Brynn Barineau

Five swashbuckling stars for this action-packed (and I don't use that lightly) adventure! As a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Princess Bride, and using historical fiction as a jumping-off point to learn about people and places, Jaguars and Other Game was right up my alley--and just a TON of fun! I'll be buying my physical copy in November and will probably return to the tropical heat when I need a mood boost in the winter.

The setting is intriguing from the start: how did I not know that the entire Portuguese court packed up and fled the CONTINENT to escape Napoleon? Not doing things by halves, they made Rio de Janeiro the official capital and set out to settle in. The colonizers showing up on the doorstep of their colony with no warning? Yeah, the city's in total chaos.

Our three main characters in this marvelous mess span the major components of Rio society at this time: Maria, a free Black woman whose enslaved parents bought their freedom; Isabel, her adopted sister, whose parents were Indigenous; and Victoria, newly-arrived with the Portuguese royal court. Their personalities are fun contrasts: Maria is responsible and organized, dedicated to running her father's old mule train, with her childhood friend-or-more Mateus as the official male face of the group; Isabel is impulsive, eager to fight and to flirt, full of stories and laughter; and Victoria, quite different, is a shy servant to the elderly and mentally ill Queen Maria. Victoria's character growth is the greatest, and it feels earned.

(I have to make a quick note here that I was impressed by the at least somewhat plausible explanations for how our whip-, knife- and sword-wielding trio of valiant ladies picked up their skills and made their way in a man's world. They weren't completely modern-girl-in-a-historical-world rebels who did it all themselves--they had and got help when needed. So their level of skill doesn't seem that much more improbable than Zorro's.)

Shenanigans start right away when Isabel and Maria run afoul of some Bats--the brutal new royal guard harassing the city--and enact sweet, sweet revenge. During their distraction, Mateus winds up framed for murder and arrested by no less than the leader of the Bats himself, Vidigal.

Up against such a formidable opponent, Maria and Isabel know they'll need solid proof of Mateus's innocence to get him off, but it turns out it's not a simple matter to find a witness or a culprit. With help from an awed Victoria, they crisscross the city running into smugglers, criminals, slaves, Portuguese and British soldiers, Americans, conniving queens, dimwitted kings, and more. They crash a ball, a cart or two, and, well, more things than they can really afford to fix (though they do try).

Somehow, between the fencing-fighting-chases-escapes, we still get fun side characters as well as some actual depth to our main characters. Not enough to slow down the action--this is a swashbuckler, after all--but way more meat than I've seen in other books in this genre. We also get introduced to people and neighborhoods throughout the book, avoiding major plot-stopping info dumps, which is impressive considering just how much information there is to share!

My only big "complaint" is that the baddies are a bit obvious, but a) I was having so much fun that I didn't really mind; and b) the historical note and several different pages/citations on ye olde Wikipedia agree that one of them was actually pretty obvious in real life. Just in case you thought the setup wasn't strange-but-true enough!

Oh yeah, there's an excellent historical note in the back that breaks down what's true and what's a little fudged for effect, and also gives some insight into the author, who lived in Brazil for 15 years and married a Brazilian.

Overall, a great romping read perfect for the beach or days when you only wish you could be on one. Definitely recommended!… (más)