**** - The Notorious Virtues

THE NOTORIOUS VIRTUES

ALWYN HAMILTON

****

At sixteen, Honora ‘Nora’ Holtzfall is the daughter of the most powerful heiress in Gammamix; her family controls all the money – and all the magic – in the entire country. But when her mother is found murdered in an alley, the family throne and fortune are up for grabs, which means Nora will be pitted against her cousins in the deadly Veritaz trials to determine the rightful inheritor.

But there's a surprise rival in the form of Ottoline, aka Lotte, the illegitimate daughter of Nora's aunt, who left her with nuns as a baby. Thrown into the Veritaz, she is suddenly surrounded by a hostile family she never knew she had.

But as the Holtzfalls wage their battles of privilege, something bigger and more sinister bubbles beneath the surface, and revolution is in the air. Could the balance of power be about to be overturned?

MY REVIEW

****

The Notorious Virtues by Alwyn Hamilton had a lot of hype on Goodreads – it seems to have been a postponed release since 2020 and a lot of people were waiting with vigorous anticipation, so I was excited to request the ARC.

When one of the rich and famous Holtzfall’s dies, the spot of heiress is wide open, and a time-honoured tradition of the virtue trials is enacted. Daughter of the fallen heiress, Nora, believes she will win this contest easily, but when a secret family member emerges with their eyes on the prize, the competition becomes a lot more serious…

The Notorious Virtues jumps perspective from Nora to Lotte and journalist August, along with a few side characters as well. They all have their unique narrative voices though to keep things from being too confusing. There’s a lot of characters to get to know and the world is quite 1920s in style, but with fantasy elements. I enjoyed the folklore stories which interweave with the main storyline to show how the trials came about and how the family originally gained power.

I would say the one thing I was quite disappointed with were, ironically, the trials themselves.  I was expecting lavish magical trials, but the first one comes and goes without even the characters knowing they were being tested. Another one, later in the book sounded exciting but all of them lose their memory and so we as the readers don’t really get to experience it properly which was a shame. There were some which were a little more interesting but in general, if you are expecting Triwizard tournament or The Hunger Games level of trials, this might not be the read for you. Due to this, some of the middle part of the book did feel like it dragged, slowing the pace down.

This book very much ends on a complete cliff-hanger, so be ready for a wait for book 2. I’m hoping that in the 5 years some were waiting for a release of the first book, the next one (and maybe more after it, if it’s a series), will have been written and edited by now so hopefully it won’t be too long to wait.

Overall, The Notorious Virtues is a solid fantasy read, but the trials themselves take a bit of a backseat which is a shame. Thank you to NetGalley & Faber and Faber for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

LINKS TO BUY

Amazon UK

Waterstones