In a Venn diagram of Jane Austen, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Marie Brennan, you'll find Gillian Murray Kendall's fantasy-of-manners, The Book of Forbidden Wisdom right in the middle.

In a world of blood and betrayal, love is the only redemption. But that knowledge can only be reached by means of magic and a journey, by way of a confrontation with feelings that are hard to understand--or bear.

On Angel's sixteenth birthday, her younger sister, Silky, wakes her to prepare her for a marriage to Leth, a man she likes but does not love. Trey, her...