I loved this immersive, magical, endlessly surprising book from the always inventive Liz Hyder.

Set in 1890s Bristol, it fuses the worlds of magic and early film-making into a dazzling spectacle of theatre, love, loss, friendship and rivalry. The characters are convincing and engaging and the world of illusion is entirely believable. The delicious sense of humour is an added bonus.

I read this greedily - and missed it when I finished. It'll stay with me for a long time.

Spellbinding.

Really enjoyed this. I liked jumping from one character's head to another, it really gave the sense of a strong ensemble cast and what each of them was feeling. The magician/film-maker crossover is a great premise - very intriguing.

I really wanted to like The Illusions.

I love magic and illusions - I love the history behind it, the mechanics, and this novel is based during a really interesting time period where spiritualism and séances influenced many forms of illusions we see today. I was ready to be hooked.

And disappointingly I wasn’t. I think my main problem is the story is told through many different POVs and the time we get with each character is SO short. I felt I barely got a few pages with a character before it jumped to another character, and we never get any real character depth.

For example; in the opening of the book we meet one MC and their mentor (who supposedly played a big role in their life, shaping them into the person they are today) and within that same chapter they’re killed off. We then spend a few chapters where our MC is devastated, but it’s hard to sympathise with their lose because we never got to really know their mentor in the few pages they were there. We’re told about their relationship and past together, but we’re not shown anything that backs that up before there’s another POV change.

Overall, the pacing just gave me very bad whiplash.

I ended up DNF-ing around the 20% mark as I found myself stalling and wanting to read other things than this book. It just wasn’t for me sadly.

From what I read so far, I’d give it a 2.5 out of 5. Writing and topic are fine; I just couldn’t handle the pacing.

[This review is based on NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion]

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Bonnier Books for approving me for an ARC of this book.

🪄Magic, mayhem and illusions are at the centre of this story and I am here for it! Each of our characters has a unique skill that we see flourish throughout the story. The tricks and magic had me captivated.

🎩The alternating POV keep the story flowing and I found it hard to choose a favourite character. I felt Cec had the biggest journey of them all with a lot to overcome but I equally enjoyed seeing Eadie and George’s professional and personal relationships flourish.

🔮One of my favourite parts was the notes at the start of each chapter, depicting the different types of magic and skills. I also found the historical notes at the end fascinating.

⭐This was a fun and engrossing read. It kept me entertained and I loved seeing all the different threads come together in a dramatic conclusion!

Wonderful and enchanting, I totally LOVED this big hearted story. The late nineteenth century was an exciting time for the development of new technologies and moving films play an important role here. A definite feel good book. I will be eagerly looking out for more work by this author. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I really enjoyed this book! I liked it so much better than the Gifts. I think the characters were strong in both books, but I was just so much more interested in the story of this one. Stage magic and early film-making! It really gave an insight into what it might have been like to be a magician at the time. Also this one had a dog that didn't die!!

Eadie was my favourite character. I loved her strength and how passionate she was about her films. I also loved how all the characters supported each other. Especially towards the end of the book, they were all together fighting to save the show and looking after one another.

I also loved the Great Valentini. He was just such a character especially with the way his part of the story ended.

This story follows four characters in Bristol in the mid-1890s. Eadie is a woman struggling to be taken seriously in the male-dominated field of photography; Cec is a conman’s assistant, whose partner has just passed away; George is a renowned magician who is looking to cement his place at the forefront of modern magic; and Valentin (aka “The Great Valentine”) is an older magician who has been out of the country for some time. We follow the characters as they meet and combine their relative skills and passions to perform a feat of magic the likes of which have never been seen.

This is a fascinating read, and imparts much on the early history of film, or “living pictures”. The relationships between the characters, all of whom have real depth, are great, and the plot moves along at a satisfying (if not terribly fast) pace. I loved the “behind the curtain” glimpses of the magic of the era, and the slow-burn love story was a nice touch. I will certainly be looking for more by this author.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

An utterly delightful and intriguing tale of magic and illusion.

I love the way the author blended illusion, magic, mystery and the beginnings of film in this cleverly woven tale.

With several well written characters this book had me guessing and enthralled till the very unexpected twist at the end.

The way the different aspects of the story were slowly revealed, the interwoven connections and romance made this a really enjoyable read.

I loved how the author created such a diverse mix of characters, and several plot themes running through the book.

This was a uniquely interesting twist on historical fiction.

The story was full of intrigue and the characters were brilliantly woven into this amazing story, I would definitely recommend this book

A delightful read which I couldn't help but smile at, particularly the culmination of the piece having got to know & love the characters.

The Illusions really captures the voice of the period, an era of, sometimes feared, new ideas finding a place in amongst the old. The progression from the last generation of performers to the next, the passing of the baton, or wand in this case.

This story had a little bit of everything: romance, loss, heartache, found family, magic, & more.

A wonderful, well written read. I flipped between the ebook & audio & can highly recommend both.

I really enjoyed The Gifts, Hyder's debut adult novel and, therefore was looking forward to her next book.

However, I just couldn't connect with The Illusions. I wasn't engaged with the story or characters and found the pacing off. Each scene was described too quickly and the chapters felt very episodic. I'm not sure that the magic theme is really my bag so I had nothing propelling me through the story and, as the prose felt very lightweight I just found myself skim reading it. Had to dnf in the end I'm afraid.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This is Liz Hyder's second book for adults, and I found it a more satisfying read than her first one, The Gifts. The historical setting is similar in that it takes place at the end of the 19th century and it features a touch of the magical and mysterious as did The Gifts. In this case though, most of the magic is of the performative kind - magic tricks, elaborate illusions, sleight of hand, but also the darker side of this in the form of seances and exploiting grieving people for profit.

Alongside is a compelling imagining of the very early days of moving pictures, and the way she weaves the two strands together is believable and fascinating as her charming magician protagonist George teams up with professional photographer Eadie to build moving pictures into his stage act.

The plotting is competent, and various plot threads are balanced nicely. I did have a bit of a problem with the characters - they still read like characters in a children's or YA adventure romp, down to giving most of the female protagonists male names in the vein of Enid Blyton. So Harriet becomes Harry and Cicely becomes Cecil. This was confusing in terms of keeping characters straight in my head, but I was also bothered by the implication that strong and independent females in the Victorian era needed male names in order to have credibility. I could also take issue with the lack of questioning of their independence in that historical period... I was left with a sense that this was a novel set in the Victorian era, written by an Edwardian author, with a curiously modern take on the characters' attitudes.

Put all this to one side however, and you are left with an enjoyable story with plenty going on. I have never been to Bristol where it is set, but I got a strong feeling that the setting is described accurately and put to very good use. It's been interesting reading Liz Hyder's two adult novels - there is a definite growth from the first to the second, and I will read more of her work as it is published.

This historical fiction is based in Victorian London. Good plot, some great characters. A pretty good summer read for the holidays :) Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This is a strange book in some ways, it starts of quite slow at the beginning and I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. It was very different from my usual read and overall wasn’t my cup of tea..

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction about magicians and film pioneers in the mid-1890s. Fulfills all the promises made in the blurb. After a long time, I am on a book high.

Story Synopsis:
1896, Bristol.
Cec Marsden: a sixteen-year-old assistant to an old con artist. Cec's life is suddenly upended by the death of her master, and she is convinced that she is to blame. After all, she seems to have some hidden power that she doesn’t understand and can’t control.
Eadie Carleton: After her father’s death and her brother’s disappearance, Eadie, who is in her mid-twenties, is left in charge of the family photographic studio. But Eadie is an inventor at heart, and is desperate for the world to recognise her talent with motion pictures. But is the society willing to accept a woman inventor with no man standing beside her?
George Perris: A twenty-six-year-old magician who has the talent but not the finances to establish himself. When he sees ‘living pictures’, he is convinced that they have potential, and that he can merge his magic with the new medium for greater success.
Valentin: aka The Great Valentine, who has not been to England since ages after a rift with his friend and fellow-magician, knows that it is time for him to return to Bristol and set things right. However, Bristol has other things in store for him, and he soon finds himself in charge of a youngster and a show, both of which hold their distinct challenges.
The lives of these four characters are set to cross in ways that create magic - actual and illusory, on and off the stage.
The story comes to us in the limited third-person perspective of the above four characters.

I had read Liz Hyder’s ‘The Gifts’ just a couple of months back and was blown away by her imagination. Despite some issues, it is still among my most memorable reads of this year so far. ‘The Illusions’ not just recreated the magic of the earlier book, but also blew away most of the complaints I had then.

Bookish Yays:
✨ The magic and illusions. So interesting and so authentic to the era! I loved everything connected to magic, right from the behind-the-scene glimpses to the showmanship on stage to the actual magic that some characters were capable of. This might remind you of ‘The Prestige’, but the only common factor between the two books is the magical theme.
✨ The spotlight on ‘living pictures’ – how astounding the medium of film and moving images must have seemed to the general public who were used only to still photographs! Films are a kind of magic, but we today are so saturated with moving media that we fail to remember the magic behind them. This book made me fall in love with the concept all over again. (This doesn’t mean that I now like Insta reels or Tiktok. No, siree!)
✨ All of the main characters are well-defined. Some are entirely good of heart and some entirely rotten, but the rest have enough depth to make them feel realistic. What I especially love is that the characters act their age. Cec is an impulsive teen who, having never seen comfort or security in her young life, gets manipulated easily by others and sometimes, even by her own feelings. Valentin uses his seniority and his experience to lead the rest. George is a young man with the light-heartedness of youth intermingled with the pressure of having a successful career. And Eadie allows her past heartbreaks to guide her heart but not her head and its brilliant inventive capacity. All of them felt genuine. And all of them won my heart.
✨ I love the role of women characters in this story. Historical fiction rarely allows common women to take a strong role in society, so to see the likes of Eadie, Cec, and Harry follow their passions despite the restrictions thrown on them by the 1890s society was awesome.
✨ Though there are quite a few characters in the story, the characterisation is such that it is fairly easy to remember them without any confusion. Must give credit to the author for handling so many story tracks without losing control of any. Every arc and every main third-person narrator gets equal prominence.
✨ Don't you just love a good old slow-burn romance without mention of flitters in the stomach and flutters in the heart? (Oh, you don’t? But I do! 😁) I hate insta-love stories, so to see two of the characters come together in an organically growing relationship was enough to make me remember my youthful days when I devoured classic books and the romantic tracks therein (David Copperfield and Anne; Phileas Fogg and Aouda; Jo March and Prof. Bhaer – Uff!! 😍) Give me more such fictional romances any day!
✨ The found family trope is put to excellent use through the writing. At the same time, the book also highlights how easy it is to manipulate someone based on what they assume than on what is true.
✨ Though the pacing is somewhat on the slower side (as is typical for character-oriented stories), I never felt that the book dragged at any point. As a reader, I was invested in the content from start to end without any feelings of boredom.
✨ The ending! Le satisfied sigh! 😍😍
✨ Gotta love a great author’s note that highlights the real-life inspiration behind the fictional characters and the historical relevance and accuracy of the story. Don’t skip it!

Bookish If Onlys:
⚠ There is a minor thread of magical realism in the plot. However, this is not explored much and not explained at all. Of course, the book isn’t promoted as a magical realism novel, so I am not counting this as an example of misleading marketing. But a teeny part of me wishes that the magical realism aspects had been a bit more prominent.
⚠ Teensy-weensy complaint: At times, it was confusing to recollect that Harry stood for Harriet. I know it’s a valid short version of the name, but while reading, Harry first brings to mind a male character. In a book with too many characters, this is a hurdle.

After a long time, I experienced a fascinating book that made me read almost obsessively till the wee hours of the morning, without caring that I had to wake up early. This was 450 pages of bookish thrills. To be fair, it wasn’t a perfect read: one character should have been darker and one theme should have been explored more, but the flaws are so minuscule that I am happy to ignore them.

That said, I know this book won’t work for everyone. The book is written in pseudo-literary fiction style, so the proceedings are slow-paced and character-focussed. But to the reader who cares more about storyline and characters and imagination than about pace, I think this will be a treat.

Strongly recommended to all those fed up of plain old historical fiction and love a dash of magic in their reads. Liz Hyder will be on my must-read author list from now on.

4.5 stars. (I was torn between a 4.25 and a 4.5, but a book hangover and an imaginative fact-fiction medley earned it a higher rating and a happy rounding-up.)

My thanks to Bonnier Books UK, Manilla Press, and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Illusions”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

This was such a good book. I love historical fiction, especially when it is about eras/ situations that I previously knew nothing about and this was definitely one of those books. It was so well researched and so compelling in its narrative that not only did I love reading it but I felt that I learned too. A really enjoyable read and perfect for any fans of historical fiction.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

4 Stars
One Liner: Intriguing premise and good execution

Bristol, 1896
Cecily Marsden finds herself lost when her master, an aging con artist, dies in an unexpected accident. Cec tries to survive and make sense of her powers, fearing that she is somehow to blame for Arter’s death.
Eadie Carleton is a talented early filmmaker struggling to run her family photography shop and make a mark in the male-dominated world. She has a lot to deal with and some very important decisions to make.
George Perris is a young magician struggling to create the best act for his special show. He is fascinated by the motion pictures and sees their potential. However, he needs to convince Eadie to help him combine magic and motion pictures to achieve his dreams.
Valentin knows he needs to return to Bristol and face his past to find peace. He soon becomes a part of the magic show as all these people come together.
However, the group has to deal with several attacks and sabotages to find success.
The story comes in the limited third-person POV of Cec, Eadie, George, and Valentin.

What I Like:
I confess I haven’t paid attention to the cover until I read the book. The colors aren’t bright enough for my liking, but I love the detailing. It’s perfect for the premise and includes important elements in the plot.
Though the book has many characters and multiple versions of their names, it isn’t hard to track them once we get into the flow. I didn’t refer to my notes even once. It also helps that the story comes from the third-person POV of the four main characters. We get more insights into their backstories and the setting.
Most of the characters (except for Skarratt) are layered and relatable. They have their flaws, say things they regret, make a few wrong decisions, and learn to move on. None of it goes overboard.
The pacing is quite decent, though the story tends to drag in the middle. It picks up pace after 60% and brings a lot of action. The last section is easily the highlight of the book. Everything comes together and gets elevated to the next level.
The central elements of the plot are very well done (not a surprise, based on the author’s note). The magic shows are detailed but not overly so. The concept behind motion pictures is explained but not in excess. This ensures that the focus stays on the characters and the plot.
The plot includes quite a few themes like love, found family, regrets, loss, etc. These are seamlessly woven with other elements to create a cohesive story. There’s drama, action, romance, magic, intrigue, suspense, danger, and a HEA.

What Could Have Been Better for Me:
The book has itsy-bitsy pieces of magic realism. I was excited to see more of it, but it ends up as a plot device than an independent entity. While the author’s note answers why (the book was supposed to be about magic tricks, motion pictures, and theatre), I still feel the touch of real magic could have been more.
The same goes for the teeny elements of dark magic. We get hints of it in Skarratt’s scenes, but it all ends up fake. I sure wouldn’t mind if some of it was real (even if the guy didn’t know it was). It would have added more personality and depth to his character (which is possibly the weakest in the cast, given how typically villainous he is).
I still can’t point out what, why, or how but something’s missing from Cec’s character development. I’ve tried hard to identify it, and the closest I can get is that her arc is restrained and held back to suit the plot. Cec is a strong character on many fronts (and her being a teen only adds to it). However, she gets to bloom only in the second half (in the last quarter, to be precise).

To summarize, The Illusions is a wholesome entertainer that blends different elements with ease. It takes time at the beginning but is worthy read in many ways. This is my first book by the author, and I’d love to read her future works.
Thank you, NetGalley, Bonnier Books UK, and Manilla Press, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

My favourite thing about this book was the setting. I really felt sucked in to the world the author created, and that made it such a pleasure to read.

I particularly enjoyed the female character's in the book and the journey they go on. It was a brilliant historical fiction read which had been clearly researched but told without becoming a dry retelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an arc of this book.

Another beautiful book by the author, I was completely transported into her world and the characters she has created. I also really enjoyed reading about how the difficulties women faced whilst trying to maintain a career in film.

This is a magical read, which will make you feel that you want to travel back in time to the Victorian times and experience such events for real.

I couldn’t put this down! I absolutely LOVE the authors writing style and as a huge fan of historical fiction and magical realism, this novel ticks all the boxes!

The plot and characters are so bright and exciting that it was a joy to spend time in this entrancing version of Bristol in 1896!

If you were a fan of the authors other novel, The Gifts, I think you will love this one too! ✨

Also, bonus points for a gorgeous cover 😍📚