A Memory Called Empire

Title: A Memory Called Empire

Author: Arkady Martine

Summary: In a war of lies, she seeks the truth.

Ambassador Mahit Dzmare is posted far from her mining station home, to the Empire’s glorious capital. Yet when she arrives, she discovers her predecessor was murdered. But no one will admit his death wasn’t accidental – and she might be next.

Mahit must navigate the capital’s deadly halls of power, while hunting the killer. She must also somehow stop the Empire from annexing her fiercely independent colony. As she sinks deeper into this seductive yet unfamiliar culture, Mahit engages in intrigues of her own. For she’s hiding an extraordinary technological secret, one which might destroy her station and its way of life. Or it might save them all from annihilation.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5

Review: I decided to read this book because my partner absolutely loved it. And because it’s science fiction and sounded interesting, but mostly because they raved about it and I wanted to enjoy it that much as they did. Spoiler alert: I unfortunately did not.

I did enjoy it! The plot is interesting, with the main character, Mahit, taking over the job of her predecessor while simultaneously trying the solve his murder. As an ambassador Mahit is an interesting character, walking the line between loyalty to Lsel, the mining station she comes from, and her love of things Teixcalaan—the empire. I especially loved her admiration of the poetry along with her sadness of knowing she would never be a part of that world with the ease of a true Teixcalaanli.

My favourite character was Three Seagrass. She took a while to grow on me, as she at first came across quite arrogant, but I think as the affection between her and Mahit grew, so did my affection for her. And of course, where there is affection for Three Seagrass there has to be affection for her best friend, Twelve Azalea. I liked them, even though I was also suspicious of them. Everyone is a murder suspect, at first.

There is a lot of world- and character-building in this book. A lot of it relevant later on, as the story plays out and threads weave together. But also a lot of it not so relevant. I loved the aspects that did all pull together in the final chapters—that’s always satisfying. I also loved, perhaps even more, certain character details that didn’t lead anywhere specific. Eight Antidote’s desire to travel and see the worlds, Eight Loop’s missing intentions and motivations, Five Portico’s possible uses for the faulty imago-machine. I hope these are things that get explored in the sequel.

The world building… is where I start to not love the book as much. Because there is a lot of it. And that’s not necessarily a criticism, so much as it is me, personally, not enjoying it. I struggled to get into this book initially because there was just so much to take in. I am a very active reader and I like to take note of and fully absorb everything. But it was just overwhelming for me to do that here. I had to stop. I had to read much more casually, not memorising every new word or concept or detail. Which left me wondering what the point of all this world building is, if I’m skimming and forgetting most of it?

My only other complaint is that the writing seemed overly verbose a lot of the time. I think this is partly because so much of it is happening inside Mahit’s head. Not because of the other person she has in there (that actually helped—thought process via dialogue), but because she did so much thinking and figuring things out. All the way through she is choosing who to say what to and why—she’s never fully honest with anyone. And as she is assessing things and coming to conclusions and decisions it is all happening in her mind, which feels very awkward and clunky from a writing point of view. The show-to-tell ratio fell heavy on the tell, and I didn’t vibe with that.

I did still very much enjoy the book, and will certainly be reading the sequel at some point. There are a lot of loose threads that I hope get picked up, as there are several things I want to know more about. The sunlit and how they hell they work, the aliens and what’s going on with them, and of course Mahit and Three Seagrass and how their relationship develops.

Floating Hotel

Title: Floating Hotel

Author: Grace Curtis

Summary: Welcome to the Grand Abeona, home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury—and an absolute magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as why are there love poems in the lobby inbox? How many Imperial spies are currently on board? What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver’s conference? And perhaps most pertinently—who is driving the ship?

Each guest has a secret, every member of staff a universe unto themselves. At the centre of these interweaving lives and interlocking mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, long-time manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It’s the love of his life and the only place he’s ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl’s comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final question: when is it time to let go?

Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5

Review: After loving Curtis’ first book, Frontier, of course I was going to jump at the chance to read her second one. And a book set on a hotel spaceship certainly sounded like something I would love. As the five star rating gives away: I did!

Like Frontier, this book is heavily character driven. We meet a new character each chapter, dipping into their world and their story. While it was the main character’s journey that helped string the previous book’s chapters together, in this book it is the hotel, Abeona. Each chapter gives insights not only into the characters, but the hotel. You could argue the hotel is the main character.

All the characters are great, in that I loved learning about them, but did not love everything about them. They were flawed, and that made them so real. Every member of staff ended up stuck there by accident and chose to stay on purpose. Their love for the hotel and each other was beautiful and, like each of them, imperfect. I wanted to see more of characters who didn’t get their own chapters, too. Reggie, Mataz… Nina.

The non-staff characters were more hit and miss for me. Some I warmed to while others I didn’t. Though they all had something to add to the bigger plot weaving between the chapters, it was the staff and their connections to the hotel and each other that I enjoyed the most.

Talking of the plot. It was slow at first. Small hints at something. Then several somethings cropping up. Not all of which mattered to the main thread, but all fed into it. It was the last 100 pages or so where things really got going, and only the last 25 where all the threads pulled together. I love the part of a story when everything comes together.

The end was extremely bittersweet. I knew things weren’t as simple as they seemed and that my man Carl was working some kind of ploy. The outcome for Abeona and her staff wasn’t as safe and happy as I had hoped, but it wasn’t as dire and bleak as I had feared, either. It was sad and hopeful and perfect. I want to follow the hotel and join it on its next adventure.

Acceptance

Title: Acceptance

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Summary: The Southern Reach trilogy draws to a close and it is winter in Area X.

One last, desperate team embarks across the border, determined to reach a remote island that may hold the answers they’ve been seeking. As they press deeper into the unknown, the threat to the outside world becomes only more daunting.

The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound – or terrifying.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5

Review: I was excited to be finishing this trilogy. To discover what other secrets Area X and the Southern Reach held. But… I didn’t find it as compelling as the first two books in the Southern Reach series. Annihilation and Authority followed single characters navigating new and increasingly bizarre situations. This books followed several characters and was less about the strangeness around them, and more about them as individuals. Each chapter felt like a character-driven vignette loosely strung together with the .

This wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. But it wasn’t what I had expected. I enjoyed meeting characters we had only really heard about and barely met, and seeing more of their motivations and feelings. Saul, the lighthouse keeper, was most definitely my favourite, and his chapters were always a delight. They were also bittersweet, as we already know where his story ends. Seeing him get there was heart-wrenching.

The Director was, in some ways, the most interesting. Her story bridges the gap between the first two books in a lot of ways. The illicit trip she took into Area X, the repercussions of that for her, for Whitby, and for the Souther Reach as a whole. How that informed her and drove the decisions she made ahead of the expedition into Area X we follow in the first book. The things she still didn’t understand and what she left behind, which were found by her successor in the second book. And, of course, her connection to the Forgotten Coast and her relationship with Saul. It was so interesting seeing her as a child in his story, and as a adult her in own. They felt like two different characters, again connecting different parts of the same story.

Control and Ghost Bird I cared much less about. The innocent and the wise, their characters fumbling their way through Area X with no clear intention. Their role in the greater story simply seemed to be showing us more of Area X, a lot of which was not new or surprising. I was shocked none of the characters had picked up on the fact that time moves differently in Area X, there was so many clues to that. Meeting the Crawler—seeing what had become of Saul—I had been looking forward to, but felt underwhelming. The most interesting of their chapters was finding out what had happened to the Biologist. That felt fitting and right and I hope she is content as she is now.

There are so many links and chains and circles in this trilogy, and I think this book brings many of them to light in a fascinating way. Parts of the narrative starting as others end, people’s stories ending only also to begin. Themes and motifs running through and so many questions begged with so precious few answers given.

I think that is, at the core of it, what I love and dislike about this book in equal measure. There is so much to consider and ways to connect things to draw meaning from them, but never any real concrete answers to help gauge how close or far you may be to the truth.

Authority

Title: Authority

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Summary: Welcome to Area X. The Southern Reach is a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten.

Following its tumultuous twelfth expedition into Area X, the agency is in chaos. Its new head wants to be known as ‘Control’ and he needs to control Area X. From interrogations, hidden notes and profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves.

And they are more sinister than anyone could have known.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5

Review: Creepy. My one word for the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy was weird. My one word for this, the second book in the series, is creepy. In a very excellent way. This book follows Control (not his real name), who is brought into the Southern Reach following the events from the first book and the failed twelfth expedition into Area X.

This book focuses on the people outside of Area X trying to figure out what the hell is going on inside the border. We learn about what has been happening over they years along with Control. What the research approach was, what results they’ve had, what approaches and theories they worked with. I thought this would give the reader more information and insight into the science fiction mystery presented in the first book… and it both does and decidedly does not do that.

Like the first book, this one also balances the focus between characters and plot around the mysteries of Area X… and perhaps how very entwined they are. We learn of Control’s childhood, his ambition to follow in his mother’s footsteps, his failures. We learn about the director (the psychologist from the first book) and how much of a hold Area X had on her. We learn about the people who have been working at Southern Reach for so, so many years, how they are each acutely peculiar in their own way and the eerie, creeping, unsettling suspicion that Area X is somehow the reason for that.

I can’t express just how great the writing is. It’s not showy or obvious, it’s just so, so well crafted. The meaningful and dangerously eerie elements of the Southern Reach and Area X are juxtapositioned with reluctantly humorous moments of levity in some of Control’s observations and takeaways. At times while reading I almost felt myself falling into a trance along with Control—his mindset and experiences felt so well captured.

And somehow, amongst it all, with so much more information on the table… I still feel just as far away from any answers. I absolutely freaking love it. At this point, I’m not here for the answers. I don’t want everything explained and to suddenly make sense. I’m here for the journey. The vibes. The absolute off the wall wild speculation. I want to experience the terroir of it all.

I am very much looking forward to the third book in the series, though won’t be jumping straight into it. I think this book was only better for the breathing room, and I hope the next one will be too.

Annihilation

Title: Annihilation

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Summary: Welcome to Area X. An Edenic wilderness, an environmental disaster zone, a mystery for thirty years.

The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.

Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5

Review: Weird. That would be my one-word review for this book. I like weird. It’s about four women who enter the mysterious Area X to investigate where previous groups have tried and all met unfortunate ends. Seems like a pretty neat set up for a science fiction novel, except it is so much more than that.

It’s certainly science fiction, though not your typical kind. There is no newfangled technology. No spaceships. No aliens. It is speculative science fiction, in that almost everything is simply conjecture because we don’t know anything. Area X covers a small coastal village and the surrounding areas. There is some sort of border. Strange things go on within the border of Area X. That’s it, that’s all we can really know for certain. Everything else is purely speculation. Even the “facts” given to the women entering Area X are questionable. Even their own experiences and accounts  inside Area X are unreliable. And I found that absolutely fascinating.

We never learn anyone’s name. The four women are simply known by their professions. The biologist (our narrator), the surveyor, the anthropologist, and the psychiatrist. Even other notable side characters are not named (the linguist, the crawler, my husband, the lighthouse keeper…). And as people (past and present) lose themselves in Area X, never knowing their names makes a kind of poetical sense.

I’m trying hard to talk around things, so as not to spoil anything. It’s very difficult.

There were many layers to the story that I really loved. It’s a science fiction mystery—what the hell is Area X and what is happening there? But it’s also a character study of our main character, the biologist—her desire for solitude, her preference to stand apart and observe, her reticence to open up and share herself with others. And it is also about the biologist’s relationship—how she and her husband tried (and failed) to understand each other, what kept them apart, and what pulled them together. And all these things, too, link back to and provide further depth to Area X.

Annihilation is a very well-crafted story. One that I will be thinking about for a while yet. I love how open everything is. We are given so many clues and so much information, but absolutely no answers. As wildly as the biologist observes and speculates, that’s also all the reader can do.

As much as I’m looking forward to reading the other two books in The Southern Reach trilogy and gaining a little more reliable information, I also hope we’re left with plenty of questions and room to ponder and theorise. For me, that’s the fun part.

 

House of Many Ways

Title: House of Many Ways

Author: Diana Wynne Jones

Summary: Charmain Baker is in over her head. Looking after Great Uncle William’s tiny cottage should have been easy, but he is the Royal Wizard Norland whose house bends space and time. Its single door leads to any number of places: the bedrooms, the kitchen, the caves under the mountains — even the past.

In no time at all Charmain becomes involved with a magical stray dog, a muddled apprentice wizard and a box of the king’s most treasured documents, as well as irritating a clan of small blue creatures.

Caught up in an intense royal search, she meets a sorceress named Sophie. Can the Wizard Howl and Calcifer be far behind?

Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5

Review: This is the third book in the Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy. It took me a while to get around to reading it, because as much as i flipping adored the first book, the second book was quite a disappointment in comparison… I was really worried this one wouldn’t be as good as I hoped either. BUT! I was so happy to fall for this book almost immediately.

Charmain was an instant delight. A main character with a ferocious appetite for reading is always going to win the hearts of book lovers. But she’s also strong-willed, and selfish, and unsympathetic… All the way through I was pretty much thinking, “Same.” So yeah, I loved her. Sent to look after the house of a distant relative by marriage and thrown in at the deep end with magic, she finds very little time to read. The only other characters we really see enough to properly get to know are Peter, an apprentice wizard who shows up on Charmain’s doorstop unexpectedly to join the party; and Waif, a delightful little dog who won’t leave Charmain alone. They were both wonderful.

And so, of course, magic and mayhem ensue. And really, it’s all such a freaking wonderful journey. I think it helps that Howl and Sophie and Calcifer are in this one a smidgen more than they were in Castle in the Air, but there was something about this book that just had the same fun chaotic energy of the first one. I could happily have read more about the everyday lives of Charmain, Waif, Peter, and Uncle William. The lot of them living in that enormous tiny cottage, tapping furniture for food, chatting with kobolds, and exploring the endless magical twists and turns.

I think that’s the difference–Castle in the Air seemed to meander in a dull way when I wanted the plot to speed up, but House of Many Ways could have meandered as long as it wanted, because I just loved spending time in this world. While the plot was almost secondary to the ups and downs of an average day for Charmain, it was also woven seamlessly into the ups and downs of an average day.

Almost every random crazy thing that happened came back around and tied into the plot by the end of the book, and in such an easy but satisfying way. The mysteries and questions raised in the story were answered, but the story also ends on a note of more excitement to come. And while I’d’ve loved to have carried on reading, getting the happy ending and knowing all these lovely characters have such exciting lives ahead of them is the perfect place to end.

Everything I Never Told You

Title: Everything I Never Told You

Author: Celeste Ng

Summary: Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.

So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfil the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.

A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait about love, lies, and race.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5

Review: This book had been on my radar for a while, but i wasn’t sure if i wanted to read it. It was the female POC author and the Chinese-American family dynamic that peaked my interest, and when i saw the book in The Works for a few quid i couldn’t say no. I’m glad. I enjoyed this book in a lot more ways than i thought i would.

The quote on the cover says this book “calls to mind The Lovely Bones“, but for most of the book i couldn’t help but think of the TV series Twin Peaks. It starts with a missing girl and the discovery of her body being pulled from a body of water. It goes on to explore the lives of the family and how little they really know about each other. And with Twin Peaks in mind, i’ll be frank and say i had my eyes on the Dad for most of the book!

What i loved most about this book was its third person omniscient narration. I think this is generally a very underused narrative voice, with most books being told in third person limited or first person point of view. Third person omniscient is pretty tough to pull off well, but Ng manages it flawlessly. I was hooked from that very first line, and knew i was going to enjoy the hell out of this book. The narration flits between all the characters’ thoughts and feelings while also giving snippets of events to come. But none of it in a clumsy way–it still flows and at no point did it get confusing.

All the characters are wonderfully written. All with sympathetic motives and views, but all flawed in genuine ways. None of them are perfect, and all of them fail to communicate enough that wires are crossed, incorrect assumptions made, and pressure piles high on shoulders not strong enough to bear the weight. It is all three children i felt for most, but especially Hannah. The youngest, the ignored and forgotten, the observant and unwitting confidante. Nath and Lydia, bound together by their history and the way the family has dealt with that, but also pulled apart by time and adolescence.

Marilyn and James–Mum and Dad–are perhaps the two most interesting characters, but certainly for me the least sympathetic. Their life experiences, reasoning, and decisions are understandable and i feel for them… to a certain extent. When they become so blinded by their own emotions and selfishness, though, i have to draw the line. Marilyn i have more sympathy for, as a woman in the 60s and 70s with dreams and ambitions, and people at every turn only holding her back. Her only real mistake was blindly projecting that onto her daughter. James, though. As much i can understand his history; how isolating being the only Chinese student would be and how desperately he would have wanted to fit in. I couldn’t forgive how he all but hated Nath for being too similar and idolised Lydia for seeming to be so popular and “normal”. I wouldn’t forgive him holding his wife back in her dreams because of his own inadequacy issues. And i certainly shouldn’t forgive an affair with a teaching assistant that started on the day of his own daughter’s funeral. James is just far, far too selfish to be likeable.

I found the story simple, but excellently constructed, and perfectly emotive. It easily kept me reading, not only to know what happened, but also to see how these characters developed and dealt with their trauma. I wanted a happy ending for them (well, most of them). I wanted Hannah to be loved and appreciated and seen, i wanted Nath to go to college and live his own life, i want Jack’s heart to not be broken. I was happy to see just enough of the future in the last couple of pages that i could close the book happy and satisfied.

This is not the usual kind of book i read–it is heavily character-driven, with personal drama and development at its core. It’s contemporary fiction, and it’s not my go-to. But i fell pretty much head of arse for this book, and i need Ng’s second novel, Little Fires Everywhere pretty much ASAP. I’d also love to read more books in a well-written third person omniscient voice… the only others i can think of are The Book Thief and The Hobbit. Any recommendations?

Black Widow

Title: Black Widow

Author: Christopher Brookmyre

Summary: Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing.

Then she meets Peter. He’s kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past: the second chance she’s been waiting for. Within six months, they are married. Within six more, Peter is dead in a road accident, a nightmare end to their fairytale romance.

But Peter’s sister Lucy doesn’t believe in fairytales, and tasks maverick reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media is calling Black Widow…

Rating: ★★★★☆ 3.5/5

Review: I’ve been having a bit of a reading slump lately, so i decided to dive into a Brookmyre, as they are always a fun, interesting, and relatively light read. I wasn’t wrong; this was just the type of book i needed to get me enjoying the act of reading again. Even in the 7 hours since i’ve finished reading it, i’ve caught myself with a half hour to spare and thought, “Oh, good, i can read a bit of my book,” before remembering there isn’t any left to read!

This is the seventh book in the Jack Parlabane series, and as with the last book, Dead Girl Walking, Brookmyre remains departed from the humour-filled escapades of Parlabane of yore. Instead of wise-cracking and elaborate set ups, he’s glum and lack-lustre. I miss the old Parlabane–i miss Christopher Brookmyre. But there is more to this book than simply one character!

The story itself is a not-unfamiliar one. A career-driven woman meets and swiftly marries a man somewhat beneath her. Her husband’s car is then found off the edge of a cliff, they have no body but work with the assumption that he is dead. The details involve cyber-spying, troubled childhoods, and secrets inside secrets inside password-protected secrets.

Most of the book is heavily focused on our main character–and main suspect–Diana. The second half is more of an even split between her and Parlabane. Diana, as the ‘black widow’ of the title and the main suspect from the get go, i liked and was rooting for almost immediately. This is a crime thriller and i expect twists and turns; if i’m being told to assume a character is guilty too early, i’m going to go right ahead and assume they’re innocent. So while she was portrayed as callous, cold, and calculated, i was busy admiring her strength and self-preservation.

The start reminded me strongly of Gone Girl. The missing and presumed dead partner, the first-person narrative of a harsh and intelligent woman. It might even be another reason i warmed to Diana so quickly–i’m one of the few people who actually enjoyed Amy’s character. Thankfully, as the plot developed the similarities faded and i was invested in this book in its own right, rather than as a comparison.

I enjoyed the book well enough; Brookmyre’s writing is stellar in all the ways it always has been. It’s smart, it’s intriguing. His characters are always so well-rounded and he seems to bring them to life with such an ease that i’m insanely jealous of. There are side plots, mini plots, pre-plots. There is never a dull moment, to say the least. However.

However, there weren’t any shocking revelations. Well, i mean, there were, but they weren’t shocking to me–i’d figured them all out. When i read a book i know has twists and turns i’m looking for them. I’m an active reader–i can’t not be looking for them. The book is saying, “Oh, hey, look at A,” so i’m looking closer and B and C. Small throwaway comments regarding the timeline, someone’s perfume, or someone’s pregnancy and i can see what road the reader is being led down, so i extrapolate and take the road less travelled, instead. The only thing i didn’t have figured out were the fine details and the overall motive, because they didn’t matter so much until the very end.

For anyone who doesn’t consciously evaluate the mystery in crime thrillers, this book will not disappoint. For those of us that do, well… i think the only way we’ll be surprised is if a book left no clues and made very little sense. I enjoy the process of figuring things out as i read, and as much as i’d like to be surprised by a twist, i do feel a smug dose of satisfaction when i see it all coming.

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Mystery Circus

Title: Mystery Circus (Week One)

Author: Verity Hall

Summary: “I guess nobody comes to take the posters down….”

After finding an old circus poster that is months out of date, as well as advertising a performer who is now dead, Malorey Hassan’s curiosity is sparked. When the same circus returns to the town Mal cannot miss the opportunity to find out more about the dead girl.

Dragging her friend Eddie along for the ride, Mal tries to infiltrate the circus and get some answers to her many questions, as well as get to know the performers. However she doesn’t realise that her questioning is starting to annoy people, and that she might not like the answers she seeks.

As Mal keeps digging and begins to see a chance to escape her humdrum life, things get stranger and stranger at Parvati’s Circus.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5

Review: First of all: cover love. Art, minimalist, negative space, bold use of colour. The cover is the reason i picked this book up. The circus storyline and the POC main character are the reasons i bought it.

So, the art is great. It’s bold and fun and colourful. It’s got lots of depth and detail without being too much or too busy. It has so much life, and brings so much life to the characters, in their postures and gestures and faces. There are also these large, single panel, location pieces to mark each new day/chapter, and those are wonderful (more negative space–insert heart eyes emoji here).

The characters were… characters. Rocco, the strong man, and Eddie, the best friend, were delightful. Everyone else was pretty nasty, really. Mal, our main character, was interesting in may ways and had a lot of personal stuff going on, but they were also very single-minded and seemed to not care a jot for other people’s feelings. Mostly people were just selfish and intent on hiding things.

I can cope with horrible characters, and i was getting quite into them by the end of this book. However, the start dragged quite a bit. The first two or three days, nothing much happened–the same scenario is repeated, with our inquisitive main character doing the same things and expecting different results. It was only about halfway through that things started moving. Another issue is that this book is only the first part of a longer series. By the end of the book, no questions are answered. We’ve met our cast of characters, we know people are hiding things, and we want to know what’s going on… then nothing. It’s the end. Don’t get me wrong, it’s left me wanting the next instalment, but as a single book it offered no conclusion. In isolation, this book has no story, really. Which is a shame.

Overall, though, i loved this artwork, i’m intrigued by the story, and i love the diverse characters and LBGT+ themes it includes. When is week two happening, please?

The Darkening Sky

Title: The Darkening Sky

Author: Hugh Greene

Summary: Dr Power is recruited by Superintendent Lynch of the Cheshire Police to help him solve a murder in leafy Alderley Edge. Power and Lynch are challenged by a series of intense events and realise that they are both caught up in a desperate race against time.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5

Review: I found this book via goodreads and was taken with both the summary and the cover. Since then i’ve entered about five or six goodreads giveaways for it–but it paid off, as i finally won one!

I was taken with the book and the story immediately. I work in the health service, so the hospital scenes and doctor/patient relationships really got me stuck into the story and this world. I took to Dr Power quickly, too. For a psychiatrist–for someone who can read people so well–and for one of the main characters in a crime-solving duo, he’s very laid back and almost timid. He’s not got anything near the ego you might expect, in fact he’s more unsure of himself than anything. And that’s rather endearing. Superintendent Lynch took a little longer for me to warm up to. As a copper and a religious man, the odds were against him, but overall these are only parts of his character, and often an interesting juxtaposition explored well in the book. Neither of these main characters is either what you’d expect or as simple as they may seem to be.

The writing was great. It was concise, without being pretentious or bloated, telling as much as was needed while still being descriptive and emotive. It made the book easy to read, while also being engaging and enjoyable. I also loved the few pieces of artwork in the book. The drawing style was striking and had a lot of character. There were only a few drawings, so the book was not overwhelmed with them, but they added an interesting extra when i came across them. The cover art is also great–it’s what drew me to the book in the first place. I love the style, and it’s the best cover i’ve seen for a self-published book.

Unfortunately, though, the book isn’t perfect. The biggest things i couldn’t forgive were issues i had with the plot. For the fact that Power is brought on a board as a psychiatrist for his insight… he doesn’t actually bring that much to the table. The fact that it was the sight of the killings that was the key was patently obvious to me from the get go. It undoubtedly helped that the reader has insight into the murderer during the events, but after the second killing at a remote place of historical interest, any investigator would look at the locations for some kind of link or pattern, surely? The fact that i had already put it together made Power’s revelation less than climatic. Linked to this, was Lynch’s hard-won support for the idea. I couldn’t understand how he was at first so resistant to the idea, simply because to him it didn’t make sense. He’s been in the job long enough to have made superintendent, i find it hard to believe he’s yet to come across a criminal whose motives didn’t make sense to him, personally. And then, of course, the rest of the police force and the press, who find the whole theory a load of mumbo jumbo, despite the fact it’s the only thing proving any link between the murders. It made me roll my eyes, honestly.

The ending wasn’t what I had suspected, which was good (i like to be surprised), but it did lack a little something. It felt a little too easily concluded after everything that had been put in. (I hate to say it, but i liked my own ending better.) The first chapter was such an excellent set up, it was so intriguing and posed so many questions. But then the end didn’t really tie back to that, or make any further reference to it, which i think was a shame. Even just a last paragraph, alluding to the fact that a Dr Allen or Dr Ashton had been trying to contact Power would have given me a wry grin and rounded the book off perfectly.

Overall, i enjoyed the book a lot. I loved the characters and although it had its faults, the plot was interesting enough. On the whole i think the book suffered with trying to introduce its characters and build on their new relationships, as well as carry the story. I’m hoping that with Power and Lynch’s friendship and respect for each other established, the sequels can fully explore more interesting plots while pulling this new duo along for the ride. I do plan on reading them, so i’ll find out soon!

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