My Rating: ✩✩✩✩✩
Straight up: I loved this book!
Now, it might not be everyone's jam, but the combination of epistolary narrative, a semi-spooky mystery, a very slow burn letter-based romance and a cleverly developed world made for a delightful reading experience. I will be honest that this is capital-S slow with Hawthornian-grade verbosity. The romance is heavily dependent on subtext (until about the 75% mark) and the author is very discrete in the clues that you, as the reader, are provided. Cathrall very closely toes the line between "an easily solvable mystery" and "actually, it is solved by someone with random info they never shared." I can't say the book had a twist (you do have all the data you need), but the mystery unfolded very organically and did keep you guessing and thinking until the very last page.
The item I loved the most, and what really sold the book for me, is the faith that Cathrall puts in her readers. As the outside viewer of these letters, you are just dropped into the thick of a strange world, with strange customs and lifestyles. The author however, doesn't spend time on tediously explaining everything and just trusts that the reader will use the context clues to put the story together. Since I hate very little more than chapters of exposition just to make sure the readers got what the author put down, this was very refreshing!
I can't wait for the next book in this series. I have so much I want to learn about this world and these lovingly developed characters!
Published on 23 April 2024 by Orbit Books
Straight up: I loved this book!
Now, it might not be everyone's jam, but the combination of epistolary narrative, a semi-spooky mystery, a very slow burn letter-based romance and a cleverly developed world made for a delightful reading experience. I will be honest that this is capital-S slow with Hawthornian-grade verbosity. The romance is heavily dependent on subtext (until about the 75% mark) and the author is very discrete in the clues that you, as the reader, are provided. Cathrall very closely toes the line between "an easily solvable mystery" and "actually, it is solved by someone with random info they never shared." I can't say the book had a twist (you do have all the data you need), but the mystery unfolded very organically and did keep you guessing and thinking until the very last page.
The item I loved the most, and what really sold the book for me, is the faith that Cathrall puts in her readers. As the outside viewer of these letters, you are just dropped into the thick of a strange world, with strange customs and lifestyles. The author however, doesn't spend time on tediously explaining everything and just trusts that the reader will use the context clues to put the story together. Since I hate very little more than chapters of exposition just to make sure the readers got what the author put down, this was very refreshing!
I can't wait for the next book in this series. I have so much I want to learn about this world and these lovingly developed characters!
Published on 23 April 2024 by Orbit Books
Book #15 of 2024
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