What a lovely, entertaining story. For all it's about magic and illusions it felt like a very honest thing to read. I very rarely read the acknowledgements at the end of a book, but I even enjoyed doing just that-learning something on the way. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A plot with some good twists and turns, good characterisation and atmospheric description.
It pulled me in straight from the get-go!
Highly recommended.

Once again, Liz Hyder wrote a marvellous and magic book full of imagination and interesting characters that make the reader wonder and suffer at the same time, all in the name of magic!!!
Cleverly written and presented, full of kindness and hope, is a story not to be missed.

I loved this! It was intriguing and full of interesting characters and strong women.

I’m really enjoying historical fiction set around theatres or performances at the moment and this fit the bill. I’d say this is up there with my other recent favourites The Whispering Muse and The Square of Sevens.

I liked the various difference relationships between characters as there were multiple stories to become invested in. I really liked both Valentin and Cec and George and Eadie, but even the more peripheral characters weren’t just there as filler and had their own challenges and resolution, it was a very satisfying read.

I’d definitely read more from this author and highly recommend this book.

{AD|GIFTED} Set in nineteenth-century Bristol, THE ILLUSIONS explores the mesmerising, yet sometimes cut-throat, world of magicians. Alongside this, the author entwines the practice of photography and animated pictures, drawing from the contemporary breakthroughs in these areas. The book can be categorised as magical realism but the true magic is only a very small component of the story.

I loved the beautifully complex characters as they were all fully fleshed out and authentic. They are fictional but borrow from real-life historical figures. The women especially were a joy to read as they were smart, ambitious, and memorable. Cec was a particularly charming character and some of my favourite moments were her interactions with Valentin. Her journey was probably the greatest in the story. I also thought Eadie was a fascinating character, a businesswoman trying to carve her place in a world built by and for men. Her relationship with her brother Louis was wonderful and I was completely engaged by her growing romance with George.

The main thing that shone through this book though was the warmth and kindness of this group of characters. They shared so much love and friendship that led to some truly emotional scenes. No matter how dark things got, they kept hoping for brighter times and strove to bring some of that light into the world themselves. A beautiful story of friendship, magic, love, and hope. Highly recommended.

Cec is drawn into the world of magic and the very early days of cinema at a time when her life is very bleak. True friendship and found family is at the heart of this story set in Victorian Bristol.

The Illusions is full of memorable characters and it really made me smile. The characters are an eclectic mix and hugely likeable. The origins of animated pictures was also really interesting.

For me, The Illusions did not match the brilliant of The Gifts but it's still a really good story that is full of heart.

Bristol, 1896. Cecily Marsden (Cec) is the young assistant to an ageing con artist and her life is turned upside down when he suddenly dies. As she has powers that she little understands, she blames herself for his death.

Meanwhile Eadie Carleton, is a pioneering early film-maker of talent, struggling to be taken seriously in a male-dominated world, and a brilliant young magician, George Perris, begins to see the potential in moving pictures. George believes that if he can harness this new technology, it will revolutionise the world of magic forever, but to achieve his dreams, he must first win over Miss Carleton.

As a group of illusionists prepare for a grand stage spectacle as a memorial to one of their number, Cec, Eadie and George's worlds collide. But as Cec falls in love with the bustling realm of theatre and magic, she faces the fight of her life to save the performance from sabotage, and to do so she must harness the element of real magic held deep within her.

Once you have all the various characters set firmly in your head, you are swept along by this engaging historical fiction, which is both a testament to the pioneers of film, and a love story to the theatre. Clearly underpinned by masses of research, which it wears lightly, the historical and technical facts never bog down the story, the action or the characters.

Woven in with the plans for the ground-breaking stage spectacular, are several romantic relationships, (and as always, the course of true love never does run smooth), as well as a delicate thread of real, genuine magic.

This is an enjoyable, well written, and well plotted novel, with characters you love dearly, and some you genuinely love to hate. Liz Hyder skilfully weaves her own magic, drawing together all the various threads and wrapping everything up into a satisfying and truly heart-warming conclusion. I loved it!

Thank you to Bonnier Books and Netgalley for the eArc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was good fun and gave a slice of the period without being too serious or didactic. Its magic theme did not particularly attract me at first, but I was won over by the story-telling and the combination of two girls' lives, told separately at first but dovetailing as the novel went on. The stories are different but linked by the magicians that dominate the narrative, although it is the women in the plots that finally engineer the triumph of good over evil - with a little help from the kindness of magic that runs through the book. The actual story was not particularly new or innovative, but was such a gentle and interesting tale, relying on the fortunes of the two female protagonists, that it did not seem to matter. Overall a magical read.

Magical tricks and delights!

March 1896 Bristol is where the book starts.
Arter Evans and Cecily Marsden, Ces, are scraping a living, until tragic circumstances changes Cec’s life.
From now onwards Cec meets a various range of characters. New people who come into her life for better or worse?

For me reading this book gave me so much pleasure, and I enjoyed it immensely. From the first few pages I knew it was going to be a good book, one I would remember.
I loved the authors descriptive writing style. I could feel the characters coming alive within the pages, and in my head. Exciting, interesting.
A book about people who entertain for a living, conjuring, magical tricks and delights.
I absolutely loved it!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for an advanced e-book copy. Opinions about this book are entirely my own.

A lovely quirky story full of eccentric and loveable characters in the lovely setting of late Victorian Bristol with plenty of skullduggery, magical events and plot twists, it's a joy to relax and read such an entertaining story. There are people choosing to create their own family from friends and staying close together when events threaten to overwhelm them, and there is some lovely debunking of the usual characters you might expect to find in such a story. A really feel-good novel with lots of period detail and imagination at play.

An enchanting tale of friendship,love, deceit, magic and disappearance.

Our protagonist Cec is such a likable character and I loved seeing how She grew as a person. Both in confidence, abilities and knowledge of her own power and magic.

Set in the late 1800s, we are transported to a time where magicians egos and own goals drove them to underhanded dealings. Often this put themselves and others at risk.

All the characters were perfectly created and the story line was captivating, humourous, surprising and magical. Perfect!

This is a strange book in some ways. It’s quite slow at the beginning, with a host of characters and I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. But then I treated it as a journey; a mystery trip where the destination is unknown. With no expectation as to how it was going to pan out or end, I was then swept into the whole story.

It’s really a number of stories which overlap. It’s great fun and I imagine the research is meticulous. It’s very different from. My usual read, but I found it intriguing, refreshing and a thoroughly enjoyable romp.

This really is delightful, and continues the promise of 'The gifts'. There's the odd anachronistic stylistic clunk, but overall I enjoyed it hugely. It is, if you like, feelgood, but not in a brainlessly fluffy way. Loved it.

This is a truly magical book, full of intrigue, romance and a touch of the ‘impossible’. This book took me by surprise by how invested I would become with every character from the different points of view. Usually, there is at least one pov I am less interested in. Here this was the complete opposite. Every character, including the side characters, had an exciting story to be told. There is something about The Illusions that completely enchanted me, and it is definitely now one of my favourite historical fiction reads. I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

Loved this! The multiple POVs kept me intrigued, and the setting was utterly magical. Plus I live close to Bristol, so reading a book set there was an added treat. And the dawn of cinema is always going to be fascinating. Definitely recommend this!!

This novel evoked in me childhood memories of books such as The Famous Five or Swallows and Amazons, where an endearing group of friends help each other through life and its adventures. I felt as safe and warm as a seven year old embarking once again on an alluring journey with cohorts captured in the pages of my book.
A novel of light and magic awaits you!

It took me a while to get into the story as the foundations needed to be in place. The setting and time period add to the drama. The jealous, friendship and romance are all entwined. Eadie and George are the central characters but the rest of the troop are rounded characters and have interesting stories of their own.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Illusions, it has fantastically flawed characters that make them very believable. The plot kept me on my toes, hoping for certain outcomes and wanting others not to happen, I loved the ending, it wasn't a total surprise but it made me very happy. Cec was my favourite character, I think that she'll find her new life hard; finding and believing acceptance from her friends, learning to develop her new powers, learning to believe in herself, it could easily go very wrong for her. I hope there is another book, so I can find out what Liz Hyder has planned for her.

Only just started reading in this genre and I’m glad I’ve read this one. Such a beautifully written magical story. Love the author’s imagination too.

What a magical experience awaits those who read Liz Hyder’s latest novel The Illusions. The plot essentially revolves around two women Cec and Eadie both of whom are irrepressible and ultimately loveable. Set in Bristol in 1896 in a time of early moving pictures and renowned illusionists and magicians, it is a brilliantly evoked period and the descriptions of the illusions are intricate and fascinating. I found this a captivating book with both a love story and a thriller at its core. Thanks to Bonnier Books for the ARC.