Sapphire Blue

I came to Sapphire Blue straight after Ruby Red because that first book ends on a cliff edge. This is the second book in the Precious Stone Trilogy, originally published as Saphirblau in 2010 and released in English by Henry Holt and Company, and it picks up days after Gwyneth learns she is the Ruby. I wanted answers about Gideon, Lucy, Paul, and the stolen chronograph right away. It feels messier in the middle than the first and stronger at the end, and I liked it more once I stopped expecting it to wrap things up.

Gwyneth Shepherd is still sixteen, still sharp tongued, still living in that crowded London house with her mother Grace, her grandmother Lady Arista, her great aunt Maddy, her siblings, and Charlotte and Glenda glaring from across the hall. She has just survived first controlled jumps with Gideon de Villiers, she has met Count Saint-Germain in the past and found him charming in a way that made her skin crawl, and she has heard Lucy Montrose and Paul de Villiers warn her not to trust the lodge. She does not know if Gideon likes her or is using her to keep her compliant. That uncertainty drives almost everything here, from training to missions to a ball that changes how she sees him.

After Ruby Red and a Very Confusing Boy

The opening stretch is all fallout. Gwyneth replays every moment with Gideon from book one, the almost tender bits and the cold pullbacks, and tries to decide what was real. Gideon told her about a prophecy that says the Ruby will die for love, which is a horrible thing to hear when you are sixteen and already falling for the boy who told you. He also seemed to admit he cared for her, then went distant again under orders from his uncle Falk and the rest of the Guardians.

I felt for Gwyneth here because Gier writes embarrassment and hope well. Gwyneth jokes with Lesley Hay, her best friend, about how she will not cry over a boy in a frock coat. Then she sees Gideon again at the lodge in Temple and her stomach drops anyway. Lesley brings snacks, timelines, and blunt advice. When Gwyneth spirals, Lesley tells her Gideon is good looking and brave and also a mess from being raised by the lodge.

Charlotte is still in the house and still hurting. She trained her whole life to be the Ruby and learned she never carried the gene. In this book she gets smaller, sadder scenes that helped me see her as more than the perfect rival. She is rude, and her mother Glenda remains awful in a polished adult way, but Charlotte also looks lost. I appreciated that shift.

My gripe with this section is that it circles. Gwyneth goes over the same questions about Gideon for several chapters while Gideon stays offstage, so the romance feels stuck. On second read I saw Gier was letting Gwyneth sit in doubt while adults lie to her, but a tighter edit could have trimmed pages of worrying without losing the feeling.

Learning to Elapse and Failing at Etiquette

A big job for Gwyneth is training. The Guardians need her blood read into the chronograph, the device that lets travelers steer jumps, and they need her to behave in the past. So she gets lessons in history, dancing, fencing, and how to wear dresses that seem designed to make breathing optional. Madame Rossini is kind about it. Mr George tries to explain lodge politics without scaring her. Even Falk de Villiers, the head of the lodge and Gideon's uncle, turns on charm while watching her for obedience.

The best new skill is elapsing. In this series, travelers can sometimes move through time by concentration, without the chronograph sending them, though it is risky. Gwyneth fails a lot at first. She gets headaches and dizzy spells and pops back too soon. I liked these scenes because they show cost. It leaves her pale on a sofa while adults argue about sending her out again.

School keeps going in between. Gwyneth sits through classes and explains absences. Lesley covers for her and researches old records, hunting for mentions of the circle, the chronograph, and past travelers. The gargoyle Xemerius, who only Gwyneth can see, follows her around London making rude jokes and acting as a spy. He perches on chimneys and school walls and reports back what adults say when they think no one listens. He steals every scene. Some readers find him too silly. I think he works because he says what Gwyneth cannot say at the lodge, that the rules are strange and the old men love ritual a little too much.

Fair criticism is that the training chapters pile up. Fencing lesson, dance lesson, history lecture, fitting, scolding. A few blur together. I understand Gier wants us to feel how rushed Gwyneth's preparation is compared to Charlotte's years of study, and that point lands, but the pace sags before the next jump.

Missions That Go Wrong in Useful Ways

Once Gwyneth and Gideon are sent out together, the book finds its pulse. They visit the past to have blood read and meet contacts, and almost nothing goes smoothly. Gwyneth says the wrong thing. Gideon corrects her under his breath and smiles for strangers. She notices details he misses, like how frightened servants look or how scripted polite talk feels when someone powerful watches.

One trip to the early twentieth century stuck with me. The clothes are closer to modern and Gwyneth can breathe for a minute. She and Gideon pose as relations at a social call, gather information about Lucy and Paul, and get out without leaving traces. Gier is good at these fish out of water bits. Gwyneth worries about hair, shoes, curtsy, accent. It is funny until a question lingers too long or a door stays locked.

Gideon is better in action than in class. He fences, dances, lies smoothly to protect her, then says something cutting on the way home. I went back and forth on him. He looks at Gwyneth like he is memorizing her face, then treats her like a chore. The lodge raised him to put duty before feeling and to believe the prophecy about her death is fixed. He tries to keep her safe by keeping distance, and he is bad at explaining that.

What I liked is that Gwyneth learns to trust her eyes. In book one she accepted lodge answers because she was new. Here she compares what adults say with what she sees in drawing rooms and alleys and archives. Why are records missing. Why does Falk go quiet at certain names. Why do servants exchange looks when the Count is mentioned. She writes things down with Lesley and checks dates, and that habit will matter more in book three. Lesley has no gene, but her research moves the plot as much as any jump.

Count Saint-Germain Up Close and Terrifying

Count Saint-Germain dominates this book even off the page. He is the fifth traveler, founder of the Guardians, author of the prophecies, still alive in the eighteenth century and pulling strings into Gwyneth's present. History remembers the real Saint-Germain as a witty adventurer who claimed to be very old, and Gier builds on that rumor with a cold edge. He is polite, curious, well dressed, and certain other people exist to serve his plan to close the circle of twelve.

His scenes with Gwyneth are the strongest. He receives her and Gideon in elegant rooms where everyone performs calm. Candlelight, music, bows that last a beat too long. He asks about her life and listens like a kind grandfather for a minute. Then he says something precise about her future that makes the air go thin. He seems able to catch feelings she does not speak aloud, which leaves her wondering afterward what she gave away and whether thinking loudly near him is dangerous. Gideon goes stiff around him, which tells you how fear works in the lodge. Even his smile looks rehearsed there.

Back in the present, Falk and the older Guardians echo the Count on a smaller scale. They talk of destiny and sacrifice. They tell Gwyneth Lucy and Paul are thieves who stole the second chronograph, that they put history at risk, that she must not listen to them. They say the circle must be closed for healing and knowledge. They never explain in plain words who gains what, or why it needs blood from across centuries. Gwyneth nods and saves doubts for Lesley and Xemerius.

The book is effective here and a little heavy handed. The Count scares because he is controlled, not because he shouts. But lodge scenes sometimes underline danger three times when once would do. I did not mind much, yet readers who like villains with more charm might wish Falk had one truly warm scene. Fear works best quiet, like when the Count asks about her mother and waits a beat too long.

What Lucy and Paul Finally Reveal

Lucy Montrose and Paul de Villiers were names in book one. Here they become people, and the book gets better fast. Lucy was meant to be the Ruby, Paul is Gideon's older brother, and a year before Gwyneth's story they stole the chronograph and fled into the past. The lodge calls them traitors. Gwyneth meets them in rushed encounters that feel like talking through a closing door.

What they tell her changes the trilogy. They say the circle should not be closed. The Count's talk of a great good is cover for something that will give him power and leave others harmed. They ran to protect the future, and they have been hiding while the lodge hunts them. Lucy is fierce and tired. Paul is steady and gentle with Gwyneth. They cannot prove everything in five minutes with Gideon nearby, so they give her places to look and warnings about whom to trust.

I loved this because it reframes book one without cheating. Grace lying about Gwyneth's birth date looks less like cruelty and more like a mother keeping her daughter out of a machine she fears. Missing lodge documents look less like accidents. Gideon's mood swings look less like teen drama and more like a boy caught between an uncle he respects and a brother now called criminal.

A fair knock is limited page time. They appear, warn, vanish. Gwyneth spends much of the book turning over what they meant instead of asking follow ups, which can feel like stalling. I get why, because full answers would end the series early, but two scenes cut off right before the useful answer. Still, the core lands. Lucy and Paul chose each other over the lodge, and that gives Gwyneth a model for disobedience based on care.

The Ball, the Kiss, and the Betrayals That Hurt

Everything builds toward a ball in the past, and Gier writes parties well. Heat, candles, rules about who may dance and speak first. Gwyneth dreads embarrassment, then does better than feared. She dances, makes conversation, watches power move across a room. Gideon sees her differently, and for a while guard drops. They laugh and stand close. It feels like trust might settle.

Then it breaks, and the break is why people remember this book. Without giving away every beat, Gwyneth sees Gideon with Charlotte in a way that feels like betrayal, close and tender when she believed she was the one he cared for. I put the book down and stared at the wall at that section. It hurts because she had started to believe his softer moments. It hurts more because Charlotte is family, at the same table. Gier lets it sit without rushing to excuse it.

There are other betrayals, smaller and sadder. Adults withheld letters. A relative says too much about Grace and Gwyneth's father. The lodge asks Gwyneth to do something routine that carries weight she did not agree to. Each cut is small alone. Together they teach what Lucy warned early, that obedience here means letting others decide what your life is for.

The ball leans on miscommunication, which can annoy. Gwyneth sees pain and runs rather than asking, Gideon fails to explain, Charlotte cries, adults close ranks. If you dislike misunderstandings solved by one honest talk, you will want to shout. I did. But it fits them now. Gwyneth expects heartbreak from prophecy. Gideon hides by training. Charlotte grieves a stolen future. None say plain things yet.

The book ends without closing the circle, right for a middle trilogy but frustrating if you wanted answers. Gwyneth is more skilled, more suspicious, more alone in what she knows. She has Lesley and Xemerius and a mother who lied to protect her, which counts. I finished feeling wrung out and reaching for Emerald Green, which is what a second book should do. It sags in training chapters, but its best scenes with the Count and Lucy and Paul give the series weight Ruby Red only hinted at. For readers who like time travel with manners and secrets and a heroine learning to read adults as well as history, this bridge makes the finale feel necessary.