The Glass Slide World is the second book in an alternate historical fantasy by Carrie Vaughn. Released 7th Oct 2025 by Amazon on their 47 North imprint, it's 276 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats.It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free. The previous (1st) book in the series, is also available on KU.
This is emphatically mostly a natural history novel set in the mid-Victorian era with a female protagonist partially constrained by her gender and the rigidity of scientific study and all the sexism and snobbery that implied. Secondarily, it's a fantasy novel, and readers who are -primarily- interested in the fantasy aspects might well be less engaged than readers who just love drily (pseudo)academic narratives (c.f. Fawcett's Emily Wilde series). This story picks up a couple decades after the first book and primarily follows daughter Ava's studies to qualify as a physician as well as a naturalist.
The author is adept at narrative prose; the descriptions are beautifully rendered and the characters are well developed, believable (for the genre), and three dimensional. The author either has a true deep-dive fascination with natural history, access to a solid research librarian, or both. There are a number of fairly in-depth explanations of microbiological concepts and species, as much as the first book was a rabbit hole of ornithology, this one turns to the hidden world contained in a drop of water. There's a distinct nod to upcoming books, maybe we can get Ms. Vaughn to turn her sights toward lepidoptery sometime. :)
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours 3 minutes and is capably read by Barrie Kreinik (new for this volume). She has a precise, classically trained voice and does a good job of the disparate accents, male and female, and a range of ages. MC Ava's voice is mostly cut-glass RP English, but the narrator's voice is fairly soothing and isn't grating or strident. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read.
Four stars. Engaging and (mostly) satisfying. It would make a good buddy read. It's not at all derivative, but fans of Emily Wilde should definitely pick this one up.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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