The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler

Posted on February 10, 2025 by pagesofjulia

I thought this one was good fun, with a perfect ratio of good values blended in. It’s an amateur-sleuth sort of mystery: in 1898 Chicago, Harriet Morrow seeks to improve her lot in life (earning potential and freedom, both) by applying to work as a detective at the Prescott Detective Agency. Female detectives are quite rare, but the Pinkertons had one recently, and why not Harriet? With her unadorned clothing style and men’s hat and shoes, Harriet already turns heads; she may as well pursue a path that feels more natural than the secretarial pool. And she has a household to support: since the death of their parents and Harriet’s coming of age, she cares for her sixteen-year-old brother as well as herself at just twenty-one years.

The Prescott Detective Agency takes her on, but no one seems exactly to expect her to succeed. The case she’s given first is a bit of a dud: her boss doesn’t believe it for a minute, but his elderly next-door neighbor claims her maid has gone missing, and to mollify his wife (who loves the old woman) he asks Harriet to look into it. Surely the maid has merely taken an extra day off, or the old neighbor lady is senile to begin with. But Mrs. Pearl Bartlett turns out to be a firecracker: unconventional, perhaps a bit like Harriet herself, not a bit dim, and very sure of Agnes Wozniak’s disappearance. She also has misheard our protagonist, and misread her large stout frame and men’s hat: she calls Harriet Harry, and the nascent detective finds she likes it.

Unfortunately for Agnes, but rather fortunately for Harriet, the maid does indeed appear to be missing, and quite possibly in real danger. Harriet has herself a case, and a chance to prove herself, although she is very much learning on the job; she has lots of moxie, and a certain amount of natural instinct, but there is much about the work of detection that she’ll need to figure out. Luckily, the Prescott Detective Agency offers one friendly face: Matthew McCabe seems willing to help. Armed with a mentor (and eventually, properly armed), Harriet will learn her new profession, hopefully find the missing maid, earn a proper living for herself… and maybe learn a bit about underground queer Chicago along the way.

The historical aspects to this novel were great fun, even when frustrating, from Harriet’s clothing conundrums (she does not like women’s styles. but doesn’t really want to impersonate a man. but their options are just so practical, comfortable, and natural feeling…) to the infuriating dismissals she faces from pretty much everyone around her. I was especially delighted to lean into not only a historical inner city Chicago, populated by immigrants and the working class, but a queer underground, including their nightclubs and practices and (nearly literal) secret handshakes. I really appreciated Osler’s Author’s Note, where I felt he did a good job of clarifying what came from research and what was just fun to invent. Terminology, for example, can be difficult: folks we might recognize as queer or as lesbian today would have been less likely to use those terms in 1898. A nightclub that hosted both drag queens and drag kings for the same event is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but it works so beautifully here, both for plot and for fun.

I loved the mystery story itself, and absolutely fell for Harriet, the awkward but admirably strong woman at the lead. I loved the history and the queer framing, and especially that intersection. Just a hell of a tale all around; I can’t wait for more Harriet Morrow. Could hardly put it down; nonstop fun; do recommend.

Rating: 8 silver bells.

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I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong

Posted on February 3, 2025 by pagesofjulia

A young man wakes up from a coma and returns to the family, and the family sushi restaurant, that he’d left behind, with comical, heart-wrenching, hopeful results.

I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong (Flux) is a funny, bittersweet, heartwarming story about family, love, and making every minute count.

Readers first meet Jack Jr. in what he is slow to realize is a hospital room. He wakes up intubated and gagging. He’s confused about his whereabouts and circumstances, and he asks for his husband. His nurse is thrown into a full panic: Jack Jr. has been in a coma for 23 months and was not expected to regain consciousness.

No one will answer when he asks for his husband. Jack Jr. has missed his 30th birthday and the first 18 months or so of the Covid-19 pandemic. A few weeks into this remarkable recovery, he returns home, not to his Manhattan apartment, but to his father’s home in New Jersey. He goes back to the family business, a struggling Korean-Japanese sushi restaurant, which was once meant to be his life’s work and which he has not seen in 12 years. Jack Jr. has lost everything, and he finds himself in an unfamiliar, masked world. For much of the narrative, the old wounds he was avoiding–that he will now have to face–remain shrouded from the reader.

Jack Jr.’s kind and loving Appa (father) is a passionate sushi chef and workaholic; his Umma (mother) is private, reserved, and fiercely loyal; his especially estranged brother, James, is a recovering alcoholic with a dear wife and a new baby to join the teenaged nephew that Jack Jr. barely knows. Wise, gawky, 16-year-old Juno is perhaps the member of his family that Jack Jr. best connects with. And then there is Emil, formerly Jack Jr.’s nurse, and now potentially poised to become something more. Through these endearing characters, Jack Jr. considers that perhaps “there was more to loving something than smiling at it.”

In Jack Jr.’s first-person voice, these mysterious, painful new challenges are wrenching, but his love for his wacky family, and theirs for him, are unmistakable throughout. Alongside the flavors of carefully prepared nigiri, dak juk, soy, ponzu, and plenty of pork belly, humor and off-kilter love shine brightly in this tale of realizing what’s really important and making the most of one’s own time. The title of I Leave It Up to You refers to a translation of omakase, the Japanese dining tradition of asking for the chef’s choice, and also nods to the novel’s sweet attention to the care of self and others. While recovering from his physical injuries, Jack Jr. must also navigate old fractures with a family he hasn’t seen in years, let go of a relationship with no closure, and remain open to a surprisingly promising future. The story winds up delightfully warm and soothing, for all the bumps along the way.

This review originally ran in the January 31, 2025 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 8 bowls of juk.

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Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Posted on December 2, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Here it is: the long-awaited sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea, which I found lovely and transcendent. Somewhere Beyond the Sea continues in that vein in fine form. We pick up Arthur, Linus, and their endearingly and massively weird household with six magical children – originally an orphanage, but now building into a family and a home – more or less where we left them. Linus has left his employment with the Department in Charge of Magical Youth to be with Arthur, and the two men are working on adopting their six charges. Theodore, a wyvern with an obsession with buttons. Talia, a garden gnome, a lovely girl with a lovely beard and a way with plants. Phee, a forest sprite. Sal, the eldest, a shifter who spends some of his time as a Pomeranian and is developing strong leadership skills. Chauncey, a “biologically unique” green blob and bellhop. And Lucy, short for Lucifer, the seven-year-old son of devil, who has his murderous tendencies but also a pretty standard seven-year-old sense of mischief, and a good heart. These pages will add to the mix David, a teenaged yeti, who is slow to trust his new household but also inclined to fit right in. He’d like to submit that fear is not always a bad thing: humans watch scary movies for fun, right? What’s the harm in a little good-natured roar now and then?

Pitted against this evolving family, of course, is the government, in the form of the Departments in Charge of Magical Youth and Adults, who would like to see everyone involved put in their place, under lock and key and with what some less enlightened folks still feel is an appropriate amount of shame. Arthur, himself a former magical youth – he is a phoenix, possibly the last living one of his kind – has come a long way from his trauma at the hands of DICOMY and his defensive isolation with his six orphaned charges. With the love and support of Linus, their dear friend (and island sprite) Zoe, and Zoe’s girlfriend Helen, mayor of the nearby village, Arthur and the children now regularly venture into town and mingle with humans and magical folks there. And when the book opens, Arthur is set to testify before the government about the abuse he suffered as a child and his work with his own children; he is hoping to help build a better world, and through adoption, formalize his family. But the close-knit family is up against some truly formidable villains with all the power in the world.

Like Cerulean, this sequel plays in several registers. The antics of the kids are sweet, silly, hilarious; there is lots of good fun and humor and also wholesome good lessons about mutual love and support. The continuing romance between Arthur and Linus is equally wholesome and feel-good. In inviting David in to their family, the household faces some new challenges in how to build trust and honor the newcomer’s need for distance.

Trust, Arthur knew, was a treasure effortlessly stolen, often without rhyme or reason. And this particular treasure was a fragile thing, a piece of thin glass easily broken. But here was David, surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar place, attempting to pick up his pieces and put them back into a recognizable shape. Whatever else he was, David’s bravery in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds proved yet again what Arthur had always believed: magic existed in many forms, some extraordinary, some simple acts of goodwill and trust, small though they might be.

I think this illustrates some of the book’s larger themes: trust, fragility, vulnerability, bravery, and how these elements can help form family and community. The concept that even those in power – in government or in families – need to have the ability to acknowledge when they have been or done wrong. Arthur must navigate a misstep when he encourages David to be whatever he wants to be, including a “monster”, while having told Lucy that he should be less monstrous. (David’s monstrosity is less threatening. But should Lucy’s right to self-realization be any less?) This is still and again about trust: how Lucy can trust a father whose rules change; how a father or fathers should trust their child’s judgment as they grow and mature. Change requires flexibility; growth can be painful. But this loving family is very strong, perhaps because they challenge each other. And the letting-in of the village has been a good move: under the influence of Arthur and Linus’s household, the human inhabitants have learned greater tolerance, and magical visitors (and their tourist dollars) have begun to transform what was a typically mistrustful community into a more welcoming one. It will take a whole village in the end to defend what’s right.

A beautiful novel about family, trust, community, recovery from abuse and trauma, and systemic ills, all leavened by mischievous humor and filial and romantic love. Same-sex couples abound in the book, and Klune’s Acknowledgements prioritize defending trans people’s rights, but I’d say the metaphor at work in this world – where magical people are hidden away, poorly understood, and discriminated against by a larger population which will benefit from their inclusion – works for any disadvantaged minority. It’s great reading, sweet and funny, with great messaging. I can’t wait for more like it from this fine author.

Rating: 9 fish named Frank.

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Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe

Posted on October 14, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Oliver Radclyffe’s memoir, Frighten the Horses, is an arrestingly forthright and open account of self-realization, a portrait of a transgender experience that is beautiful, honest, and raw.

After an absorbing, funny opening scene, Radclyffe rewinds to a less happy time. Readers accompany him on a difficult path as he spent the first four decades of his life trying to live up to expectations. His British upper-class childhood was privileged but disjointed. On brief occasions in boarding school, art school, and while riding motorcycles, he felt like one of the boys, but never felt he truly fit in. He became a housewife of status, then immigrated to the Connecticut suburbs and soon found himself raising four children and a golden retriever puppy. But something had always been off, and the memoir moves back and forth in time to portray Radclyffe’s anxiety and soul-searching. He eventually comes out as lesbian, divorces, and comes out as a transgender man.

These events and discoveries are presented in scenes with color, detail, and dialogue, and Radclyffe’s writing style is smooth, relatable, and effortless to read. With humor and compassion for himself and others, Radclyffe describes his own resistance to and acceptance of his gender and sexuality as he wrestles with the complexities of gender identity, sexual orientation, feminism, class, and family dynamics. This disarming, gorgeously written, and generously vulnerable memoir uses imagery to great effect. In sharing this individual narrative, Radclyffe expands and advances the way trans experiences are represented in literature. Smart and incisive, Frighten the Horses is unforgettable.

This review originally ran in the September 20, 2024 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 9 steps.

Come back Friday for my interview with Oliver Radclyffe! I’m really excited about this one.

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In the Vanishers’ Palace by Aliette de Bodard

Posted on July 19, 2024 by pagesofjulia

This fantasy novel(la) comes billed as a reimagined, queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Perhaps I’m just working at a great distance from that original, but it didn’t recall it strongly for me. There is definitely a young girl kept captive in a palace by a being that’s understood to be a monster, and their relationship changes. The palace itself may have some powers. I see the parallels, but would never have thought of Beauty if I hadn’t been told to.

All of which is neither here nor there and has no bearing, for me, on enjoyment of the book. (Novella? At almost 200 pages, it might be pushing novella-length – these things are so tricky to define! – but it felt that contained, to me.)

Yên and her mother live in a somber village in a post-apocalyptic world, in which creatures called the Vanishers have (yes) vanished, but their legacy lingers: mysterious viruses, illnesses, and spirits, dangers lurking everywhere. Yên has failed as a scholar; her mother has value to the village as a healer, but as her mother’s just-mediocre assistant, Yên’s future is not assured. It does not surprise her to be sold away to pay off the village’s debts, to a frightening dragon: everyone expects she will be tortured to death by her new master, Vu Côn, but it turns out that Vu Côn (who can shape-shift between human and dragon forms) has other needs. She is the mother of intelligent, willful twins. And Yên, who had been teacher to her village’s children (apparently this was not judged a value??!), finds herself with new pupils.

Vu Côn and her children live in an abandoned Vanishers’ palace, a place of disconcerting, Escheresque, physically impossible dimensions and movements. The twins, Thông and Liên, possess powerful magic, and being nonhuman, as well as the children of her master, they give Yên different challenges than she’s faced with the village children. But they are children, nonetheless, clever and respectful of their new teacher (if headstrong), and she does care for them. Her feelings for Vu Côn are more complicated, blending desire with fear and resentment, and it appears this conflict is mutual.

The dragon’s eyes were a light grey, the color of storm clouds gathering. She was looking at Yên with an expression that was half-irritation, half-hunger, as if she would gobble Yên whole, given half a chance.

And what scared Yên most? This might, in the end, be just what she longed for.

Yên is dissatisfied living in the frightening Vanishers’ palace. She misses her mother and fears for her mother’s safety in their village; she misses home and knows it is unavailable to her, as the village elders who sold her away would never allow her return. She doesn’t know where to turn. And the readers understand before Yên does that there are deeper, darker secrets in the Vanishers’ palace than she’s yet discovered. But there are opportunities, too.

It’s a curious fantasy world, offering familiar elements (as they do) of our human desires and conflicts, but always with a twist – shape-shifting dragons, sure, but also, for example: Vu Côn has a magnetic sex appeal for our protagonist, but where I’m accustomed to seeing this expressed as heat, Yên experiences Vu Côn’s dragon-body as cold, wet, briny, and very sexy in these elements. That’s a new one for me, and I don’t find it easily accessible: “sea salt and cold, tight air, and a faint aftertaste like algae,” “wet cold creeping up her skin like fingers” – slimy, even! It’s an interesting twist, and one where I have to just trust in Yên’s tastes for Yên. But that’s what fiction asks of us, in different ways, right?

This was a fascinating adventure for me, in the ways that it did and did not fit into my expectations. And in the end, it calls upon some useful universals: big thinking about right and wrong, the way we relate to lover, friend, family, and community, the yearning for self-actualization and belonging. Dragons? Sure. I find Aliette de Bodard a lively imagination and I liked this punchy tale.

Rating: 7 strokes.

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Gallows Drop by Mari Hannah

Posted on June 28, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Back on the fence about this series, but I keep coming back for more. Hannah is doing something right.

Pros: page-turner. I stay riveted, engaged and invested. I was drawn in, in this book in particular, by the possibility that we were finally going to get into the heart of Kate’s biggest issue in her personal and private lives: her conflicted relationship with her own sexuality and her attempt to live a closeted life at work while maintaining a same-sex relationship with (no less) a colleague. That conflict feels like the shoe that’s been waiting to drop for this whole series, and the specter of resolving it was a major pull – as well as the mystery plot being a solid one. (I don’t think I’ve ever had beef with the mystery itself in any of these books.)

More ambivalent: the central conflict about Kate’s coming out, and the solidifying of her relationship with Jo, threatened to be a bit on the nose, especially in combination with the mystery plot and the potential relevance of gay identity in that storyline. “Suddenly she couldn’t differentiate between her own situation and that of —–. If she found out that his death was connected to his homosexuality it would open up a wound she’d been hiding for years. A bleeding open wound she’d been trying and failing to live with. The reason she’d thrown away all that was good in her life.” Not only on-the-nose, but awfully thoroughly spelled out for my tastes. Let the reader do a little work!

Cons: dialog and sentence-level writing continue to distract me. Speaking of thoroughly spelled out, would a cop really need to say, “I’ll call you later, if I can. Service is patchy here. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.” In the 2010s, you have to explain what patchy service means? Or in describing scraps of debris on the ground: “Some kind of confectionary wrapper… and what looks suspiciously like a cannabis joint.” No humor, no irony: “what looks suspiciously like a cannabis joint.” Nobody talks like that. There was also a continued emphasis on ‘stuff’ when ANY noun would do more and better.

The resolution of the plot puzzle felt a bit chaotic. Not quite a deus ex machina, but multiple (and unrelated) unhinged characters running roughshod. Upon finishing the book I was left a little muddled as to who did what to whom, because it all dissolved into mayhem. And fair enough, because that’s the way the world goes sometimes, but this was not Hannah’s cleanest finish. And speaking of the finish: literally the last line of this novel thrusts us upon the hugest cliffhanger I’ve seen in a while, and quite a fantastical one to boot. I don’t think I’m happy with this move.

Despite all this, my experience in reading was that I really enjoyed the book, in some mammoth sessions. And started the next one immediately. So, not sure where this leaves us. It’s not a love/hate relationship, but certainly a love/not-love relationship that I am in with the DCI Kate Daniels series.

Help.

Rating: 6 gobs of spit.

EDIT: The next book in this series, Without a Trace, was distressingly bad. I cannot review it here and am not sure where to turn next. Warning.

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Killing for Keeps by Mari Hannah

Posted on May 31, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Doing another short-short review of this fifth book in the DCI Kate Daniels series.

Pros: compelling plot; compulsively readable. I continue to care about the protagonist even though she frustrates me with her choices! I remain fully invested in Kate’s character arc, and would have immediately dived into book six if I had had it handy. I love secondary character Hank Gormley even more.

Cons: the writing does continue to take me out of the story, only momentarily, but over and over. There continue to be too many ‘things’ where a better noun is almost always available. Some logical leaps don’t feel quite earned for me. (I’m so sorry I did not make note of these for examples. It’s a credit to the book that I wasn’t motivated to go find a pen. Or, I was camping in below-freezing weather and didn’t want to get out of bed.) Each book’s murder mystery plot is electric, but Kate’s romantic difficulties feel stalled and I wish we would get a move on.

What can I say? The pros are absolutely winning and I suspect I’m going to rocket through the next few books as I get a hold of them. But not without qualifications. I wonder if I’ve just been missing the genre; I’m going to try Kate Atkinson next. Any other tips?

Rating: 7 parakeets.

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Fatal Games by Mari Hannah

Posted on May 20, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Book four in the DCI Kate Daniels series (following most recently Deadly Deceit) is Fatal Games, for me the most successful to date. I’ve enjoyed each of the previous three books, but always with some reservations, and wishing for a bit more of Daniels’ personal side, feeling she was a bit underdeveloped, perhaps. This time something finally really clicked for me. Don’t get me wrong: the fact that I’m still here for book four means something was working, but this one knocked it out of the park in a new way.

For one thing, I felt that we got into some personal life: not so much that of Kate herself, actually, but especially a few other characters. In fact, I’m beginning to buy that Kate is truly defined by an absence of personal life! (This is not a new message from the author, but maybe it took some convincing.) Secondary characters have more layers: I really like Daniels’ second in command, Hank, who is a real friend as well as professional Watson type. Her ex, Jo, also a professional colleague, is definitely more well rounded. And now we meet Emily, a friend to the rest, who appears mid-crisis: recently widowed, she has just returned to work as a prison psychologist, not the least stressful job to begin with, let alone grieving and struggling to parent a grieving twenty-year-old to boot. When further trauma presents itself – this being a murder-mystery series, friends – Emily does not cope well. Kate is perhaps not showing her best self when she says that her friend is “acting as mad as a box of frogs,” but she’s not exactly wrong, either. One character in particular gave me the creeps; I was not sure if he was going to turn out to be an actual bad guy (in the murder-mystery sense) or ‘just’ a really toxic dude, but ew. Throw in a manipulative psychotic sex offender and a few prison guards of questionable moral standing, and you’ve got a motley crew.

The mystery was properly complex, the cast of characters increasingly compelling, Kate herself showing the usual conflict between wanting to have a life outside work and being incapable of it. It started working for me in this book like it hasn’t before. I could feel her wanting, and trying, and then being consumed once again by the job – which, to be fair, is pretty soul-consuming, and it’s hard to be angry with someone for wanting to solve crimes and save lives… but if you’re her prospective partner, you do want some of her attention. Poor Jo.

The plot, which I’ve not even touched on yet, does involve murdered young girls. There are some truly heinous criminals. And even the law-abiding ones ostensibly on the ‘right’ side can offer some frustrations. It’s a hard-boiled mystery – note that blurb on the front cover that credits Hannah with ‘a dark heart.’ I’m on board like never before.

Rating: 8 gifts.

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Soulstar by C. L. Polk

Posted on April 15, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Book three of the Kingston Cycle does not disappoint. It did feel somewhat like a shift in tone for me, and changed up my pacing. But I am a big fan of Polk and hope they’re at work on more like this.

In this installment we see a new protagonist again: Robin Thorpe, who we knew in the first two books as a nurse, Miles’s dear friend, and a witch of the less-privileged, illegal sort. She is also an activist and an important member of the movement to free the witches from asylums and gain some basic human rights for all citizens. She was suspicious of Grace at first (for which I don’t blame her), but also a big enough person to remain open-hearted and learn to trust. (This process we also saw with Grace learning to accept Tristan over her original prejudices.) We’re building communities and coalitions: Robin working with her people, including the Solidarity movement, and their elected official; Robin, Miles, Tristan, and Grace working together and with the Amaranthines for the good of Aeland and its people. Trust has to develop slowly and naturally in several of these relationships; the process is slow and messy, but it’s working.

Early in the book, we have a bit of a revelation. One of the freed witches is Robin’s spouse, Zelind. Mere kids when they married in secret, they are now reunited, but only after decades of separation and trauma. Robin will now navigate the political activist roller coaster she’s entered into, while also trying to reintegrate a longed-for relationship with some profound challenges. Zelind of course turns out to have some talents to offer as well, aside from being Robin’s love.

It was my feeling that Soulstar takes a darker turn than the previous two books. The stakes are getting higher, or the problems the reader is aware of are getting bigger – they’re not new, but we’re getting deeper into this world and learning more. As I’ve said before, this world’s problems are easily seen as analogous to our own.

Grace led us through the gilded reception hall, looking neither left nor right at the people lifting priceless works of art from the walls. It pricked my conscience until I turned my face up to behold our reflections in the mirrored tiles in the ceiling fixed together by gold moldings. Solid gold, I remembered from the time we trooped into the palace as schoolchildren to stare at all the finery I now understood to be hoarded wealth. The taxes of five hundred clan houses held those mirrors together. The wealth in that ceiling could fed the entire country for a year. This ostentation and greed had to end.

The dream team our leaders are putting together is up for this dismantling if anyone is, but the bad guys’ power is considerable and they’re not giving up easily. There was one special challenge mounted late in the book that about broke my will, although luckily these characters are tougher than I am.

Race has been a sort of understated issue throughout the trilogy. Class and privilege make up an obvious one, and climate change, and politically, we’re moving towards self-determination and communal systems of support. The issue of race is less clear: characters are sometimes noted as being Black or white, or described in terms that imply race (blonde, dreadlocked, dark skin), and privilege sometimes lines up with race, but I think not always. I’m not certain how this is meant to be read, whether we’re looking at a mostly-race-stratified society or simply a diverse one. Queer relationships have also been centered throughout. Book one saw a romance between two men, book two featured one between two women, and in book three, Robin is rejoined to her nonbinary spouse. (We also see a triangle marriage buck against Aeland’s societal norms, although it’s not unusual in Samindan culture.) Queerness seems to encounter some raised eyebrows, but not enormous resistance (the triangle marriage is much less accepted).

As another note, now that I’ve got all three books in me, I want to appreciate the covers, which are visually pleasing and offer some clue as to setting, and feature modes of transportation associated with the protagonist of each: a man on a bicycle for Miles on the cover of Witchmark; two figures in a coach for Grace (Stormsong); and now a couple skating for Robin in Soulstar. It’s a neat nod to the world Polk has built here.

As a trilogy: fantasy, world-building, romance, allegory, lovely writing and beautiful details, easy immersion. This writer is a great talent. I hope there is so much more to come, whether in Aeland or anywhere else Polk chooses to take me.

Rating: 8 sweaters.

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Stormsong by C. L. Polk

Posted on April 8, 2024 by pagesofjulia

Book two in the Kingston Cycle is every bit as riveting and delicious as the first, and I immediately opened book three upon its conclusion, so fair warning there. As is my practice, this review will contain mild spoilers for book one but not this book.

Witchmark‘s narrator and protagonist was Miles, but having seen him through danger and triumph and into the beginning of a delightful new romance, we are moving on to a new central character: Miles’s sister the indomitable Dame Grace Hensley narrates and stars in Stormsong. I was only sad for a moment; Grace is an exciting woman to follow, and anyway Miles is still on the scene, and his partner Tristan plays at least as big a role. (Miles is recuperating from injuries sustained in the big crescendo finish to Witchmark.) Many common threads continue: political intrigue as well as familial, as Grace and Miles’ family is one of the most powerful in the land. Romance, as Grace finds her own love, although she must navigate it amid all that intrigue. Self-actualization. “You make me want to be better… you know exactly who you are, even if it’s not what you’re supposed to be.” There are some neat instances of thinly veiled reference to our real world, as with worsening weather patterns (and the people demanding the government control the weather – which in this case is possible, because witches), and labor and civic unrest. Crime and punishment, just government and revolution, compromise and how to best run a country: it’s huge stuff, but it’s also still a sweet story of relationships, romantic love and siblinghood and respectful alliances. Oh, and I think I failed to say with book one, Polk writes really tantalizing food and the details of things like fashion which don’t usually interest me but do here. But especially food.

These books have momentum and atmosphere. The world-building is well thought out, which I think is evident for any series that shifts its focus between protagonists with each novel. They are sumptuous stories to get lost in, while dealing with serious themes. I’m impressed. And I’m already well into book three, so stay tuned.

Rating: 8 outfits on the bed.

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