Of Swords and Parasols

It's an attempt made to combine Austen sensibilities with magical court intrigue. The first part of the book is very pleasant, with "ooh, we're entertaining people, ah but pity that so-and-so family is poor off with such pretty daughters" kind of thing, with all of these strange hints at mysterious things going on behind the curtain, and then BOOM something major happens, more backtracking to miserable conditions which build up to "holy crap something I wasn't expecting", and then the wind-down of "WE MUST SAVE THE WORLD FROM BAD THINGS". It takes a while to get used to and even more adjusting to get used to the jumps in narrative (it's from third person with three people in the beginning, then to first person in the middle from one person's perspective, and then back to third person with three people again)