Beyond Selidor

The Familiar really does feel at last like Bardugo's novel of the heart: my reactions to her previous fiction range from adoration to being left cold, but all have felt to me to have been written to the market

That's really nice to hear! I saw The Familiar at the library and dithered over it but put it back, because so far my experience of Bardugo's writing (I read Six of Crows and part of Crooked Kingdom and enjoyed them with some reservations, and poked at and bounced off the other stuff) has been such that I didn't really feel like I could trust her with something like this -- there just hasn't been enough care in the books I've read to make me feel like I wanted to embark on something that I think requires a nuanced touch to do well (a lot of mangled Russian, characters behaving in ridiculous ways, worldbuilding that doesn't make much sense, etc.)

But it sounds like this is a level up in terms of authorial investment in the work, which makes me more likely to pick up The Familiar next time I come across it.