[NOVEL] The Fire in the Glass by Jacquelyn Benson

This is going to be ranty. Because it feels "fresh", you know when you are aware it's someone's first book maybe?

(note: the series is getting new covers, but they're not revealed yet, I will add it when they become available)

London, 1914. Lily’s visions could stop a killer… if she’ll trust a reclusive aristocrat with her darkest secret.

A monster stalks the gaslit streets of Edwardian London, draining the blood of the city’s mediums. Lily Albright knows who’s next.

Lily is plagued by visions of the future she can never change. When a mysterious fiend threatens someone she loves, she’s determined this time will be different.

But she can’t do it alone. To save a life, Lily must reveal her darkest secrets to someone she has little reason to trust—the reclusive Lord Strangford, a man haunted by his own unusual powers.

From the glittering galleries of Bond Street to the rookeries of Southwark, Lily and Strangford plunge into a dark conspiracy that lies at the heart of England’s rising eugenics movement. To thwart it, Lily must face a past rife with betrayal—and embrace the power she has spent her entire life trying to escape.

The Charismatics. Book 1

Initially, I stumbled upon Jacquelyn Benson and her Raiders of Arcana series, which I came to love a lot. But the third book in the series, Arrow of Fortune, is coming out November this year, so there is still time to wait.

But I was aware that Jacquelyn finished The Charismatics series first and it always picked my interest to find out more about them. The first book been pending for a long time and these days I decided to make a pause in reading the previous series and give it a go.

After reading I have quite few moments that got to me. In general it was a fine read though. It is heavier in topics than adventurous Raiders, so I'm not sure I would like to continue with the series any time soon.

The story is about young woman Lily, she has a gift to see the future, considers it like a curse, because since childhood she could not prevent any of the events she foresaw. Living almost like an isolated soul she had but one friend, an older woman who is a medium for a living. And who knew if the woman was gifted as well, or just used some props.

The London is shrouded in the mystery of murders of mediums. Several women were found in their beds, but fully drained of blood. But the rooms were closed from the inside. Thus the tails of vampires emerged in papers.

In one of her visions Lily sees her only friend being a victim of this "monster", but she does not see enough to identify the attacker. She has no idea what to do with the vision, because she couldn't stop any of the fateful tragedies in her past, so she is not certain she can overcome the fate this time.

The medium friend instead takes her to a strange masion of an elderly man, Mr. Ash, where she hears the story of her not being alone in this world, that there are others gifted like her - charismatics.

At first Lily dismisses this rant, she can't trust anyone at this point, but will soon find herself being helped by people from this house called The Refuge. And face the fear that her gift brought her.

What at first was mysterious slowly becomes apparently just someone's plan with a goal in mind to change humanity.

This is where my rant comes in. Because I had few instances when I wanted to shake Lily and say - why you dismissed your ideas and hunches? You basically have everything you need!

Only because Lily, the FMC of this book, had quite a lead in her hands, but she dismissed it as her being too "paranoid". While at other times she relied on her hunches a lot. And I don't talk about her first assumption she made about a certain man. I'm talking how she was quite deep into investigation and she had information about this man which at least will tie him to the on-going murders. Almost the entire book was like - need mroe evidence, more evidence. Not the type that will put the man behind bars, but just to fully comprehend why he does what he does.

Also, funny fact, if she listened to her hunch and just asked Strangford to use his power on a certain individual at the evry beginning the book would be over too soon.

Another side that I was like - well, okay - is the description of Lily's emotional struggle about her power. Of course it sucks if you know what is going to happen and can't prevent it. But honestly she was a little girl when things happened (if we follow the timeline), she can't have mature means to stop anything, it's only later we find more about the core of her guilt is not only about her mother, but an innocent life that was not in initial picture she saw. Her behavior of isolation from others as a result is understandable and even her actions of saving that one woman / friend / medium (though we have no idea why she cares about her so much, it never got deep enough) can be explained, since it's the first friend she made after a long time. But it had more of her feeling of fear instead of why she feared to me, or I was too stressed when reading and missed it. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, she also has daddy issues. 

But why I want to rant needs the mention of few things that are SPOILERS. So without further ado.

I divide the collection of "evidence" into three acts, I call them: Gallery, Cemetary, Hospital. All according to the places where we find them.

And my dissatisfaction comes from the fact of how easily Lily discarded suspicions about Dr. Hartwell she first meets at the gallery. And later on too. And yeah Dr. Hartwell is the obvious villain, if you read the book it will be too glaring.

What's the girst of it?

So we have the mysterious murders, which are certainly done by a man, but we need to concentrate on the main subject of them - blood. All victims were drained of their blood.

Lily knows her friend is in danger, but she doesn't know how to prevent it or should she even relay the news of danger. This is where Estell, her friend takes her to The Refuge, a place which is a harbor of people with gifts. There are several. Sntrangford who sees the past of people and items he touches, whom she met in the first scene (where she gets injured falling from her motorcycle), Sam Wu, a Chinese young man, who we later find out can talk to animals, Dr. Gardner who can see what is wrong with the body of the person by touch. Estell talks to the dead, so she also is not a fake medium.

Now. The gallery. After talking to Mr. Ash who is like a mentor figure in The Refuge, she finds the story of his wife who drew Lily 30 years ago, even before she was born. Ash believed she is the one, gifted and has a lot more about her than she gives herself a credit for. He talked about his wife and she knew she was a charismatic as well. She finds the news about the gallery and decided to go there.

This is where she meets followers of Dr Hartwell, who established his eugenics club, which dun-dun-dun has something to do with blood experiments. If you read it, it becomes too obvious. Also his club members all have a certain type of badge, important because they don't really try to be secretive when they tracked her.

Dr Hartwell wanted the self-portrait of Ash's wife, he was her suitor, but Lily felt something off about the man and did not want the picture go to him, the portrait had some sort of power about it too. This is why she asks her half-brother.

Note: Lily is the daughter of a famous actress and a pretty influential Lord Torrington, after her mother died she was sent to a school, later escaped and worked in theater. Her mother's money became her saving fund when she turned 21. Her father also sent her finances, but was never present in her life after Lily's mom died. She has complicated feelings about him. Her half-sibling is aware of her existence and loathes her.

Thanks to the machinations the picture indeed does nto end in Hartwell's hands, but he figured it out and left most villainous phrase that boils down to "we'll see". The same evening the lover of her half-brother was killed in her bedroom. The weapon is his knife. Lily knows that he is not guilty, she saw the vision, but everything points at him. And indeed he was facing a trial.

Here I have a question, did they decided to act this evening to make him guilty or not. Because by the description that follows and they find how victims were sedated, this lover might have just woken up in the process and the guy killed her in the process. There was no indication in the book to say they did it on purpose.

MY SECOND QUESTION was after all the murder followed too closely, but at least think how this "club" was into blood experiments, mediums who lost blood. Quite a connection. But Lily dismissed it on the grounds that she should be suspicious of ALL hematologists. So she dismissed it quite quickly. This is why I say that if she asked Strangford to see into Hartwell the novel will be over.

Because she knew it's connected to previous mediums she can't leave it alone, but where to start? This is where she asks Strangford for help, try to see if he can touch one of the recent victims - you heard it, grave robbery.

The cemetary. This is where Lily meets Gardner and sees Sam Wu's talents (among them is picking locks). They find the grave of the victim and thanks to Strangford they at least know the process. Gardner point out that they used chloroform to sedate the victims. Later on becomes apparent that it is easy to let yourself out if you're already in the house, if you have skills like Sam (though they don't explore how the man would do it further, we find it at the very end, though even ghosts pointed it out).

But those visions did not give the answers of who does it and why.

This is why Lily decided to find ways to further expand her visions. From Ash she finds that she can do scrying or she need the wine of.. forgot the name.

The Hospital.

She tries scrying and sees more suddenly, some house that might hold some answers.

She indeed finds the house, it is a hospital for women, a charity organization, which had fire.

From a woman (prostitute) she finds the details that this places had somethign going on. Like they helped women to have an abortion, but also had a weird wing that was closed off. She finds the place was funded by Hartwell. I mean by this time the connection becomes a bit glaring. Something fishy is going on. It should have been apparent because she is followed by a guy and warned, though she beats him up. But I think it should be clear something is shady, Hartwell a person who would wish all the people not worthy would be sterile and suddenly helps whores?

Because she had a bit of a strained moment with Strangford (after all the girl is starting feeling for him and she doesn't want to be like her mother), she asks Sam to help her explore the burnt hospital.

They don't find anything except she conveniently found a pendant in the things left by women. And they also saw the operating room which had obvious fixtures on the beds for tubing for transfusion, but because both of them are lacking the knowledge they had no idea. But the room itself and the bound beds should give the idea of something. Let's skip the part where they are met with a bunch of people outside.

Lily has no clue where to go, unless she can find at least one survivor from this incident, because there are. CONVENIENTLY she visits Dr Gardner and they had a woman who was sick and a bit delirious, but she talked about transfusion and the person who helped Hartwell. Basically it seals that Hartwell does experiments on people. In and of itself it's already condemnable.

But here is where I lost it, since Gardenr says it might be delirium, since the woman is sick. I'm like WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED? And Lily thinks this is not enough, she wants to know why he does it. ARE YOU KIDDING? 

She relied the overall info to her father, but it didn't help, since Hartwell is influential and she has no proof. She asked Strangford to look into the pendant of the Jewish woman and there was not enough proof as well.

Instead of relying on anyone she decided to take a chance and break into Hartwell's house. She already hurt people who helped her just because she asked, it was enough. Reckless as it is.

She does find the folders of Hartwell's helper - Waddington or smth. And also the case of the Jewish medium woman. In them there are notes about how the power of medium was transferred to Waddington, which explains Hartwell's obsession with mediums. But because it's just a folder and his experiments hold such significance for science who knows if it will be taken seriously. She even finds another note how he got support in his experiments.

But she is caught (of course), she manages to escape and finds at home that Estell is gone, this is the day. Instead of hurting her they took her. She remembers all the people with badge of that "club" who were monitoring her house and she dismissed them as paranoia, she remembered the guy with average looks who happened to be Waddington. She also realized that it was because of her she led them to find about Estell, after all Estell stopped giving advertisements. Drowned by guilt she decided to do anything she can, even face the power she was pushing away, but she won't do it alone.

She finds Strangford and drinks that wine, she has visions, a lot of them, they're not good tbh. But she tries to see what she needs instead of random visions. And here she is, in some warehouse and looking around she figures where it is. Basically this moment of taking a shortcut also made her see what her power truly is.

They find the warehouse (Strangford's footman was sent for others, tough I was like - how they're gonna find you among all the warehouses?), here they find Estell, she is alive. Don't ask how they're going to transfer powers.

There is no one except Waddington who becomes their opponent. One broken oil lamp and the fire starts. While Strangford fought Waddington Lily tried to save Estell. Both men fell and Strangford was in the water and now it was Lily's turn to face the man. She actually fought quite well, eventually driving a board with a nail into the guy's head. She dragged Estell out but was devastated thinking Strangford was still inside and died.

Two women were apprehended by Hartwell and his thug gang. Lily finds herself in the half-ruined place she saw at the very beginning (of the book). Although she tries to make Hartwell let go of Estell in exchange for herself, but later realizes it's futile to rely on this man. She fully opens up to her gift and uses it to be just one step ahead to escape from her cell. It's an action packed scene and very dynamic. In the end she is trapped on the roof, one man falls, but she still hangs there. Thinking of possibilities Lily was ready to sacrifice herself, because she saw many of possible futures (very different from her previous vision of only one) and in many of them Hartwell hurt countless people. But at this moment our saving squad appears. All thanks to raven's help (explaining, she saw raven outside the window when she was left in the office and she asked the raven for help, to tell Sam where she is) the guys found her. Now Hartwell actually thinks of getting rid of Lily to make up his alibi, but Lily still pushes them both down while she grabs the crowbar that was stuck.

Happy end for our team, not so much for Hartwell.

Later her half-brother was released, because they found proof in Waddington's house and all places were visited by the "gas man" who never left.

Lily joins The Refuge to train her talent.

She and Strangford basically confessed to their feelings.

Maybe because I'm a reader this is why I felt the connection was obvious. I could understand why Lily dismissed the idea once. But when she saw Hartwell's last name connected to a hospital, then blood transfusions, it became too obvious. Motivation for killing mediums? Why do you act so recklessly to find the connection? To me the important part was that he conducted experiments as he thought fit, with innocent lives being trampled down for his own ideas.

Also there was a moment when I wanted Lily to be more interested, for example if Dr Gardner told her how transfusion would be possible she wouldn't be so clueless in the operating room.

A lot of it felt like a big deal of convenience. Then again if Strangford just touched Hartwell, he would know all the secrets, but Lily never brought it up. No one brought it up. That would be too convenient.

I suppose even if I rant it will not be enough to showcase how Lily described it as "guesswork" while she physical proof of at least human experiemnts.

Charismatics is indeed a fresh book, with a bit of popular things floating around (especially evident with how characters, FMC in particular, feel so many feelings, like every shiver and this is why I almost always feel disensitized by the end). I'm happy Jacquelyn put away the story of Raiders which she released under a different title at first and now she rewrote basically the whole story and made it into a fascinating read. Raiders also have a theme of "save the world", but it is lighter, this is why I like it more. 

RATE: 3/5. This is how I felt when finished.