Saturday Snatch: Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

   I apologize again for missing Saturday Snatch the last couple of weeks. Life has slowed down a bit now though, so hopefully I'll be able to jump back into the swing of things.

     Shades of Milk and Honey was the first book from author Mary Robinette Kowal, and, written after the Jane Austen style, adds a twist of magic to romantic themes.
Cover Blurb:

Shades of Milk and Honey is an intimate portrait of Jane Ellsworth, a woman ahead of her time in a version of Regency England where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality. But despite the prevalence of magic in everyday life, other aspects of Dorchester’s society are not that different: Jane and her sister Melody’s lives still revolve around vying for the attentions of eligible men.

Jane resists this fate, and rightly so: while her skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face, and therefore wins the lion’s share of the attention. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Jane has resigned herself to being invisible forever. But when her family’s honor is threatened, she finds that she must push her skills to the limit in order to set things right–and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

This debut novel from an award-winning talent scratches a literary itch you never knew you had. Like wandering onto a secret picnic attended by Pride and Prejudice and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,  Shades of Milk and Honey is precisely the sort of tale we would expect from Jane Austen…if she had lived in a world with magic.

   I read the first two chapters offered on the author's website and, as a dedicated fan of Pride & Prejudice and other books along those lines, fell in love! But, of course, now I'm on hold for it at the library. But I'm first. If that helps.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Tell me what you think!