I absolutely adore Leigh Bardugo’s brilliant YA fantasy duology Six of Crows (if you didn’t know that already, hello! Welcome to my blog. I take it this is your first time). I’ve read it many times and it very quickly catapulted Leigh Bardugo to the top of my list of automatic-buy authors. She has yet to write anything I haven’t loved, so it was a no-brainer to pick up her new novel The Familiar on its release date… and I would have done even if it didn’t have such a pretty cover and sprayed edges.
What’s it about?
Scullion Luzia has a lot to hide, and when she slips up and lets her mistress discover the magic that she wields through her songs, she finds herself vaulted into increasingly dangerous circles. A wealthy patron hopes to use her little miracles to curry favor, and soon Luzia is competing with other miracle-makers with the ultimate goal of making her way all the way into the king’s employ. Although Luzia has long dreamed of a larger life than that of a scullion, she is well aware that drawing this sort of attention can only be dangerous in the long run—under the Spanish Inquisition, a woman of Jewish descent has to live in fear, and anyone practicing magic has to be able to prove that their power comes straight from Heaven, or face dire consequences. Still, the prospects of advancement, both for herself and for all those around her, are too tempting to miss out on.
What’d I think?
The Familiar is somehow both very different from what Bardugo has written before and very similar. A few of the differences are obvious: The Familiar is a standalone novel, and it is set in sixteenth century Spanish Golden Age rather than a new fantasy world. A few of the similarities are obvious as well: the central relationship of the novel is between a young woman who is pulled out of obscurity when her magical powers are detected and a mysterious, powerful man who has been alive for centuries.
As I was reading the novel, the similarities struck me more clearly. Like Shadow and Bone’s Alina, The Familiar’s Luzia is a nobody until her magic is discovered. Then she is increasingly pushed into wealthier and more important circles, all while the fervor around her takes on a religious bent. She is seen as a saint, and while that power has bought her a richer life than she could ever have imagined, it has also put her life at risk and placed her under the thumb of dangerous people who would use her for their own advancement. Like Alina, Luzia begins to have feelings for an ancient man who is positioned to help her develop her powers. Luzia even develops a Cut of sorts.
Luzia and Santángel’s relationship is, to my eye, what Darklina fans desperately want Alina and the Darkling to be. Like the Darkling, Santángel (the titular familiar) has been alive for centuries and, again like the Darkling, he has a checkered past of deeds that range anywhere from evil to apathetic to merely misguided. Like the Darkling, Santángel has much to gain from using Luzia, and for much of the novel the reader can’t quite get a true grasp of his character. We sympathize with his untenable position, but we can also recognize that he put himself in it. It’s easy to understand why he would want to use Luzia to gain his freedom (who wouldn’t want freedom?) but it is also impossible to hope for a guilty soul to better his own position by damning an innocent one. Where the two couples differ, however, is that despite the vast abyss between them in terms of experience, life, station, and more, The Familiar’s deuteragonists manage to come together as equals. Neither controls the other, and they both break through the monotony and agony of the other’s life and drag them into something new. Santángel helps Luzia develop her powers and navigate a world of powerful backstabbers, and Luzia awakens him from years of stagnancy and hollow despair.
Probably because I’m such a massive Grishaverse fan, whenever I’ve spoken to my friends—who have not yet started The Familiar, but plan to imminently—about The Familiar, I’ve focused mainly on this particular twosome. With Luzia and Santángel, Bardugo seems to be revisiting the dynamic she captured with her Shadow and Bone characters, but in a more adult novel and without the abusive manipulation. It’s an interesting tightrope walk to make a relationship between a centuries old man and a young woman feel equal (though it does help that Luzia is indeed a young woman, and not a teenager like Alina), but it really does work.
Interestingly, Bardugo has described The Familiar as her most romantic work. I wouldn’t argue that it’s not romantic, because that central romantic relationship is certainly a compelling cornerstone to the work, but as someone who absolutely adores the romances in Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom, I probably wouldn’t rank The Familiar first in that category. It’s great, but there’s nothing to rival “I would have come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing.”
There is, needless to say, more going on than simply the central relationship. I wish that I were better versed in history, because several of the secondary characters in the novel are real historical figures (more relevant are Antonio Pérez, the King of Spain’s ousted former second-in-command, and Lucrecia de León, a woman imprisoned for her visions of the king’s downfall). Luzia is meant to perform her miracles for Pérez, whose politics are extremely important to the way that the plot of the novel unfurls. The reader is given enough to understand what is going on, but it’s clear that the more one knows about the Spanish Inquisition and the Golden Age, the richer the world and story will be. Even before her magic is made known, Luzia’s identity is dangerous. She is Jewish, but her family publicly converted to Christianity to protect themselves from persecution. Before she is presented to the court, she must have a false family tree drawn up so that she has no connections to any Jews, and she must be conspicuous about attending church and eating pork products lest anyone suspect her true heritage/identity. Once her magic is known, it becomes even more important to hide, because her miracles are meant to come directly from God, and if her relationship to God is not properly Christian, then her magic cannot be trusted to be miracles. She even has to change the way she performs her magic, because she originally sings her little songs in a hybrid language of Spanish, Hebrew, and Latin; if anyone discovered that she used Hebrew to perform her magic, she would be damned.
Much, maybe even most, of Luzia’s life is spent obfuscating her realities in order to appear to others the way that they would like to see her. She swallows her tongue and downplays her intelligence; she affects devotion to a church that is not hers; she pretends her closest relation is a stranger; she hides her magic until she cannot, and then she makes sure to perform only particular miracles that appear holy. Her entire existence is a performance with life or death stakes.
The real historical context of The Familiar gives it a tense atmosphere that feels different than a similar but entirely fictional setting. The background of cruel men in power, oppressive Christianity, and bald antisemitism feels uncomfortably but deeply relevant in today’s world, and it is used to excellent effect to boost the story and the characters without overwhelming the reader with historical facts. I have a terrible head for history, and I could follow everything that happened but it was clear that I was missing a few of the nuances that would be apparent to someone more studied than I, and that’s usually a good sign that the historical elements are integrated well.
What’s the verdict?
Leigh Bardugo is a phenomenal writer. She has yet to go wrong, and her newest novel fits very well within her existing canon as well as being a standout for its historical setting and the fact that it is a self-contained story with no cliffhangers or promises of sequels. Like Bardugo’s previous novels, The Familiar focuses on balances of power (specifically imbalances of power), the double edged sword that is religion, and the experience of life lived on the peripheries of society. It is an excellent novel and while my personal taste is more skewed to the more exciting and character-driven Grishaverse, I feel certain that The Familiar will bring Bardugo’s excellent work to new audiences. It’s a fascinating stand-alone fantasy novel—there are never enough of those—that deftly handles nuanced power dynamics alongside genuinely interesting characters and a high-stakes story. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed this novel very much.
What’s next?
If you’re new to Leigh Bardugo, you have an incredible reading experience ahead of you. If you liked the dynamic between the two leads in The Familiar, you’ll particularly like the Shadow and Bone trilogy. If you liked the darker, more adult elements, you should go with Ninth House. And everyone should read Six of Crows, because it’s the best.
Looking for more stand-alone fantasy? Read The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (yes, technically there’s a prequel, but it was a standalone when I read it and still works that way) or The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (which, like The Familiar, follows a character whose immortal life came with some unfortunate caveats). T.J. Klune has written several, and I highly recommend both The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door. In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan is one of my all-time favorite stand-alone fantasy novels, though I acknowledge it has very little in common with The Familiar as it is lighter, written for a younger audience, and more akin to a comedy/parody than a drama.
Interested in some historical fantasy? I’m obsessed with Patrick Ness’ bonkers Cold-War-with-dragons standalone Burn, and I’m also a huge fan of Mackenzi Lee’s genre mishmash The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. I like the way that history twines through Grey London in V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic. Lots of people would toss Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander in this category as well. I strongly wouldn’t recommend reading it because it’s super misogynistic and homophobic, but if you’re in the mood to read a rant about a book that did historical fantasy wrong, knock yourself out here.
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