This is a fast-paced sequel to Ironskin. Helen was seen as only a silly and thoughtless woman gets to redeem herself. Helen has to do more character growth than Jane did. Helen has to learn that she has power, a voice, and a will to use them. There is some tense moments when Alistair is drunk and angry but Connolly uses them to make Helen grow. Helen wants to please but learns that she has to take care of herself and those in need. There is not much more world building in this one. We see more of the dwarvven world, more of the fey plots, and that is about it. Connolly gets into the darker human world where people might make their wives get new faces. And she dives into how that would make someone feel. The women in this novel are not taken seriously and they are mad about it. I like that Connolly is not afraid to talk about that. The dailog is not bad but it really is the world and the mystery that makes you keep reading.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this book with my own money. ( )

Lovely follow up to IRONSKIN . Esp loved the introduction of new characters, and society ladies going to war w hat pins. ( )

Pros: Helen’s a complex character, interesting plot

Cons: Alastair’s mistreatment of Helen is more told than shown

Helen Huntingdon’s husband is part of Copperhead, an organization that aims to rid the city of the fae - and the dwarvven. Under his direction she replaced her normal face with a fae one, an act that now leaves her in peril of being overtaken by the fae and having her own existence wiped out. She’s not alone, almost 100 other influential women in the city have had the same operation.

Helen brings her sister Jane to a Copperhead meeting in order to remove the fae mask of the host’s wife, but when the host turns on their new weapon against the fae, something goes horribly wrong. The wife is left in a fae trance while Jane, accused of murdering the woman, has disappeared. Helen must convince the rest of the 100 fae faced women to have the operation to return their original faces while she searches for her missing sister, because it sounds like the fae are gearing up for another attack.

Helen is a great character. While Jane, the protagonist of the first book, and her older sister, is direct and often tactless with her sense of right and wrong, Helen has learned to manipulate the people around her into thinking she’s a bit empty-headed and have them do things for her when she smiles and flirts. She feels guilty that she wasn’t brave enough to join the fae war like Jane, and resentful that Jane left her - at 13 - to watch their mother die of a slow illness afterwards. Helen doesn’t want to responsibility that’s left with her when Jane disappears. She wants to be shallow, discussing fashion with other socialite women, dancing, and flirting. She wants to find Jane so she can hand over the fate of the 100. But when push comes to shove - again and again and again - she knuckles down and does when she has to. Indeed, as the book progresses you discover how much of her flirtatious attitude masks insecurity and how capable she really is when she trusts herself. We learn what she actually did after the war - how she helped and what decisions she made that trapped her in the present, with a husband who isn’t who she thought he was. It’s fascinating seeing the different sides of her, and watching her decide who she wants to be moving forward. It’s a story about seeing yourself as you truly are and accepting the good and bad in you. It’s a story about growth.

The Copperhead plot was pretty interesting, as was the mystery of what happened to Jane and the danger facing the city. There’s a touch of romance that develops organically from the story. In addition to Helen there are a number of other interesting women who play a large part of the story. It’s cool to see female friendships and interactions in a fantasy setting.

I felt that Helen and Alastair’s relationship wasn’t as well defined in the book as it could have been. There’s more telling than showing to indicate that their relationship is bad. Early on he takes her mask - the only thing that keeps her safe from being taken over by the fae when outside. He sees it as a way of protecting her. She sees it as a way of controlling her. Without other interactions it’s hard to know if she is being unreasonably restricted by him (I’d argue she isn’t considering how easy it is for her to sneak out). Only later in the book do we see his darker side, but even then, some of the revelations about him at the climax still came as something of a shock to me.

As much as I enjoyed Ironskin I have to admit I liked Copperhead more. Perhaps it was because the story was more original, perhaps it was because Helen was such a delightful character to get to know. I’m really enjoying this series and look forward to finishing it off in Silverblind. ( )

Copperhead by Tina Connolly is the second book in the Ironskin series, set in a Victorian-era world where fey definitely exist, traded with humans for a while and then decided to wage war against them. Copperhead focuses on a different main character than Ironskin: Helen, Jane’s sister. Copperhead has the feel of both a companion novel, since Helen’s perspective is so different from Jane’s, and a sequel, since it tells of the consequences of the fey masks that a hundred women wore at the end of Ironskin. While Ironskin was a loose retelling of Jane Eyre, Copperhead is not a retelling of any classic, which also gives it a bit of a different feel.
Note: I received Copperhead from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.



Copperhead by Tina Connolly (Ironskin #2)
Published by Tor Books on Oct 15th, 2013
Genres: Adult, Historical Fantasy
Length: 304 pages
How I got my copy: Publisher
IndieBound - Book Depository - Goodreads
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Helen Huntingdon is beautiful—so beautiful she has to wear an iron mask. Six months ago her sister Jane uncovered a fey plot to take over the city. Too late for Helen, who opted for fey beauty in her face—and now has to cover her face with iron so she won’t be taken over, her personality erased by the bodiless fey.

Not that Helen would mind that some days. Stuck in a marriage with the wealthy and controlling Alistair, she lives at the edges of her life, secretly helping Jane remove the dangerous fey beauty from the wealthy society women who paid for it. But when the chancy procedure turns deadly, Jane goes missing—and is implicated in the murder.

Meanwhile, Alistair’s influential clique Copperhead—whose emblem is the poisonous copperhead hydra—is out to restore humans to their “rightful” place, even to the point of destroying the dwarvven who have always been allies.

Helen is determined to find her missing sister, as well as continue the good fight against the fey. But when that pits her against her own husband—and when she meets an enigmatic young revolutionary—she’s pushed to discover how far she’ll bend society’s rules to do what’s right. It may be more than her beauty at stake. It may be her honor...and her heart.

Strengths:
Copperhead has a large feminist movement element. Since it’s set in an alternative Victorian era, it starts with the same gender-role dynamics that you would expect, but the women of Copperhead develop a large amount of independence and confidence. They realize that they are capable of leaving the men that forced them into fey masks in the first place and that they don’t need to conform to traditional gender roles. There are also a couple of examples of women that were already breaking the gender role they were assigned by becoming actresses and wearing trousers!
Helen seemed rather shallow in Ironskin, but we find out in Copperhead just how much of an act she was putting on. Helen is such a wonderfully deep character, pulled between the very real expectations of society to be a perfectly demure woman and the desire for freedom and happiness. The development that she goes through in Copperhead is a wonderful example of how a more feminine heroine can stay true to the real aspects of her character (such as loving fashion), while still becoming independent and strong.
The writing of Copperhead very much fits the time setting. It is pleasant and very much got me in the right mindset for the Victorian world in which Copperhead takes place.
I freaking love the alternative history that Connolly has created. She continues to drop in awesome little twists, such as Lady MacDeath instead of Lady MacBeth. It’s funny how many little things would likely change if fey made their presence known instead of only being fairytales!
There are a couple of plot reveals that weren’t OMG PLOT TWIST, but were still unexpected and fun. This goes back to the feel of Copperhead; it wouldn’t have been appropriate for there to be a huge crazy plot twist, and so the subtle reveals fit just perfect.
Weaknesses:
While I generally enjoyed the writing of Copperhead, the pacing can be described as languid from time to time. There just isn’t all that much action in Copperhead, since much of the book relies on wheeling and dealing and scheming.
Helen, while I adore her generally, at times frustrated me due to her lack of confidence. She makes these great leaps and then misplaces her backbone here and there and I felt like she needed someone to snap their fingers in her face and remind her just how much she had already accomplished.
There is a bit of a love triangle, which at first didn’t seem like a big deal, and then Helen went and made it a real thing. This is another moment where I wanted her to snap out of it.
I really enjoyed that Ironskin was a retelling of Jane Eyre and it feels weird for Copperhead not to be a retelling. They just don’t fit together as nicely in my brain ya know?
Summary:
If you enjoyed Ironskin, definitely pick up Copperhead. If you weren’t a fan of the retelling aspect of Ironskin but enjoyed the rest, definitely pick up Copperhead ;-). It was so cool getting another perspective (and Copperhead really couldn’t have been told from Jane’s perspective >.>) and getting to see a lot more of this world since Copperhead takes place completely in the city. I’m really curious now to see what perspective the third book is told from and if it goes back to the retelling roots. Also these covers are gorgeous and once again accurate! *pets*

4 Stars ( )

This is the second book in the Ironskin series by Connolly. There is an as yet untitled third book planned in this series which is scheduled for a fall 2014 release. This book was okay, I enjoy the world created here but did not enjoy the heroine.

The Fey are slowly taking over the city and a secret society called Copperhead is becoming more and more prominent. Helen (Jane’s sister) is deep in the middle of it all. Helen is one of The Hundred, the group of women who had their normal faces removed and replaced with Fey faces to become more beautiful. Her husband Alistair is one of the main members in Copperhead. When Jane contacts Helen in help returning women’s real faces back to them Helen is eager to help, especially since it sounds the the Fey are finally making a move to take over the city and it seems like they may try and use The Hundred to do so.

This was a decent book continuing the Ironskin story about Fey taking over the city. This book is from Jane's sister's (Helen's) point of view. It was a well done story and dealt with some interesting issues. But, unfortunately I just thought it was a bit boring. I didn't find Helen to be all that engaging of a character, and though I admire how she changed throughout the story, I just wasn't all that engaged with the story.

Helen is very into being beautiful and very selfish. She comes off as flighty and a bit self-centered. Even when she is trying to help she is mainly doing it to make herself look good, not because she really strongly believes something is right. This changes some as the book continues and she starts to take on some responsibility. I really didn’t enjoy her as a character at all and I was disappointed that Jane was in the story so little.

A main issue raised in this book is that of women being forced to comply to their husbands’ wishes. Many of The Hundred were forced into having their faces improved by their husbands. Some went through the face change to escape abusive husbands, or to win wealthy husbands. Much of this book talks about this and is focused on the theme of how women have to empower themselves if they want to escape from the tyranny of a patriarchal society. At times I felt like it got a bit preachy.

Another major issue is the prosecution of the dwarven people. Copperhead is a “humans only” society and they don’t care that the dwarven are also enemies of the Fey; they just prosecute all non-humans equally. Again, it gets a bit preachy about the importance of equality.

I do love this world that is threatened by Fey infestation. I love how the woman have to wear iron masks to protect themselves from Fey takeover. The secret society of Copperhead was also very well done.

There is a bit of romance here between Helen and a half-dwarven man named Rook. To be honest this romance felt-forced and was awkward. For one Helen is married, secondly Rook always seems more interested in inciting rebellion than anything else. They are more partners in a similar cause and then, bam, suddenly they are in love...it was weird.

The book ties up nicely and is very easy to read. There really isn’t anything left to resolve at the end of this book, so I am very curious to see what the third book will be about.

Overall there are some neat ideas in here and I enjoyed the world-building. I didn’t like Helen as a main character and missed Jane. The plot was interesting, but at times with all the social issues being addressed this got a bit boring and preachy. When I was finished I kind of just thought "Eh, well okay that's over with”. I liked Ironskin a lot better than this book, but if you read Ironskin and enjoyed it I would recommend reading this book to see how the open issues in Ironskin are tied up. ( )