series but this one is my favorite as it was a sort of reboot and it helped to understand the story and the background of the characters.
I loved the well researched historical background, the fleshed out characters and the well crafted plot.
It was a great read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Neat. I've only read one previous book in this series so this was essentially a standalone for me. That said, Lassair is a dynamic character who, this time out, is leaving her home behind to travel to Moorish Spain with Gurdyman, to whom she is apprenticed. You get Gurdyman's back story (which was valuable to me) as well as Lassair's perspective on 1093 travel (she's got a wicked pov). Her romance with Jack has faltered but he follows her on this trip, at peril to himself and others. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is complex historical fiction that might be best read by those who have followed the series and can better appreciate the characters although I did enjoy this.

I've read previous novels in this series, so when I started to read 'City of Pearl' I was full of expectations. Were my expectations met? They were exceeded! I was expecting to find the same characters in the book, and they were all there, but I hadn't expected to find out more about Gurdeyman and for his involvement in the book to be the pivotal part of the story. I certainly hadn't anticipated that Gurdeyman and Lassair would travel across Europe in search of Gurdeyman's past. In finding out about Gurdeyman (who has been a regular character in the previous novels, albeit one whose past is a mystery) and finding out what he did, Lassair finds answers about herself and her future. Her relationships with Hyrpe and Jack are improved when they team up with her father and follow her to ensure she isn't in danger, but ultimately it's the intrigue of what's to come in her life (and what her relationships will be with Itzal and Errita will be) that make the ending of the book a cliffhanger to be resolved in the next book. It's difficult to describe how I feel about this book, it wasn't what I was anticipating at all - it was so much more! As you can probably tell, I loved it and am eagerly awaiting the next one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House for an e-galley of this novel.

City of Pearl is the ninth book in the Aelf Fen series and it reveals a large amount of information regarding the life of Gurdyman before he settled in Cambridge. If you have been reading this series you will probably have noticed, as have I, that Gurdyman is showing his advanced age. By taking the story from England to Spain the author reveals how Gurdyman grew up and what events happened to him that formed the experiences he has as a healer and teacher. With no explanation to Lassair he simply announces that they are going to Spain. As an apprentice she is almost obligated to go with him even if she wasn't already thrilled with the thought of such an adventure. The previous book, The Rufus Spy, left Lassair and Jack Chevestrier with a strained relationship. Since Jack doesn't want her, Lassair feels free to travel but she would have liked for Gurdyman to at least have told her where they were going in Spain and why.

Once again I was impressed with the writing skills of Alys Clare. This book takes place in a location so different from the previous novels that her talent in describing landscapes and characters becomes a wonderful reading experience. Lassair finds out things about Gurdyman's past that would have been hard for her to deal with had the novel been set in the fens. By introducing so many new characters readers get to learn more about the mystical side of Lassair as she learns more about her powers and how others have misused their powers in the past. The next book in the series will continue to be very different from what I've been used to. I think it would be quite difficult for a reader to begin this series with this ninth book, but now that I've finished this one I'm very curious to read the next.

City of Pearl, Alys Clare

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery and Thrillers

I've said before, this series so much reminds me of the Ariana Franklin books I enjoyed years ago, and I'm really enjoying getting to know Lassair and her world. I mistakenly came in late to the series, thinking its was an AF read, so I've yet to have the pleasure of reading the books from the beginning. One day – so many books, so little time.... ;-)

Anyway, we start in the Fens, ( a place not many miles from where I live) but the story moves on a journey to Spain. It amazes me that some folk never traveled further than the next village, which feels usual for the time, while others like Lassair, Gurdyman and his family, and a few others, embarked upon what must have been scary and perilous travails, at a time when so little was known about where they were going, and knowing the journey would be fraught with danger.

Gurdyman has always been a man of few words, Lassair has learned to curb her impatience, knowing he will tell her what she needs to know in time, but even her patience was stretched here. I'd have been climbing the walls.
Clearly the unflappable Gurdyman has been frightened, but by what? Where exactly are they going, and why? Why go now when its the worst time to travail and Gurdyman isn't in the best of health? Lassair though is feeling her losses, poor Rollo, who died in the last book, and Jack, who so curtly rejected her so she's ready for a change, and thinks maybe that's why he chosen now to travel.

Like many historical reads the book is really about the gradual progress to the end, enjoying the journey the book takes us on, rather than racing to the finish. That's good because I enjoyed that more than the actual revelations at the end.
We find the place where Gurdyman lived as a young boy, and where he furthered his education. There are more hints of some things that are a bit more Magic, than straight Healing, a trait only a few have, and of which Gurdyman has taught Lassair only the briefest history.
There's an undercurrent of danger running through the book, of mystery, of evil and maybe harm, of things unspoken but feared, and Lassair finds herself puzzling what, why, who, where are they going etc. She has so many questions but Gurdyman reveals very little. I would be so burning with curiosity, Lassair is a better person ( all round) than me.
She learns more about herself, and things about her mentor which are hard to accept, but in contrast to that harsh fact, and the trials that undoubtedly lie ahead for her, she has a moment of happiness when Jack follows her on that perilous journey to ensure she's safe. He'd only do that if he cares? Right? So thinks she, and I, and I so hope we're right ;-)

Stars: 4.5 I'm hovering between four and five here, the main thrust of the story was fascinating, kept me guessing and engrossed, and felt so very real, I felt I was there in history and I love a story that can do that. Somehow though the answers to those questions Lassair ( and I) has weren't as satisfying as I'd hoped. Though all was made clear it just didn't really feel enough for me, and there were of course bits I wasn't happy to read, disappointments in some people. That was just a fraction of the overall though so its a four and a half for me.

Arc via Netgalley

City of Pearl is a very interesting mystery. The characters are well developed and the storyline is entertaining. The book is well written.

#CityOfPearl #NetGalley. I gave it 3.5 stars round to 4. I do like the characters, and have read every one so far, although I am a bit confused as to where they are going with this.

This from publisher: "October, 1093. At her mentor's urgent request, Lassair is accompanying Gurdyman across the sea to Spain. But why is he so insistent on embarking on this difficult and dangerous journey.. why does he seem so afraid?
Could there be any connection to the vagrant found lying dead outside his home, a single pearl
clutched in his outstretched hand? The pair reach the remote mountainous regions of northern Spain. Hot on her trail is Jack Chevestrier, the young lawman who loves her"

Lassair and Jack were together for a brief moment at the end, which was very good. I am hoping it all comes together, in a fashion a bit less contrived and more coherent. I enjoy Lassair, her village and her interpersonal relationships .. and of course the fens.

From the Cambridge fens Journey to the city of Pearl where the faiths of Muslims, Christians and Jews live together. Gurdyman takes apprentice healer Lassair on this journey of discovery to Northern Spain but he has a more personal reason than he is saying. The journey is hazardous and Lassair believes they will both perish before journey’s end. There is magic and power in this special place that will draw Lassair’s love Jack, her grandfather and a friend on her trail. This is a Aelf Fen mystery featuring Lassair and it would be helpful to you to read previous stories to understand the background of the cast of characters.
I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.