Book Review: Graceless Heart

Earlier this week I finished reading Graceless Heart, Isabel Ibanez’s latest book and first book in her new series, The Spellbound History Quartet.

The novel takes place in Italy during the Renaissance and follows Ravenna Maffei and Saturnino dei Luni. Ravenna is the oldest daughter of innkeepers in Volterra and a sculptress. She has been sculpting since she was a child and her aunt, a famous sculptress, taught her. It was on a trip to a quarry as a child with her aunt that she learned, by accident, that she has magic. This is a secret she must keep, because magic is forbidden by the Pope.

Years later, desperate to save her brother from execution for being part of the resistance in their town, Ravenna enters a sculpting contest. The immortal Luni family, allies with the powerful Medici family, are going to come in to town to judge the competition and the prize is a boon of the winner’s choosing. Ravenna is determined to win so she can save her brother. When the Luni family sees her sculpture and realizes she has magic, they force her to go with them back to Florence and task her with using her magic to free the Nightflame stones (a magic stone) from inside multiple sculptures. But, Ravenna has spent her life hiding and not using her magic so she doesn’t know if she can do it and if she can’t, she will die. At the same time, there is something about Saturnino – the immortal family’s heir – that she is drawn to and mesmerized by even though he is one of the people holding her captive.

I loved the premise of this book and I loved Ravenna and Saturnino. Their chemistry and the love that eventually develops between them was so good and I wanted more of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t love the book as much as I wanted to and I think this comes down to a pacing issue because I really did like the story and, like I said, Ravenna and Saturnino, but way too much time in the book is spent just building background. It felt like the story didn’t really pick up until after halfway through and Ravenna and Saturnino don’t really get started until 3/4 of the way in. This might work if it was a series based on them, but this series is made up of standalones (I think there might be a tiny interconnected thread in there from what I remember Isabel Ibanez saying, but they can be total standalones), so waiting until the last 50-75% of the book for the plot to pick up the pace seems like way too far into the novel.

The reason I still gave it 4 stars on Goodreads is that the imagery and lush, magical descriptions had me feeling like I was there, in Renaissance Italy. It was gorgeous and the little bits I got to experience of Ravenna and Saturnino together was perfect – I just wish there was more!

Read this if you want a historical fantasy romance that takes place during the Renaisssance.

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