Leigh Bardugo built one of the most popular fantasy franchises of the last decade with the Grishaverse, a series of YA novels that spawned a Netflix adaptation and a devoted fanbase. The Familiar represents a sharp turn. Set in Madrid in 1600, during the final decades of the Spanish Inquisition, the novel follows Luzia Cotado, a kitchen maid in a noble household who possesses a gift for small miracles. She can make bread rise faster, remove stains, heal minor wounds. These abilities, which she calls “refranes,” draw the attention of powerful people who want to use her talents for their own purposes, thrusting her into a world of courtly intrigue, religious persecution, and dangerous magic.
The novel launched in April 2024 to a reception that was warm but complicated. Bardugo’s existing readers appreciated the maturation of her voice while sometimes missing the propulsive plotting of her earlier work. New readers drawn by the historical setting found a rich, atmospheric novel that occasionally struggled with pacing.
The Dark Heart of the Golden Age
The historical setting is the novel’s most impressive achievement. Bardugo recreates sixteenth-century Madrid with a density of detail that goes beyond set dressing. The rigid social hierarchies, the pervasive influence of the Catholic Church, the daily reality of living as a converso (a Jewish family forced to convert to Christianity), and the constant threat of the Inquisition are woven into every scene. Luzia’s world is one where a wrong word, a suspicious neighbor, or an overheard prayer in the wrong language could mean imprisonment or death. That atmosphere of surveillance and fear gives the novel a tension that operates independently of the plot.
Luzia is a compelling protagonist because her survival depends on the same skill the novel is exploring: the performance of identity. As a converso servant with magical abilities, she must hide two things at all times, her heritage and her power. Bardugo writes this double concealment with an understanding of what it costs to be invisible by necessity, to make yourself small not out of humility but out of survival instinct. When Luzia is forced into the spotlight, asked to perform miracles for patrons who see her as a tool rather than a person, the tension between visibility and safety becomes the book’s central engine.
The supporting cast includes figures drawn from both historical record and invention. Bardugo populates the court with schemers, believers, skeptics, and opportunists, each with their own relationship to power and faith. The patron who discovers Luzia’s abilities and tries to leverage them for political advantage is particularly well-drawn, a character whose generosity is always in service of self-interest and whose patronage is just another form of ownership.
Bardugo’s prose has matured noticeably from her YA work. The sentences are more measured, the imagery more controlled, and the emotional register more subtle. She can still write action when needed, but The Familiar’s best passages are its quietest ones: Luzia in the kitchen before dawn, the texture of prayer recited in secret, the specific fear of a knock on the door. The writing earns the “literary fiction” label that the publisher attached to it.
The themes of hidden identity and survival under oppression carry obvious contemporary resonance without being forced into allegory. Bardugo lets the historical parallels speak for themselves, trusting readers to draw connections without signposting them.
Where the Magic Dims
The pacing sags in the novel’s middle third. After a strong setup that establishes Luzia’s world and circumstances, the narrative enters a stretch of courtly maneuvering and political positioning that moves slowly. The characters talk about what might happen, prepare for events that are still chapters away, and negotiate relationships whose stakes aren’t always clear. For readers accustomed to Bardugo’s Grishaverse pacing, where the plot rarely pauses for breath, this deliberate middle section can feel like the book losing momentum.
The magic system is surprisingly underdeveloped for a novelist known for intricate worldbuilding. Luzia’s refranes are described in general terms, and the rules governing what she can and can’t do remain vague throughout. Other magical practitioners appear, but the system connecting them is never fully articulated. This seems intentional, matching the novel’s approach to magic as something mysterious and dangerous rather than a quantifiable system. But it also means the magical set pieces lack the precision and escalation that defined Bardugo’s fantasy work.
Some supporting characters feel more like positions in the plot than fully realized people. The love interest, while relevant to Luzia’s emotional arc, doesn’t receive enough development to make their relationship feel earned. Several courtly figures who are introduced as important players appear and disappear based on plot convenience rather than their own internal logic.
The novel’s climax, while thematically satisfying, feels rushed relative to the slow build that preceded it. Major revelations and confrontations arrive in quick succession after hours of careful setup, and the resolution doesn’t give every thread the attention it deserves. The ending gestures toward ambiguity without fully committing to it, leaving some readers unsure whether the final pages were intentionally open-ended or simply truncated.
The Inquisition, while ever-present as atmosphere, never fully materializes as a dramatic force. Given how effectively the novel establishes the threat, the actual encounters with inquisitorial authority feel somewhat anticlimactic.
A Servant Between Two Worlds
The Familiar’s central insight is that magic, in a world of religious persecution, is just another form of heresy, another reason to be hunted, another thing to hide. Luzia’s abilities are both her greatest asset and her greatest danger, and the novel uses that tension to explore what it means to possess power you can never safely use. That metaphor extends beyond the specific historical context to touch on any situation where a person’s true self must be concealed from the world that would destroy it.
Bardugo has spoken about drawing on her own Jewish heritage for the novel, and that personal connection gives the converso experience an authenticity and emotional depth that a purely academic approach wouldn’t achieve.
Should You Read The Familiar?
If you enjoyed the historical fantasy of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell or the atmospheric menace of Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith, The Familiar occupies similar territory with its own distinct voice. Bardugo’s existing fans who are ready for a slower, more literary experience will find an author growing in exciting directions. Skip it if you want the breakneck pacing of Six of Crows, or if underdeveloped magic systems frustrate you. The Familiar is a mood piece first and a plot-driven novel second, and your experience will depend on which of those priorities matches your own.
The Verdict on The Familiar
The Familiar is an ambitious, atmospheric novel that proves Leigh Bardugo can operate well beyond the genre that made her famous. The Spanish Golden Age setting is richly realized, Luzia is a protagonist whose quiet strength carries real emotional weight, and the themes of hidden identity and survival under persecution give the story a resonance that extends beyond its historical frame. The middle-third pacing issues and underdeveloped magic system keep it from the heights of Bardugo’s best work, but as a first step into adult historical fiction, it’s a confident and promising one. Bardugo has more rooms to explore in this register, and The Familiar opens the door convincingly.