The Amber Garden

The Amber Garden is the final book in Cynthea Masson’s “The Alchemists’ Council” trilogy. This installment involves many of the characters introduced in the first two novels, The Alchemists’ Council and The Flaw in the Stone and introduces some new characters. The story continues with the everlasting conflict between the Alchemists’ Council and the Rebel Branch. Both the Alchemists’ Council and the Rebel Branch are groups of semi-immortal alchemists who use the inscription and interpretation of ancient and sacred manuscripts to guide events of the outside world and bring balance and peace. While the two groups share the goal of peace in the outside world, they have been in active and passive conflict for millennia over how this can be achieved and what the results should actually look like.

The Amber Garden and the two earlier titles are highly original, full of complex and intricate worldbuilding with a complicated plot that spans centuries and involves time travel and multiple circular timelines. The characters operate with certainty, but they really don’t know if what they are doing is right or will give them the results they desire. The ambiguity of the characters’ motives and goals make The Amber Garden a very refreshing novel. There is no concrete good and bad; instead, there are characters with mixed motives, some selfish, some not. The focus on the intricate worldbuilding leaves the plot to suffer somewhat. The world can be so complex with so many characters it can be difficult to keep track of the events of the novel. The writing can be uneven, with an imbalance between what is important to the plot and what the author conveys as important. Rather than show the reader key events, one character will merely recount them to another character, making it difficult to determine which plot twists are important and which are insignificant. Likewise, a key character is introduced late in the novel, and the reader never experiences events from her perspective.

Prior to the epilogue, the ending of the novel was satisfying. While it seemed that neither the Alchemists’ Council nor the Rebel Branch had fully achieved their goals, they had set aside ancient grievances to work together to prevent the dissolution of the world. However, the novel’s epilogue undid all of this, revealing that many seemingly random events had been the results of the scheming of a single character. This felt like a lazy and unnecessary way to end an intriguing series. The Amber Garden can be a frustrating read, but the originality of its world and the humanity of the characters make up for the deficiencies of a confusing plot. Because the books of this series do not stand on their own, it is absolutely necessary to read all three in order, back to back.