Inspired by the tale of Bluebeard and French mythology, Marissa Meyer’s novel “The House Saphir” fulfills the interest of any fans of murder mysteries. “The House Saphir,” released on Nov. 4, is an entertaining read in the young adult fantasy genre.
As a fan of Meyer’s series “The Lunar Chronicles,” which tied in different fairytale plotlines from the Grimm Brothers into her novels, I was excited to see how the tale of Bluebeard would be woven into this story. Bluebeard is a story about a man who kills and hides his disobeying wives. His seventh and final wife, though the book’s retelling has four wives, escapes after finding the corpses of his past victims and gets her brothers to kill him. Monsieur Le Bleu, a French word that directly translates to “the blue,” is the story’s Bluebeard. The story follows the events of this tale generations later.
In the present, Mallory Fontaine and her sister Anaïs are con artists who use their deceased mother’s reputation as a renowned witch to lure in visitors. Mallory is a fanatic of the Saphir family and illegally gives tours in the original House Saphir, where Monsieur Le Bleu killed his first wife. When she crosses paths with Armand Le Bleu, she and her sister are offered the opportunity to go to the current House Saphir to get rid of the evil spirit of Le Bleu along with various monsters. Though they lack the ability to get rid of Le Bleu, as Mallory only has the ability to speak to ghosts, the sisters take the job for money and realize there is a lot more to Le Bleu and the House Saphir than they originally thought.
Going into the novel, I felt iffy about how Meyer was going to differentiate Bluebeard’s fairytale from her original storyline. The basics of the story seemed too similar. I also assumed that the plot was going to be very predictable based on the beginning storyline, but there were some twists that caught me off guard. There were a few instances that I easily guessed, such as Armand and Mallory’s romantic side plot, but the actual climax of the story was more intense and had higher stakes than I anticipated.
One of the things I really enjoyed in “The House Saphir” was the pacing of its plot. Despite the novel being 420 pages long, I never felt bored reading it and found that every chapter contributed to the plot. There was a perfect combination of action, mystery and romance. It felt like there were not any filler chapters.
Despite liking the plot, I was not a big fan of the person the plot followed. Mallory’s character is your typical strong young adult female protagonist and was hard to relate to as a reader. Though she did have some character development towards the end that made her more likeable, I found myself wanting to roll my eyes at the snarky comments she makes at people trying to help her.
Overall, “The House Saphir” was a fun book I could not put down. There was clearly a lot of thought put into this novel, and I would give it a 4.5/5 stars. Ω
