BookWyrm

WardenRed reviewed The Place Between by Kit Oliver

Kit Oliver: The Place Between (EBook, 2020, Parrot Cat Publishing)

Will Ned finally get a relationship right - even if it's fake?

Ned’s exhausted from …

None

5 stars

The two of them here, with their wine and the messy, painful pasts.

The blurb makes it seem like a romcom, but really, it’s a bittersweet, autumnal story of mutual healing that just happens to include fake dating, meddling coworkers, and a weekend with only one bed. In general, even though I expected something different, I strongly enjoyed the atmosphere of the story. It starts off rather sad, with Ned, the main character, trying to adjust to post-divorce life and finish his dissertation and generally figure out where he goes from here. Outside of getting to spend time with his daughter, very little gets through the grey that is his mind. Until the head of his department steps in with some well-meaning but intrusive ideas on work-life balance, and it turns out Ned’s dissertation needs additions that he must work on with his former professor (no age gap/power imbalance here, …

The two of them here, with their wine and the messy, painful pasts.

The blurb makes it seem like a romcom, but really, it’s a bittersweet, autumnal story of mutual healing that just happens to include fake dating, meddling coworkers, and a weekend with only one bed. In general, even though I expected something different, I strongly enjoyed the atmosphere of the story. It starts off rather sad, with Ned, the main character, trying to adjust to post-divorce life and finish his dissertation and generally figure out where he goes from here. Outside of getting to spend time with his daughter, very little gets through the grey that is his mind. Until the head of his department steps in with some well-meaning but intrusive ideas on work-life balance, and it turns out Ned’s dissertation needs additions that he must work on with his former professor (no age gap/power imbalance here, the professor’s his age), and then meddling coworkers completely misinterpret a dinner they witness. And somehow, step by step, all these romcom clichés lead to even more romcom clichés—except there’s very little comedy and lots of dealing with the characters’ respective painful histories.

I found it interesting how the author approaches writing a character with depression: it feels very realistic, and the overall vibe is like there’s this filter layered over everything. Like there’s the story that’s actually happening, and you can see it rather clearly, but you also can’t help but acknowledge the small distortions and wrong tints and whatnot between you and the story. I think it’s mainly achieved via POV/voice: the story’s told in this sort of detached way, like the protagonist is observing his own life rather than participating in it, and then when during select moments he does get invested in what’s going on, he focuses on highly specific things. The worst parts of the situations. The possible bad outcome. The painful parts, just over the ones that do bring him joy. The interpretations of facts that he already understands to be false but clings to anyway because they are in line with what his depression tells him. And then as the story progresses and he gets, step by step, better, he focuses more and more often on different details—first in addition to the kind outlined above, then instead of them—and the lens gradually clears.

The title of the novel is really very fitting: both Ned and Henry are stuck between the pasts that are still hurting them and finding the courage to step into the future and build something new. I really enjoyed seeing the two of them muddle through it and unintentionally prop each other up, figuring out intimacy and trust as they went. Henry is the type of character that always resonates with me a lot—a shy introvert who comes across as an asshole because peopling is fucking hard, what do you all want, how do I convince you that I don’t hate you. And Ned was just so well-written that it was impossible not to feel for him every step of the way. I’m not entirely sure I’m buying their happy ending as a HEA, because even though they both get better by the end of the book I still feel they need therapy more than they need romance, but I have a lot of hope. Really, this is the main feeling this book is soaked through with for me: hope, even when things are bleak.

Also, it was super heartwarming to see Ned so loved by the important people in his life, especially his father and his friend Pat. Like, even when Ned didn’t really appear to feel it, the love just spilled over the page, adding to that big hope vibe. Oh, and Baxter is the absolute best dog. I wish I could pat him.

If I have to find something to complain about, I guess I can mention the pacing being somewhat off in the middle, and the way certain key details about Henry’s backstory and life come up being a bit awkward, with more telling than showing. Not to mention that I was a bit uncomfortable with how readily Susan spilled certain details to Ned while acknowledging Henry probably wouldn’t be telling him that on his own—sure, she thought they were in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean she got to decide how that relationship progressed and when the two adult people in it decided to share certain things with each other. But I also feel like I’m meant to fill uncomfortable with this, as meddling well-meaniing people and the problems they can create is a big part of the story’s pack of themes. So it’s not an objective complaint about the story, more just “I dislike this one character as a fictional person.”

WardenRed reviewed 9-11 by Noam Chomsky

9-11 is a collection of essays by and interviews with Noam Chomsky first published in …

None

4 stars

It’s the classic story of boy meets boy, boy loves boy, boy leaves boy, boy hates boy, boy comes back and loves boy again. Plus ghosts.

There’s one thing to be sad for S.E. Harmon’s writing: it’s just so immensely readable. I practically inhaled this book, reading most of it in one sitting, and I had so many laughs throughout. Rain never stops delivering as a fantastic narrator with an eye for detail and a knack for self-deprecating snark. I also really liked it that this time, his character growth absolutely stuck. It may have taken him at least one book too many, but the lessons are learned, the trust between him and Danny has leveled up, and generally he feels like an improved (and yet still deliciously flawed) version of himself. I approve.

All the wedding planning with both sides of the family pitching in was endlessly entertaining, and …

It’s the classic story of boy meets boy, boy loves boy, boy leaves boy, boy hates boy, boy comes back and loves boy again. Plus ghosts.

There’s one thing to be sad for S.E. Harmon’s writing: it’s just so immensely readable. I practically inhaled this book, reading most of it in one sitting, and I had so many laughs throughout. Rain never stops delivering as a fantastic narrator with an eye for detail and a knack for self-deprecating snark. I also really liked it that this time, his character growth absolutely stuck. It may have taken him at least one book too many, but the lessons are learned, the trust between him and Danny has leveled up, and generally he feels like an improved (and yet still deliciously flawed) version of himself. I approve.

All the wedding planning with both sides of the family pitching in was endlessly entertaining, and I cackled every time Rain was left alone with Paula, Danny’s mom, or otherwise in the position where she got to get her claws into him. Their relationship is endlessly entertaining, with her now being just so fucking determined to be a great mother in law. And her designs for the wedding are all so hilariously over the top and also come from such a good place, awww.

When it comes to the romance part, my pickiness about series that follow the same couple strikes again, it seems. Last time, I complained Danny and Rain kept walking in circles around the same source of conflict. Now, I intend to complain that they didn’t have enough conflict, even though there were new sources of what could be some pretty cool, low-stakes, character- and relationship-growth inducing conflict. But they were underutilized grossly, to say the least. I did love all the sweet domestic moments of the guys being each other’s ports in a storm, and I have this lingering suspicion that maybe the author loved writing them this way so much after all the past drama they couldn’t bring themself to make these glow sticks shine the way they could. Which is something, to be fair, I totally understand, but I still wish there was just a little more tension in certain parts.

As for the mystery half of the book… sorry, but blah. I think it would have helped if this plot thematically was more connected with the whole wedding planning, getting ready for a future together, watching the two halves of the family blend part of the book, but I couldn’t find enough connection for the love of me. Because of that and because the mystery just wasn’t that interesting this time, it felt like a distraction rather than a valuable part of the story. It was only in the final act that the stakes suddenly raised in a slightly confusing though exciting way. I did really like that part when all the action peaked and the fallout afterward. But it came so late in the story and I’m not sure it made the boring investigations parts worth it. Rain’s narration and humor did really help with getting through them and to the interesting bits, on the other hand!

WardenRed reviewed I Think They Love You by Julian Winters

No cover — Julian Winters: I Think They Love You (2025, St. Martin's Press)

None

4 stars

“It’s in the agreement,” Denz insists. “You lie for me. I lie for you.”
“You do realize how problematic that sounds, right?”

This is a cocktail of all my favorite tropes: second chance romance, fake dating, smaller stuff like only one bed, a tight-knit, loving, yet ever so slightly dysfunctional family, and a workaholic learning to open his heart again. And really, it’s all rather well done. The banter is sparkly and laughter-inducing, the balance of storylines and emotions is, for the most part, just right or super close to it, and all the beats are hit just when you need them to be.

I do feel like it shows that this is the author’s first adult work, because there’s just a bit of that YA vibe still clinging to it. Denz, the MC, feels younger than he is, to the point like it almost seems like there’s a bit …

“It’s in the agreement,” Denz insists. “You lie for me. I lie for you.”
“You do realize how problematic that sounds, right?”

This is a cocktail of all my favorite tropes: second chance romance, fake dating, smaller stuff like only one bed, a tight-knit, loving, yet ever so slightly dysfunctional family, and a workaholic learning to open his heart again. And really, it’s all rather well done. The banter is sparkly and laughter-inducing, the balance of storylines and emotions is, for the most part, just right or super close to it, and all the beats are hit just when you need them to be.

I do feel like it shows that this is the author’s first adult work, because there’s just a bit of that YA vibe still clinging to it. Denz, the MC, feels younger than he is, to the point like it almost seems like there’s a bit of an age gap between him and Braylon—but really it’s just that Braylon acts his age and Denz, on the inside, is no older than 20, and even that’s a stretch. I’m also not sure if the family dynamics, for me, merge well with the whole big business, enormous money world they’re all supposedly living in. There are a few bits and pieces there that I would have happily glossed over in a YA book since I don’t expect a YA character to be very aware of them, but here, when I start poking, it stops quite coming together and I get distracted from the plot endlessly asking, “But why?” or “How does this work exactly?” or “Are you sure you’re not all a successful just-out-of-middle class family in disguise rather than someone from the Forbes lists?”

Another thing in the “not quite” category for me is the single POV. I’m not against single POV romances on principle! There are quite a few that I absolutely adore and wouldn’t have them written any other way. But with second chance romance specifically, I feel like this trope/subgenre lends itself exceptionally well to dual POV. Because you need to understand why it didn’t work the first time around but why it definitely will now. You need to see, for both of them, all the ways they’ve changed that will prevent them from making the same mistakes again, but also all the ways they’ve kept the essence of who they are and why they can’t help but fall for each other, again and again, despite everything. That’s the magic of the trope for me, and this book didn’t quite deliver on this magic because I never got to get into Braylon’s head.

Still, despite all my complaints, it was a rather pleasant read, and I would actually recommend it to those who like the same tropes!

WardenRed reviewed The September House by Carissa Orlando

Carissa Orlando: The September House (EBook, 2023, Berkley)

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale …

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5 stars

Things don’t happen all at once, of course. They start gradually, changes occurring imperceptibly. You barely notice the differences, and once they make themselves known, they seem so small that you easily accept them, adjust your life in a minuscule way. Everyone can make minuscule adjustments. Then there’s another change, a bigger one, but you can still adjust so easily. No problem, really. Then another change, another adjustment, and so on and so on, and before you know it, you’re living a life that by all accounts should be unrecognizable but to you is just normal.

Every September, like clockwork, Margaret’s dream home turns into a horror movie scene, complete with bleeding walls, terrible all-night screams, and ghost children that bite. But that’s fine. It only happens for a month out of every year. No reason to even consider moving. If you play by the rules, after all, everything is …

Things don’t happen all at once, of course. They start gradually, changes occurring imperceptibly. You barely notice the differences, and once they make themselves known, they seem so small that you easily accept them, adjust your life in a minuscule way. Everyone can make minuscule adjustments. Then there’s another change, a bigger one, but you can still adjust so easily. No problem, really. Then another change, another adjustment, and so on and so on, and before you know it, you’re living a life that by all accounts should be unrecognizable but to you is just normal.

Every September, like clockwork, Margaret’s dream home turns into a horror movie scene, complete with bleeding walls, terrible all-night screams, and ghost children that bite. But that’s fine. It only happens for a month out of every year. No reason to even consider moving. If you play by the rules, after all, everything is survivable. Right?

The atmosphere here is delightfully thick from the get go, and I really like the mundane bend applied to all the horror movie clichés. Why, yes, the walls are bleeding. Yes, we don’t go anywhere near the basement. Yes, now and then we have to invite the priest over, and there’s a chance he’ll get violently sick with flies. But those are just things that can happen to anyone, really. It’s honestly not quite clear why the MC’s husband decided this was too much. Couldn’t he have just played by the rules for one month out of the whole year? This is all such a normal situation, after all!

And then you pause to make yourself a cup of tea, shake off the book’s vibe, and realize that no, fuck it, that’s not a normal situation at all, it’s just that the human mind’s ability to normalize the most terrible things when we don’t think escape is an option is truly vast and terrifying. And there are so many reasons to convince yourself that escape isn’t an option. Even when the doors are right there.

It’s no wonder, probably, that with an attitude like that, the haunted house horror plot obfuscates a domestic thriller plot about alcoholism and abuse. The two themes co-exist very well, with the way MC applies the same coping mechanisms to both making complete sense. Still, there was something about the transition/establishing clear links between them that didn’t sit 100% well with me. I think there should have been more subtle set-up coming in the early chapters—I feel like I can even point out specific places where I would personally insert some double-layered foreshadowing, of the sort the author actually *does* utilize beautifully later on. I just think it could have been a good idea to start earlier.

My absolute favorite thing here is the mother/daughter relationship between Margaret and Katherine. I feel like it’s the heart of the book: how they co-exist, how they don’t understand each other but seek understanding, Margaret’s protectiveness, Katherine’s struggles with her past. They clash often, and they don’t often make the best decisions when it comes to their interactions, but it’s so clear how well they both mean and how they both want the best for each other, even if it hurts. I kind of wish I could get Katherine’s perspective now and again, but overall, even without her getting a POV her arc is very clear, as is the inner turmoil she’s going through at any given part of the plot. Besides, I’ve already read a pretty stellar book from the perspective of an adult daughter there to free her mother from the clutches of a haunted house (A House with Good Bones, my beloved). It’s refreshing to see one from the other perspective.

WardenRed reviewed Bloodline (Whyborne & Griffin) (Volume 5) by Jordan L. Hawk

Jordan L. Hawk: Bloodline (Whyborne & Griffin) (Volume 5) (2014, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Between his bullying father and dissolute brother, Percival Endicott Whyborne has quite enough problematic family …

None

4 stars

One for the land and one for the sea.

Whyborne in the previous book: “If we survive this, I’m going to embrace my sorcery like never before. I won’t let anything stop me.”
Whyborne as this new book begins: “So, I’m still sneaking around working on my spells where Griffin can’t see me because he gets worried and I don’t want to fight…”

Excuse me while I go start this review process by screaming into the pillow.

This is honestly ridiculous how much I love this series for everything around the romance. The worldbuilding, the eldritch magic, the city of Widdershins and all other locations, the cast of all these well-rounded, colorful, unique characters, the mysteries, the horrors, the plot twists—I could go on and on. Cracking open another installment is like coming home. I even like Whyborne and Griffin individually! But the romance? Ugh. I’m beginning to wish each …

One for the land and one for the sea.

Whyborne in the previous book: “If we survive this, I’m going to embrace my sorcery like never before. I won’t let anything stop me.”
Whyborne as this new book begins: “So, I’m still sneaking around working on my spells where Griffin can’t see me because he gets worried and I don’t want to fight…”

Excuse me while I go start this review process by screaming into the pillow.

This is honestly ridiculous how much I love this series for everything *around* the romance. The worldbuilding, the eldritch magic, the city of Widdershins and all other locations, the cast of all these well-rounded, colorful, unique characters, the mysteries, the horrors, the plot twists—I could go on and on. Cracking open another installment is like coming home. I even like Whyborne and Griffin individually! But the romance? Ugh. I’m beginning to wish each of them found someone new and stopped dancing this masochism tango. Because yeah, they proclaim that they love each other a lot, and they have lots of great sex, and they’re amazing at grand gestures and dramatic declarations when everything’s about to go to hell in a handbasket. The actual relationship part? I’m just not buying it. For me, what defines a good, shippable long-term relationship is trust. When they’ve been together for more than a couple of years, and Griffin still doesn’t trust Whyborne to know what he’s doing while Whyborne doesn’t trust Griffin enough to initiate a reasonable conversation instead of sneaking around… Well, excuse me and my screaming pillow.

What’s even worse for me is that their problems aren’t evolving. I expect the leads in a long romance series following the same couple to keep having problems and conflict! It’s the lifeblood of the story! But I want them to deal with new issues that come from the new stages of their relationships. Or with issues newly unearthed because of the increase in trust, something that didn’t seem to be a problem before because neither of them was prepared to talk about it or let it show. Or issues born out of the solutions to the previous book’s conflict, those are stellar, too. And I swear it’s possible to write a series like that! Charlie Adhara managed beautifully with Big Bad Wolf, for one.

Whyborne and Griffin, meanwhile, just keep dancing around the very same issue book after book, and they’re doing it in a way that brings out the worst in each other. Like, should Whyborne have known better in this book? Absolutely! He did some pretty dumb things that made me want to physically shake him. But I kept thinking that maybe if he had, you know, a safe space to talk about his sorcery and his feelings on it at home, then maybe it would be easier for him to avoid the mess. Maybe he wouldn’t even have walked into it in the first place! Instead the state of his relationship with Griffin—for which they’re both equally responsible—kept pushing him to go along with his cousins’ hypocritical antics.

Ugh. I could rant this way for hours, but I guess I’ll stop and focus instead on all the things I enjoyed, of which there are plenty. Whyborne’s family history is a delightfully dark mess on both sides, and I was so invested in having all of those hints from previous books paying off. The whole storyline with the shark people and the prophecy and everything, it just hit me right in all my most vulnerable feels. The mystery wasn’t fully unpredictable, but there were some red herrings thrown in that diverted my attention successfully enough, and then some cool unforeseen nuance to how it all resolved. It was amazing to learn more about the setting, specifically the way the city of Widdershins functions magically. I also absolutely adored the character work here, from getting to see more of all those wonderfully weird and quirky people at the museum to the whole thing with Whyborne’s father. Like… how did the author make me abhor him so thoroughly but also hurt for him at the end? Magic. Plain writing magic.

I only wish there was more Christine here, though I always wish for more Christine. And I’m not a fan of how Guinevere’s all too short involvement was handled (specifically the “all too short” part). I do hope that Persephone at least will become a fixture in future books, because she’s so lovely, and I’m so curious about all the ways her rapport with Whyborne may develop. Also, I hope we’ll get more museum in the future. And that Whyborne’s father won’t fade into the background and the redefined complexities of their relationship will continue adding to the plot and the character development as the series progresses.

WardenRed reviewed That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming

Kimberly Lemming: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (2023, Orbit)

None

3 stars

Clearly, the gods had favorites, and I wasn’t one of them.

Hmm. I guess I both do and don’t get the appeal.

In many ways, this is a really fun book. The banter made me laugh more than once. I’m one of the people who really likes the deliberate anachronisms in my high fantasy, so that style worked great for me. It was fun to see a fantasy setting that actively included African animals instead of the wildlife consisting of plain old wolves and bears. The early part in Cinnamon’s village was really lovely, with the festival, and the family times, and that general vibe of a fairly close-knit community that isn’t without its problems. Overall there’s this fun, quirky, tongue-in-cheek vibe that makes this quite an entertaining read, especially if you just go with the flow and don’t stop to overthink anything.

Unfortunately, I am an overthinker 😅 So …

Clearly, the gods had favorites, and I wasn’t one of them.

Hmm. I guess I both do and don’t get the appeal.

In many ways, this is a really fun book. The banter made me laugh more than once. I’m one of the people who really likes the deliberate anachronisms in my high fantasy, so that style worked great for me. It was fun to see a fantasy setting that actively included African animals instead of the wildlife consisting of plain old wolves and bears. The early part in Cinnamon’s village was really lovely, with the festival, and the family times, and that general vibe of a fairly close-knit community that isn’t without its problems. Overall there’s this fun, quirky, tongue-in-cheek vibe that makes this quite an entertaining read, especially if you just go with the flow and don’t stop to overthink anything.

Unfortunately, I *am* an overthinker 😅 So I kept diving out of the fun quirkiness to poke at the plot and the characters, and quite often, nothing was as cozy or relaxing as the packaging and the reviews I’ve seen promised. I think that the author was aiming for a lighthearted adventure+romcom mix with fairly simple external conflicts, but instead of inventing appropriate conflicts for that goal, she simplified the characters’ reactions to the more typical high fantasy situations. As a result, the book at times came perilously close to actively making light of things like slavery or genocide. And it was really weird how in stride everyone took their entire world view shattering whenever they discovered the truth about the goddess and the demons. Generally, people took so much in stride that it gave me the impression no one cared about anything, even when they said otherwise and claimed that their motivations were to do good (like in Usha’s case).

Also, Fallon’s whole “if I dislike someone/they’re in my way, I feel like killing them” attitude was too over the top for me. I get the appeal of demonic characters like that, kinda, but I always want more nuance in that archetype, and when the trope is played as straight as it is here, it feels more frightening than attractive to me personally. Especially since I felt like Cinnamon gradually adopted more of his attitude even though early on she advocated for more peaceful solutions. But then later on she cheerfully rolled with some decisions that, if you look at them from other affected parties’ perspective, were pretty gross.

Overall, I think I can describe my impression as really liking the “how” and not at all enjoying the “what.” I would have enjoyed the book more if it leaned more fully into lightheartedness and stayed away from subject matters with heavy and serious implications.

WardenRed reviewed 366 Animal Tales and Rhymes/07748

366 Animal Tales and Rhymes/07748 (1987)

None

4 stars

The past stayed with you. The past was like poison, and it built up in you like poison, like lead in your tap water, until it killed you.

Funny thing: I kind of struggle to pinpoint the genre of the book. On one hand, it's frequently recced in m/m romance circle alongside many of my favorite mystery-romance hybrids like the Big Bad Wolf series by Charlie Adhara or The Spectral Files by S.E. Harmon. Books where the crimes and the investigations are inherently important to the plot, sure, but there's always a classic romance arc with all the predictable beats at the heart of the story.

Here, on one hand, this is more like... just a mystery where one MC happens to be gay, the other is somewhere between bicurious and undecided, and they happen to have moments of chemistry while one of them actually starts off in a (failing) …

The past stayed with you. The past was like poison, and it built up in you like poison, like lead in your tap water, until it killed you.

Funny thing: I kind of struggle to pinpoint the genre of the book. On one hand, it's frequently recced in m/m romance circle alongside many of my favorite mystery-romance hybrids like the Big Bad Wolf series by Charlie Adhara or The Spectral Files by S.E. Harmon. Books where the crimes and the investigations are inherently important to the plot, sure, but there's always a classic romance arc with all the predictable beats at the heart of the story.

Here, on one hand, this is more like... just a mystery where one MC happens to be gay, the other is somewhere between bicurious and undecided, and they happen to have moments of chemistry while one of them actually starts off in a (failing) relationship with a completely different guy and then pursues yet another different guy as a rebound. Nothing happens between the MCs over the course of the story. Their interactions, more often than not, are focused on the investigations and on figuring out how to be work partners given their complicated history. The main complication being that one of them bullied the other relentlessly while they were in high school.

In other words, practically none of the things you expect to happen in a genre romance novel do not, in fact, happen. And yet I keep thinking about this book as a romance, because of how the story is told. There's the dual POV with switches happening at very specific emotional highs and lows. There's that particular way both leads focus on each other whenever they interact. And there actually are those familiar romance beats, too, except they're super spaced out and the progression of the romance arc is slowed down to something beyond glacial. This is an almost 400-pages book, and if you apply the Romancing the Beat structure to it, I think by the time the whole novel ends the MCs have barely crawled to the late Phase 1, hovering somewhere in the beginnings of the Adhesion step. <spoiler>Poking at the internet for spoilers tells me they're gonna get together at the end of book 4, which tracks. </spoiler>

So, I guess, it's a Schrodinger's romance: if you only look at what happens in the book, it doesn't belong under the genre umbrella, but when you look at how the story's told and if you're good at identifying the beats and the vibes, it absolutely does. Which alone makes it a super interesting experience for me. I'm very much a fan of all things slow burn, by the way, and I do feel like super, super slow is the only way a relationship with such a heavy background can develop. Like, honestly, even with this crawling speed of developments, I don’t feel like I’m fully sold on this relationship due to the background; if I was expected to see these two as romantic partners by the end of book 1, I’d probably bail. Still, this kind of pacing of the romantic storyline feels weirdly unexpected.

The mystery component is paced pretty slowly, too, and in this case, there's no such easy justification. Honestly, I don't think I liked the mystery part very much, sadly. I think to keep the reader invested in an investigation there has to be some sort of urgency, or importance. Here, the narrative was constructed, again, in a way more suitable for the romance genre. The MCs kept investigating the thing, kinda. But there were all those asides into how it makes them feel, and how their pasts, both shared and independent, define their view of things, and also structural asides about whatever's happening around them with work, people in their lives, etc. The mystery was the central plot that was handled like a plot device existing to help us to know the leads, and it resulted in lots of clunkiness.

What I really enjoyed about the book was the prose and the strong atmosphere created with each descriptive passage or a strategically placed one-liner. Every location came alive on the page in a matter of seconds, and the changes in the characters’ mindsets and emotional states were always conveyed clearly, even when the reasoning behind those changes wasn’t yet clarified. The author has a clear talent for picking out metaphors that enhance the mood. Another strength is the sheer vileness of villains: the bad guys here are mainly nazis/white suprematists, and this is one of the few times when, reading about such villains, I came rather close to understanding why they are that way and what makes them believe they’re doing the right thing. (I want to make it very clear that the book does *not* justify these views or excuse the characters who practice them! All of the awful badness is portrayed for what it is. But the villains are very convinced and convincing and that’s what makes them so scary).

WardenRed reviewed Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik: Spinning Silver (2018, Random House Publishing Group)

None

4 stars

So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows.

I really, really loved the first 20% of the book or so, while the narrative was largely focused on the small Polish village, the two young women surviving in it in the best ways they knew how, and their families. The characters all had very clear arcs and well-rounded personalities from the get go, and it was easy to get where they were coming from and to what end, even when the specific actions they took didn’t sit very well with me. I was fascinated by the cold, sharp edges Miryem had to develop to ensure her family’s survival and admired Wanda’s quiet, relentless strength as she worked toward a future that would hopefully one day …

So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows.

I really, really loved the first 20% of the book or so, while the narrative was largely focused on the small Polish village, the two young women surviving in it in the best ways they knew how, and their families. The characters all had very clear arcs and well-rounded personalities from the get go, and it was easy to get where they were coming from and to what end, even when the specific actions they took didn’t sit very well with me. I was fascinated by the cold, sharp edges Miryem had to develop to ensure her family’s survival and admired Wanda’s quiet, relentless strength as she worked toward a future that would hopefully one day set her free of her abusive father. I also really liked how the presence of mysticism and the Staryk (fairy-like mystical creatures) was handled in this early part. It felt more like magical realism than fantasy. And the vibes all around were immaculate: kind of the inversion of cozy fantasy. The same focus on a community getting by amidst a wintry landscape, except it’s all about the darkness lurking behind the apparent quaintness.

I would have very much loved it if the whole book stayed like that: smaller-scale, comparatively low-stakes, character-driven, showing the horrors and the magic in the mundane and exploring this historical setting with a touch of magic. I feel like it went on in that vein long enough, to be honest, to turn into a promise—but then that promise wasn’t upheld. Because the Staryk became far more present, and a deal with them turned into a marriage contract, and then we got a brand-new narrator, Irina, and her storyline about getting married to the tsar, and the number of characters just kept growing from there. And the newer ones didn’t get the same slow, thoughtful introduction as the first batch did, so everything felt vaguely unbalanced.

Overall, I’d call structure this book’s biggest weakness. While all the different storylines were undeniably connected from the start, in terms of both plotting and theme, and they did eventually coalesce, there were big chunks of book that were just… all over the place. Just moving from one part of the narrative to the next with some really strange structural decisions, like the story wasn’t able to decide which subgenre/mood it wants to stick to. Each plot thread individually contains lots of goodness, great characters, interesting magic, strong themes. The prose is beautiful and immersive. But alas, past the beginning and before the last several chapters, none of it quite comes together.

What I unequivocally adored were the characters’ voices. The book is written in first person and frequently switches POV characters, often introducing new ones literally mid-chapter. I thought I’d be confused at least once because of this, but no, every time there was a switch, I either very clearly knew whos head I was in, if it was someone I’ve already met, or just as clearly realized this was someone new even before any names and such were mentioned. I’m honestly stunned by how distinct the voices are.

I also must say that, despite the structural laxity, I really appreciated the thematic cohesiveness. The way all the girls’ relationships with their mothers were explored in ways that played off each other, or the contrasts and comparisons between Miryem’s and Irina’s marriages, and more. I also just generally loved what the author did with the Slavic/Eastern European mythology and history. Overall, I’ve had a really good tiime with the book, I just wish the story was more consistently told.

WardenRed reviewed You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian: You Should Be So Lucky (EBook, 2024, Avon)

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s …

None

5 stars

I don’t know how it’ll work, and I don’t have a plan, but what I do know is that I want to do it anyway.

We Could Be So Good was among my absolute favoritest reads last year, so needless to say, I was pretty damn excited for the sequel. In many ways, my high expectations paid off. This story is, once again, incredibly well-crafted, with evocative prose, clear character voices, deep characterization, relatable themes, and a good sense of setting/time period. My one big grip with it is, I just couldn’t connect with one of the two MCs, Eddie. I sympathized with the baseball slump he was in and the loneliness he was experiencing. I would absolutely call him a well-rounded character. But I just couldn’t get invested in him properly. There was a spark missing. And that, of course, means that it was pretty hard to get invested …

I don’t know how it’ll work, and I don’t have a plan, but what I do know is that I want to do it anyway.

We Could Be So Good was among my absolute favoritest reads last year, so needless to say, I was pretty damn excited for the sequel. In many ways, my high expectations paid off. This story is, once again, incredibly well-crafted, with evocative prose, clear character voices, deep characterization, relatable themes, and a good sense of setting/time period. My one big grip with it is, I just couldn’t connect with one of the two MCs, Eddie. I sympathized with the baseball slump he was in and the loneliness he was experiencing. I would absolutely call him a well-rounded character. But I just couldn’t get invested in him properly. There was a spark missing. And that, of course, means that it was pretty hard to get invested in the book’s main plot, too, given that it’s a romance. Oops.

I’m not 100% sure what went wrong here; in big part, I think it’s just that thing that happens sometimes. You just don’t vibe with the character, even if they seem cool and interesting, just like sometimes you just don’t vibe with actual people. But as I poke at this, I think it’s also, a tiny bit, the fault of the book itself. It’s generally slow-paced, but Eddie’s part is, at times, moving at a glacial pace, especially the parts that have to do with his relationship with his team and his baseball career in general. And that big slow part just isn’t too interesting. Nothing much ever happens. His teammates aren’t too likable. I think maybe if I was a huge baseball fan, or better yet if I simply *did* vibe with Eddie, I would’ve been okay with focusing on the “character study” parts of it all and enjoying the ride. As it was, I yawned a lot.

On the other hand, Mark’s part of the book was fire, and not a single line in his chapters left me indifferent. I loved every part of his arc: his grief and how he deals with it; his relationship with his queerness and his staunch desire to not lie about who he is; the way he isn’t naturally nice, but he hoards kindness and distributes it where it needs to be; the found family thing he’s got with the characters we know from the previous book (side note: I was SO happy to see them! I just wish there was more Nick!); the friendship he develops with George; the specific ways writing and reading matter to him. My lukewarm feelings for Eddie aside, it made so much sense that Mark started inching toward falling for him by writing about him.

Something I appreciated a lot: just like the first book in the series, this one’s got a grumpy/sunshine dynamic. But! It’s an *entirely* different grumpy/sunshine dynamic. Mark and Eddie, both apart and together, have rather little in common with Nick and Andy. Their individual drives, their chemistry, and their conflicts, inner and interpersonal alike, come from completely different places. This just goes to show how uniquely familiar tropes can be executed, even when it’s done by the same author within the same series.

Also, this novel is definitely a masterclass in showing so much deep characterization through utterly mundane actions, like shopping, dog walking, reading books and talking about them, eating at restaurants, etc. Those completely slice-of life bits were often my favorite.

WardenRed reviewed Of Starlit Balls and Starship Captains by K. L. Noone

No rating

None

No rating

Catherine, you’ve made your point. You needn’t run around in the dirt of strange planets any longer. We all know you can, if you so desire; you’re perfectly capable of whatever you’d like to achieve. So you’re welcome to return home for the Emperor’s celebration gala.

The concept/premise of this short story is so incredibly fun. I loved this take on a “space regency” society, the way Kit spoke about space exploration, and all the fun implications the empire’s semi-recent history offered. Unfortunately, it’s one of those stories that clearly need more space to shine. Or perhaps it’s how it was written, with the set-up taking up more than half of the page count. For a story billed as romance, the leads meet too late and their interactions end up incredibly rushed, to the point that it makes very little sense. Which is a pity, because what can be seen …

Catherine, you’ve made your point. You needn’t run around in the dirt of strange planets any longer. We all know you can, if you so desire; you’re perfectly capable of whatever you’d like to achieve. So you’re welcome to return home for the Emperor’s celebration gala.

The concept/premise of this short story is so incredibly fun. I loved this take on a “space regency” society, the way Kit spoke about space exploration, and all the fun implications the empire’s semi-recent history offered. Unfortunately, it’s one of those stories that clearly need more space to shine. Or perhaps it’s how it was written, with the set-up taking up more than half of the page count. For a story billed as romance, the leads meet too late and their interactions end up incredibly rushed, to the point that it makes very little sense. Which is a pity, because what can be seen of their personalities—Kit’s especially, since she’s the one we get to spend more time with—is pretty compelling. Even with the constraints, there’s some nice, sparkly dialogue and the beginnings of chemistry taking root, and I’d love to see more of this relationship, just like I’d love to see more of this world.

Like, honestly, there’s lots of goodness here! Except it reads like a first chapter of a long-form work with a quick extra scene tacked on.

WardenRed reviewed Wolfsong by T. J. Klune

None

4 stars

It was candy canes and pinecones. It was epic and awesome. And it was home.

Normally, I can split TJ Klune’s works into two distinct categories: books that feel like they were made for me and books that make me cringe so hard I can’t finish them. This one is a curious beast that doesn’t fully fit either shelf. It does lean strongly toward the “made for me,” and it only made me cringe in that weird special secondhand embarrassment way once, but there are some aspects of it that leave me uncomfortable.

Technically, this is a paranormal romance, but with the deep dive into the main character’s head and life story and the way it starts with Ox being in about his mid-teens and follows him from a lonely, bullied kid to a position of local power with a strong support network, it reads kind of like a …

It was candy canes and pinecones. It was epic and awesome. And it was home.

Normally, I can split TJ Klune’s works into two distinct categories: books that feel like they were made for me and books that make me cringe so hard I can’t finish them. This one is a curious beast that doesn’t fully fit either shelf. It does lean strongly toward the “made for me,” and it only made me cringe in that weird special secondhand embarrassment way once, but there are some aspects of it that leave me uncomfortable.

Technically, this is a paranormal romance, but with the deep dive into the main character’s head and life story and the way it starts with Ox being in about his mid-teens and follows him from a lonely, bullied kid to a position of local power with a strong support network, it reads kind of like a bildungsroman. I really enjoyed hanging out with Ox through all of his trials and tribulations, seeing him grow into his potential, watching other characters appreciate him. Despite the hardships he’s had to face, overall this journey felt healing, heartwarming, and life-affirming.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the writing. It was poignant, immersive, and I liked how all sorts of small descriptions of the characters’ surroundings were woven into their interactions. All those little touches that grounded the story in specific locations and breathed life into those places. At the same time, there were definitely parts that got incredibly repetitive. I recognize why those persistent memories/motives were important for Ox, but I think there were other ways to include them without just saying the same thing over and over every couple of chapters. For example, instead of having him recall his mother popping a soap bubble on his ear, he could have seen a soap bubble in real time and had some kind of feeling, or got soap in his ear, etc. Those would still send the reader’s mind back to the original soap bubble scene, if timed appropriately. And that’s just one example, there are many more I can think of.

What really didn’t sit well for me, until way into the second half of the book, was the romance. The characters meet when Ox is 16 and Joe is 10, and Joe immediately feels the pressing need to latch onto Ox with all his energy. For the longest time, there’s nothing there but friendship, and Ox also becomes friends with Joe’s older brothers who are closer to him in age. But then at some point, when Ox is 23 and Joe is 17, the transition to romance starts, and while it was slow and nothing sexual happened at that time, it just made me uncomfortable. Like, come on, how do you just stop seeing Joe as a kid in this situation? Especially since he is still a kid! A six-year gap is often nothing between adults, but the younger people are, the more even a couple of years matters, and in this case, Joe has been growing up in front of Ox and Ox has practically become a family member. It was just. Really weird. In the second half of the book, when they started reconnecting after Joe’s been away for a while for plot reasons, that sense of weirdness was pretty much absent though, unless I focused on the fact that they had already attempted a relationship before Joe’s departure. I think if there was no such attempt and the romance only begun when they reconnected, I would have enjoyed the story way more. Because that period of absence gave them both a chance to grow individually and amass their own life experiences, making them into slightly different people and creating a distance between the kids they were and the adults they become.

My favorite aspect of the book is undeniably the found family Ox builds as he goes, starting with Gordo’s shop so early on and ending up with his own big pack. I loved how pretty much every character in this big network had depth, and all the individual connections and relationships were so unique. I also appreciated how the presence of all these people/wolves/witches in Ox’s life didn’t fully erase the scars from his father’s abandoning him. That was something that still had happened, and left its mark, but he ended up having, or rather building, something new, something important, something future-shaped. There’s actually a lot of scar-related symbolism in the book that focuses on the weight of our past experiences, even the painful once, and how healing from them doesn’t mean rendering them insignificant, and this is something that resonates with me a lot. I’m very here for it.

WardenRed reviewed Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will by Maya McGregor

Maya McGregor: Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will (2024, Astra Publishing House)

None

5 stars

Your name is Will because that’s what it takes to live among people who hate you for no other reason than that you exist.

Oh wow. It’s still early in the year, but I’m already certain this is going to be among my top books of 2025. It’s been such a simultaneously heartbreaking and heartmending experience. I had doubts early on about reading a whole novel in second person, but the author’s style absolutely drew me in. I felt for Will during every little step of their journey, and I’m so happy for the future they’ve won for themself—and also so sad the book is over.

This is a beautiful and relatable exploration of the scars abuse leaves, and how one might go about healing them, and how the type of hypervigilance and self-reliance you develop in traumatic circumstances may sometimes do you a disservice in healthier situations. I loved …

Your name is Will because that’s what it takes to live among people who hate you for no other reason than that you exist.

Oh wow. It’s still early in the year, but I’m already certain this is going to be among my top books of 2025. It’s been such a simultaneously heartbreaking and heartmending experience. I had doubts early on about reading a whole novel in second person, but the author’s style absolutely drew me in. I felt for Will during every little step of their journey, and I’m so happy for the future they’ve won for themself—and also so sad the book is over.

This is a beautiful and relatable exploration of the scars abuse leaves, and how one might go about healing them, and how the type of hypervigilance and self-reliance you develop in traumatic circumstances may sometimes do you a disservice in healthier situations. I loved how human all the characters are, and how they work through the mistakes some of them make. In that regard, the book really felt like a warm hug, subtly telling or rather showing you, “It’s okay to stumble. A mistake is not the end of the world.”

Every part of Will’s arc feels incredibly authentic, and as a whole the book does a great job painting what it’s like to start figuring out your own life once you’re out of an abusive situation. The instinctive mistrust toward everyone with enough power to influence the course of your existence, the shame-tinged joy of getting things for yourself, the slight unreality of it all, the slow, slow tempo of gradually beginning to relax around well-meaning people and letting them in. The fact that it can be easier to open up to someone new who you know shares specific aspects of your identity and history rather than to someone who’s been there all along, but there’s a gap in your life experiences. How everything is no longer that scary, and that alone is enough to cause stress. If I’m feeling nitpicky, I might say that maybe, just maybe, the way everything Will feared turned out to be the opposite of dangerous was a slight overkill. But damn it, we need optimistic stories, especially when they’re stories focused on young marginalized protagonists, and the book as a whole shows clearly that it made sense for Will to fear what might happen if <spoiler>police got involved, the fact that it went okay was largely due to the present of other characters—adults willing to wield their privilege to shield them</spoiler>.

All in all, it was lovely, and I loved everyone in the core cast, and I adore how diverse this book is, the gentle nb/nb love story aspect of it, and all the Dragon Age references.

WardenRed reviewed Just Kids by Patti Smith

Patti Smith: Just Kids (2010, HarperCollins)

In this memoir, singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of New York City : the denizens …

None

5 stars

“I stand naked when I draw. God holds my hand and we sing together.”

This memoir pulled me in from the first page with wonderful prose, as empathetic and musical as Patti Smith’s lyrics and poetry, and then kept my attention with a mixture of personal recollections, reminiscence on the nature of art, and an assortment of anecdotes that illustrate the epoch. At times, I felt a little lost when I didn’t immediately recognize a name or somesuch; this is definitely a book aimed at someone who already has an idea of the musical and art scene of the 70s, and while I’m decently familiar with the music parts, sometimes I had to stop reading and pull up Google.

Robert Mapplethorpe feels like the true main character, even when he isn’t directly appearing on the page. I don’t think I really fell under the charm of his personality, no matter …

“I stand naked when I draw. God holds my hand and we sing together.”

This memoir pulled me in from the first page with wonderful prose, as empathetic and musical as Patti Smith’s lyrics and poetry, and then kept my attention with a mixture of personal recollections, reminiscence on the nature of art, and an assortment of anecdotes that illustrate the epoch. At times, I felt a little lost when I didn’t immediately recognize a name or somesuch; this is definitely a book aimed at someone who already has an idea of the musical and art scene of the 70s, and while I’m decently familiar with the music parts, sometimes I had to stop reading and pull up Google.

Robert Mapplethorpe feels like the true main character, even when he isn’t directly appearing on the page. I don’t think I really fell under the charm of his personality, no matter how much the narrative tried to pull me under and how much I didn’t mind succumbing. But I really liked the depiction of the bond he and Patti shared, how tightly entwined their lives remained even as their relationship changed from lovers to friends to something family-like in ways that defy strict categorization. I think what they shared is as close as it gets to finding a soulmate.

I really enjoyed how the book was structured, the narrative kind of growing denser and more expansive as it progressed. First we get the daily existence of someone striving to find something *more*, something that will give their life meaning. Then comes the part about the young starving artists that feels both freeing and a tiny bit claustrophobic, that endless juxtaposition of unleashed creativity and struggling in small apartments with limited funds. And then by the time we get close to the Chelsea Hotel times, more and more actors keep entering the stage, and the kaleidoscope of names and events grows and grows, sweeping you away.

When it comes to flaws, I guess I didn’t really like how much the author put Robert on the pedestal. She didn’t exactly shy away from depicting his flaws, but she always hurried to make excuses for him or to downplay the extent of the objectively shitty things he did, like <spoiler>initiating sex when he knew he had an actively symptomatic STI</spoiler>. I can’t exactly fault her for it, given how important this man was for her and how much his loss hurt her. It’s kind of hard to be critical of someone in these circumstances! But still, I think the reason he was borderline my least favorite person to read about here was that the writing was pushing me to adore him no matter what, and I got kind of contrary.

WardenRed reviewed Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming …

None

4 stars

Some of us were born to be used and discarded. We can’t afford to simply go along with the flow of life, because nothing in this world has been created, built, or set up in our favor. If we want something, we have to push back against everything around us and take it by force.

For the first 25% or so, this was shaping to be close to a five-star read for me. I definitely took note of the writing being rough around the edges and how transparently beat after beat got lifted from the most prominent books in the genre. But there was so much soul here, so much emotion, and Zetian was so relatable in her all-consuming anger. For as long as she had that very specific first goal in front of her and pushed toward with all the force of that anger, I was absolutely hooked.

Unfortunately, …

Some of us were born to be used and discarded. We can’t afford to simply go along with the flow of life, because nothing in this world has been created, built, or set up in our favor. If we want something, we have to push back against everything around us and take it by force.

For the first 25% or so, this was shaping to be close to a five-star read for me. I definitely took note of the writing being rough around the edges and how transparently beat after beat got lifted from the most prominent books in the genre. But there was so much soul here, so much emotion, and Zetian was so relatable in her all-consuming anger. For as long as she had that very specific first goal in front of her and pushed toward with all the force of that anger, I was absolutely hooked.

Unfortunately, past that mark the story steadily began to meander and loose its footing. I didn’t so much have problems with what was on the page as with what was missing. The worldbuilding was solid when it came to how the giant mechas and the fighters’ energies operate, but everything else? I definitely have more questions than answers. The central theme of the novel is the oppression of women, with all the attitudes around it largely lifted wholesale from history and dropped into a technologically advanced, futuristic setting with magic without changing shape much. And like, please don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m not buying extreme levels of misogyny in an advanced setting. I mean, we all literally live in one, and I’m pretty conscious of what’s going on around me. But the specific shapes oppression takes tend to change and shift through the ages. Between the technologies, the reasonably well-understood magic, the war history, etc, it is hard to imagine that nothing about the society’s attitudes would fluctuate.

Then there’s the war against the giant alien things that is supposedly at the heart of the story, except the way it is presented, it doesn’t feel like a battle for survival. It’s just something that happens so that the evil men in charge can, a) entertain the masses with endless violent livestreams a-la Hunger Games (except without the internally consistent underlying reasoning the actual Hunger Games had), and b) kill and oppress women. If this is an ongoing struggle for survival and safety, it is very strange of the people in charge to literally go, “Well, we need to fight it in a way that doesn’t damage the fragile male egos and doesn’t give a single woman a boost of confidence, even if it means not using our resources to the fullest potential. This is very important. More so than our actual continued existence.” This is… not how these things happen. These things, to be realistic, should be more complex, with a focus on the war commandment achieving maximum efficiency on the battlefield with the resources they have, including training women with high spirit pressure as pilots in their own right, and the political leaders figuring out the mental gymnastics they need to teach the masses for that to keep co-existing with the biases they’re interested in keeping—and to be ready for some things to change shape while keeping their toxic essence that’s very much worse raging against.

Of course, I do acknowledge that the MC is a teenager in highly specific circumstances, and she simply may not see how the larger world functions. But that’s where my other problem lies: while I have no problem with Zetian being an unreliable narrator who is caught up in her own experiences and emotions and the limited information she has, I don’t think the narrative does a good enough job of treating her as one. On the contrary, it often feels like the book is trying to present the protagonist’s truth as the One Actual Truth, and I think the book grows weaker for that. It would have been great to have more layers to the world and the characters surrounding Zetian, to have them all display traits, qualities, etc that don’t neatly tie into Zetian’s narrative. It’s a tricky thing to achieve for sure when you’re writing in first person POV and your protagonist is an angry teenager, and I empathize with the difficulty of the task, but the absence of these layers kind of made the story start falling apart for me at some point.

What still kept me reading, though, was that anger that I keep mentioning—so relatable and so well-portrayed. I’ve seen reviews that mentioned how it’s strange that Zetian is so angry at the patriarchy yet doesn’t bond with the women around her, instead looking down on them. And I absolutely get where this opinion is coming from, but also, the way I see it, she’s in this place where she’s just so terribly angry at the oppression. She explicitly recognizes that other women—like her grandmother who broke her feet in the name of disabling beauty standards, or her mother who’s been brought down by her marriage yet considers it a pinnacle of happiness to see her daughter also married of, or the girls who act content with their lot in life—are victims of the system she hates. But the ugly thing about systems of oppression is that they turn their victims into accomplices, and when you get infuriated enough at the system, you turn your rage on everyone who upholds it, whether they do it because they want to, because they can, or because the system itself makes them to do. You just rage and want to burn the entire system down. It’s not fair. It’s not just. It’s how it is. I’ve spent almost three years feeling that type of anger every waking moment, even if it’s aimed at a different sort of evil, and it’s been incredibly validating to read a book full of it. I feel seen. I also feel both sad and happy that I don’t have a magical mecha.

WardenRed reviewed Necropolis by Jordan L. Hawk

Jordan L. Hawk: Necropolis (Paperback, 2014, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

None

4 stars

This is an unforgiving land, old chap. Those who fail to tread cautiously soon cease to tread at all.

We are once again leaving Widdershins, this time to go across the globe, and I’m beginning to sense a pattern here: one book in the city, one book on an adventure elsewhere. I’m curious to see if it’s going to be upheld throughout the series. The change of scenery this time was pretty fun, reminding me of that Relic Hunter tv show I used to love as a kid, except make it lovecraftian. I admit I have some doubts about the level of research that went into the setting, but there are some fun details, and it’s internally consistent, and hey, we’re here on an adventure.

Whyborne continues to grow on me; I think it’s a combination of his character development and my getting used to certain peculiarities of his thinking. …

This is an unforgiving land, old chap. Those who fail to tread cautiously soon cease to tread at all.

We are once again leaving Widdershins, this time to go across the globe, and I’m beginning to sense a pattern here: one book in the city, one book on an adventure elsewhere. I’m curious to see if it’s going to be upheld throughout the series. The change of scenery this time was pretty fun, reminding me of that Relic Hunter tv show I used to love as a kid, except make it lovecraftian. I admit I have some doubts about the level of research that went into the setting, but there are some fun details, and it’s internally consistent, and hey, we’re here on an adventure.

Whyborne continues to grow on me; I think it’s a combination of his character development and my getting used to certain peculiarities of his thinking. It’s been amusing to notice how off his perceptions are sometimes not just about what other people around him may be thinking and feeling, but about what’s going on in his own head, too. “This spell hasn’t been working out, but today I am feeling very calm and certain I can nail it. DAMN IT, HOW COULD CHRISTINE EXPECT THIS OF ME. I am feeling very calm and focused.” Lol, right.

Speaking of Christine, I really loved how much she got to shine in this book, and the overall shape of her arc so far. She steadfastly remembers my very favorite character, and I love how she never feels like a third wheel alongside the main couple. In fact, sometimes I get the feeling that in the long run, she’s the glue that is keeping this little found family together, because like… where would Whyborne be without someone to talk sense into him now and then? Or Griffin without someone to call him out at certain occasions? It’s also nice to be seeing her getting a dose of her own personal happiness—I hope it works out!

What I didn’t really love about this book was the villain. Or rather, I liked how parts of the deal were handled—I largely called what was happening super early on, but then let the author lull me into a false sense of security and was genuinely surprised by the reveal. But honestly, <spoiler>Daphne</spoiler> was done so dirty by the story. <spoiler>I appreciate that there were some attempts at compassion re: the abuse she suffered and the situation it drove her into, but they were rather weak and unconvincing for me. She deserved better, and this whole topic deserve much better, and I wish half the care that this series channels into empathizing with the male character’s suffering went into this plotline. </spoiler>This is really a big grip I have with this book.

Outside of that, though, all the adventuring and mystery-solving was fun, I liked that Whyborne got to geek out properly about languages, I love his friendship with Christine, and I wonder what’s going to happen to his arc, the plot, and his relationship with Griffin now that he’s made a certain decision at the end of the story. Also, there was that hint about a potential secret concerning him that is just so intriguing??? I immediately developed a theory once it was dropped, and then was like, “Hang on, if I turn out to be correct, I really wish this would’ve been foreshadowed since book 1,” and then I realized that the theory I’m having has in fact been foreshadowed since book 1, so now I can’t wait to know if I’m right or wrong!

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