Impostor Syndrome Is a Fittingly Complicated End to a Game-Changing Urban Fantasy Series
In every way imaginable, Millicent Roper is a complicated protagonist. Over the course of the first two novels in Mishell Baker’s Nebula Award-nominated Arcadia Project series, Borderline and Phantom Pains, we’ve watched Millie struggle with the aftermath of her suicide attempt (and the prosthetic legs that came with it), and with her day-to-day mental health (including a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder). We’ve also seen her alternately flourish and fail on a new path, trying to hold together the connection between the human and fae worlds.
Impostor Syndrome
Paperback $16.99
Impostor Syndrome
In Stock Online
Paperback $16.99
Appropriately, Imposter Syndrome, the third and final Arcadia Project novel is the most complex and chaotic yet. These are books that have lived and died on the voice of their main character, and that hasn’t changed. In Impostor Syndrome, just about everything that can go wrong has and does, and the only one who can put it right again is the troubled, troublesome agent at the center of this series.
Appropriately, Imposter Syndrome, the third and final Arcadia Project novel is the most complex and chaotic yet. These are books that have lived and died on the voice of their main character, and that hasn’t changed. In Impostor Syndrome, just about everything that can go wrong has and does, and the only one who can put it right again is the troubled, troublesome agent at the center of this series.
Following the events of Phantom Pains, the Project, which monitors and regulates interactions and the access points between fae and human realities, is in disarray. It’s been split into factions, with Dame Belinda and London HQ continuing to hold a tight rein on the power structure of both worlds and splinter groups in Los Angeles and New Orleans in full rebellion.
The wedge between the sects is a matter of ethics, morality, and in a certain sense, humanity. What is the cost of magic? What price can be put on power? Dame Belinda seems willing to pay the toll, no matter the answers to those questions. She will do whatever it takes to preserve the status quo—including framing Millie’s partner Tjuan for murder.
Borderline
Paperback $15.99
Borderline
Paperback $15.99
In the role of the underdog—and alongside the rest of her Los Angeles colleagues—Millie shines, though the pressure exacerbates her internal struggles and encourages all her worst tendencies. She can be brash and reactive when the situation calls for diplomacy. Her behavior habitually falls between selfish and self-loathing. The present tumult, threatening the ties that bind the two worlds, has left her little time for introspection or self-care.
In the role of the underdog—and alongside the rest of her Los Angeles colleagues—Millie shines, though the pressure exacerbates her internal struggles and encourages all her worst tendencies. She can be brash and reactive when the situation calls for diplomacy. Her behavior habitually falls between selfish and self-loathing. The present tumult, threatening the ties that bind the two worlds, has left her little time for introspection or self-care.
Millie is, in short, at the end of a very long, very frayed rope, but she holds herself there—evidence of her other qualities: empathy, loyalty, and plain old stubbornness.
Millie also has an extensive, if occasionally quarrelsome, support system in the form of her friends and fellow agents. Baker has developed an impressive bench of supporting characters throughout the novels, culminating in one of the most intriguing and continuously evolving ensembles in urban fantasy.
Consider Caryl, Millie’s high-strung, endlessly efficient boss, still nursing a problematic infatuation with her high-stress subordinate. Caryl steals a bit of center stage in this concluding novel as she attempts to wean herself from the stabilizing influence of her support spirit, Elliott, and confront a uniquely Arcadian childhood trauma.
Phantom Pains
Paperback $24.99
Phantom Pains
In Stock Online
Paperback $24.99
That brings us to the fae themselves, and their own prolonged in-fighting and power struggles. The rival Seelie and Unseelie courts are at each other’s throats, and apprehensive about wading into the novel’s human drama. Thankfully, there is Claybriar, Millie’s Echo and a charming Seelie monarch, who’s never entered a scene without brightening it, and who buoys his human soulmate in moments of interdimensional duress.
That brings us to the fae themselves, and their own prolonged in-fighting and power struggles. The rival Seelie and Unseelie courts are at each other’s throats, and apprehensive about wading into the novel’s human drama. Thankfully, there is Claybriar, Millie’s Echo and a charming Seelie monarch, who’s never entered a scene without brightening it, and who buoys his human soulmate in moments of interdimensional duress.
It’s the fact that these characters connect so deeply even as they alternately antagonize and comfort one another makes the packed action of this climactic volume work so flawlessly. The plot zigzags the globe with little time for a rest (Millie spends half the novel jet-lagged), but never feels rushed, as every character, whatever their species, has a part to play—both on the way to the big finish, and in the lives of everyone around them.
This series started by camouflaging its plot in the glitz of Hollywood and the glamour of Faerie, but the journey Millie and her companions have truly been on is far more personal, and about as real as they come. The end credits, when they arrive, are bittersweet, both for the long-suffering agents of the Project and for we readers, who have become so deeply invested in their lives.