The Victoria Marmot: The Complete Series #1-5 box set is a collection of five young adult fantasy adventures featuring the shape-shifting, badass, teenage heroine, Victoria Marmot. The stories run on into one another and cannot really be read as standalones. I read the box set on my Kindle, and it felt like one longer book, since many storylines continued through the individual books which make up the collection.
The series is a whirlwind of fantasy tropes: a ‘chosen one’ main character, a rag-tag crew of found family, a coming of age storyline, side quests galore, saving the world, good triumphing over evil, to name just a few. There were also many thematic elements: a magical world the main character is unaware of, a kidnapped twin, polyamory, shifters of many kinds, vampires, demons, evil mages, and so many others that my head was spinning for much of this series, but in a good way. A large, believable-feeling cast of characters and plenty of action kept me turning pages, despite some of the fights and other hardships Vic went through, feeling a little repetitive. The author even addresses this towards the end, with Victoria commenting on how many times she should have to shift to the middle of a battle to save her loved ones while also saving the world.
I really enjoyed the device of the goddess Gwen, who begins as a naked narrator and then bestows the narration to the main character, who debates whether first-person narration is a good thing or annoying. Victoria’s awareness that she might be a character in a book is a really nice touch! Gwen then becomes a character in her own right from that point onwards. My favourite side character was the demon Azrael, succubus and Archangel of Death and the many, seemingly unconnected forms they appeared in, depending on which realm they were in, including a demonic, red, hairless squirrel, . The health-restoring, talking Tree of Life, who looked more like a scythe-wielding Death, was another interesting character. Virginia McClain’s imagination knows no bounds when it comes to characters and world-building!
I also enjoyed how often the author emphasised the importance of consent and the rights of all beings to just be who they want and to be with whoever they want.
Victoria Marmot is a fun, sometimes spicy young adult series that lovers of shifter fantasy and LGBTQIA stories will cherish!
