The Enchanted Lies of Céleste Artois by Ryan Graudin: Review by Alexandra Pierce

The Enchanted Lies of Céleste Artois, Ryan Grau­din (Redhook 978-0-31641-869-0, 544pp, $30, hc). Cover by Lisa Marie Pompilio. August 2024.

Paris, 1913, saw the first public performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and it caused a sensation – indeed, some have said it caused a riot, but there seems to be disagreement over that interpretation. Whatever the historical truth, it probably didn’t happen because of magic, which is how Ryan Graudin uses the event to start her characters on their adventure in The Enchanted Lies of Céleste Artois.

Céleste, Honoré, and Sylvie call themselves the Enchantresses: not because they do actual magic, but because they are con artists and thieves. Their enchantments consist of art forgeries, false moustaches, and nimble fingers. All orphans, Céleste and Honoré are in their 20s, while Sylvie is only 11; the older two are trying to raise Sylvie in their hideout within a cemetery. Céleste came from money, but now has nothing; Honoré grew up in a violent household, and likewise has no ties to her past life.

The Enchantresses attend the premier of Stravinsky’s ballet, intent on finding new marks, and are caught up in the stampede of people leav­ing the theatre – but not before Céleste sees shad­ows moving of their own accord, and also not before she meets the compelling Rafe, an artist and link to Honoré’s past. In the aftermath, Rafe takes Céleste to La Fée Verte’s salon, where magic is real and where Paris’s artists – Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, the Duchess d’Uzès – create art all night, only to forget their experiences the next morning. Rafe’s intentions are not honorable: he needs the sort of help a forger can provide. And so begins a sequence of events that bring Céleste, Honoré, and Sylvie into the shadow world of magic and art, with consequences for the entire city of Paris – and, given the novel continues into 1914, for all of Europe.

Graudin presents a world where the process of imagining can itself take physical form; where imagination can make statues come to life or create wings that will actually let you fly. Those whose imaginations are particularly active can eventually become Sancts, able to use the power of an idea to actually do magic, and also able to guide new people in using their imaginations as wildly as possible. As with all such power, it’s possible to use it for good or ill, and The Enchanted Lies becomes a battle between two opposing forces – the evil wanting to dominate and ruin first Paris, and then everything else it can reach, with La Fée Verte and the Enchant­resses gathering the resistance.

Although set in the Paris of the Belle Époque, and somewhat romanticising the era – I suspect you can’t help but do so if you’re writing about artists, and adding in magic – Graudin doesn’t ignore the realities of Parisian life at the time. The three Enchantresses literally live in a mauso­leum, while Rafe lives with other starving artists and Honoré’s father was a gangster. Spatially speaking, Graudin evokes the ‘‘real’’ Paris – its landmarks and narrow streets and museums – while adding the magical lanes and underground salons and magic doors to St Petersburg that make it a very different Paris. Temporally, 1913 is a clever year to use: It already has that mysti­cal, almost mythical allure of the Belle Époque, and especially with its focus on art, there are so many later-famous names around the city to play with. And there’s also the fact that the reader knows World War 1 is around the corner, adding an element of urgency to the story – raising the question of whether the author will include the war in the narrative; and even if not, these char­acters must soon experience the horrors of war.

It’s always nice to see a new way of thinking about magic, both in how it might come into existence and then be used; Ryan Graudin has done it thoughtfully, without overly complicated rules and still internally consistent. It’s also nice to read a story like this that’s a standalone novel.

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This review and more like it in the November 2024 issue of Locus.

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