With Legendary, the Magic of Caraval Breaks Free

By making the wonder bolder, the mystery deeper, and the seduction more sensual. In short, you make everything bigger—and that’s what Stephanie Garber has done to dizzying effect in Legendary, the thrilling sequel to last year’s buzzed-about Caraval.
In Caraval, we met the Dragna sisters, cautious Scarlett and daring Donatella, on the cusp of adventure. After years of writing to the mysterious Legend, Scarlett finally received an invitation to Caraval, his fantastical, immersive game.
That story followed her as she navigated Legend’s world, where sorcery and sleight of hand blur the line between game and reality, and risk and reward. The world of Caraval possessed limitless imagination but deployed it in a contained environment. It was both dazzling and restrained, like its wary but wily heroine.
Legendary blows up the scale by transporting the magic and mayhem of Legend’s circus to the glittering capital city of Valenda. Picking up shortly after the end of the first novel’s Caraval, Legendary starts with a bold declaration: there is to be an unprecedented second Caraval this year, in the capital of the empire.
Her book one traumas still fresh, Scarlett is reluctant to play again, but Tella is more than eager—for several reasons, as we’re soon to discover. And so, it is Tella who drives this story, her penchant for risk-taking giving the novel its velocity and the plot its turbulence.
Amid a backdrop of swirling secrets and dark, glittering mythology, Tella sets out to win Caraval, this time with stakes higher than ever before. Tella and Scarlett may have escaped their miserable lives on Trisda and the cruelty of their father, but that freedom is not yet fully won. Getting swept up in Legend’s circle comes at a price, and Tella’s anonymous benefactor is ready to collect: with the acquisition of Legend’s true name.
The debt Tella incurred in book one is a dangerous one, with consequences that stretch far beyond the confines of Caraval. Tella has a limited amount of time to uncover the secret histories of Legend, of the banished Fates, and of her own family. If she fails to do so, the results could be deadly. But if she succeeds, the story could turn out just as disastrously.
Alongside this dilemma, there is also the matter of Dante, one of Legend’s coterie of performers, whose cheeky, devil-may-care attitude hides yet another series of questions for Tella to unravel. The wide-eyed romance of Scarlett and Julian amplified the Alice-in-Wonderland, is-this-real qualities of Caraval; in its sequel, the intoxicating high-wire attraction between Dante and Tella imbues the magical world around them with a crackling, sensual energy.
Given that atmosphere, it’s endlessly easy to lose yourself in the world Garber has created, even as her characters lose sight of what is real and what is yet another trick of a magician’s mind. Legendary builds on the dazzling world of its predecessor and creates a story that soars in scope. Where that leaves the Dragna sisters in book three is another mystery we can’t wait to solve.