Olivia Prior has no memory of her mother. All she has is a worn green journal whose words document a slow, confusing slide into madness
before the woman dropped Olivia off at the Merilance School for Girls. Merilance is a dismal place, made worse by how Olivia is treated: a
mute orphan girl who cannot even look forward to the menial life of servitude the other girls are groomed for. It would be worse if they
knew the truth, that Olivia can see "ghouls", half-formed ghosts with pieces missing who drift in the shadows and vanish whenever she looks
directly at them. Sometimes she wonders if her mother saw ghouls, too, or if the mysterious madwoman is one herself now.
One day, Olivia is summoned to the headmistress's office. A letter has arrived for her, from an uncle she never knew about, summoning her
"home". It seems odd that any relative who claims to love her, as the letter writer does, left her to languish in Merilance's cruelties for
most of her childhood and adolescence, but anywhere must be better than the boarding school, and maybe this "uncle" will have answers about
her mother. Only when she finally arrives, she sees a name she recognizes from her mother's journal: Gallant.
Mom seemed convinced that Olivia would only be safe if she never went to Gallant; it may have been why she was abandoned in the first
place. But Olivia cannot bring herself to leave, not even when she learns that nobody knows who actually sent the letter summoning her.
The pictures on the wall, with her own features looking back at her, make it clear enough that this is her family home, that her mother
once lived here, and the young woman will not go until she finally has some answers. Unfortunately, Gallant's secrets may have been the
death of Olivia's mother... and if she doesn't escape soon, it might be the death of her, too.
Review
Gallant is a nice take on the traditional gothic horror trope of family curses and brooding old manors full of ghosts and
secrets. From the start, Olivia is no passive victim, but a willful young woman determined to fight back against a life that keeps
trying to keep her down "in her place", not above the odd petty act of vengeance against her tormentors. Even the "ghouls" she sees do
not bring her fear or have her cringing in terror, as she learned they can't touch her and she can banish them with a hard glare;
they're just one more piece of a puzzle she doesn't have nearly enough clues to solve, the puzzle of her mother's madness and
disappearance and the strange entries in the green journal. Being mute only makes her that much more observant of other people, even
as it can be frustrating trying to communicate with those who won't or can't understand what she's trying to tell them via sign or
writing. Her hope at finally escaping Merilance is quickly dashed upon her inauspicious arrival at Gallant; instead of a loving uncle
and a family opening its arms in love and acceptance, there are a pair of aging servants and a brooding, angry cousin whose first
words are to order her to leave at once. There is also a mysterious wall in the back garden with an iron door that appears to go
nowhere... until approached at night...
In keeping with the story's gothic roots, a grim atmosphere permeates the book and the characters, a sense of foreboding and doom that
is present from the first pages to the last. From the gruesome, partially erased figures of the ghouls - which can appear as single
eyes and arms with partial or absent torsos - to the nightmares that begin to torment Olivia from her first night in Gallant to
interludes between chapters that point to a lurking evil waiting patiently as a spider with an inescapable web, Schwab does not stint
on the darkness, though Olivia only rarely succumbs to the weight of it, always managing to find more fight in her, and she is not
entirely without allies. Adding to the atmosphere are illustrations from Olivia's mother's notebook, dark and haunting renderings like
shaped ink blots on the page, that eventually tie into the unfolding mystery. There are no easy answers or easy wins, and every step
of progress comes at a terrible cost.
Though the tale moves fairly well, the ending feels abrupt, with a few stray threads left over that don't tie up neatly. Otherwise,
it's an excellent, if very dark, story.
Since her earliest memories, Adeline LaRue had looked toward the edge of town and wondered what lay beyond. Her first trip to the walled city of Le Mans with her
woodcarver father only whets her appetite for new sights and sounds and wonders... but a French country girl in the 1700's can't expect that kind of life, only a
husband and children and a small plot in the village cemetery when she's worn down to nothing. Neither the old gods, to whom local eccentric Estele still prays, or
the new God in His stone church can help her - until, fleeing a wedding she does not want, Addie encounters a figure of darkness and deceit who offers her the freedom
she wants, at a price she does not understand until it is too late.
For three hundred years, Addie has wandered the world as a living ghost. Her bargain grants her eternal life and youth and a crystal-sharp memory to retain it all,
yet erases every memory of her in the world, every mark she tries to make. The closing of a door or the passage of sleep wipes her from minds as if she'd never been.
She cannot even say her name or tell her story without her tongue betraying her. And all the while, the dark god whom she calls Luc teases her, taunts her, threatens
her to surrender her soul to him at last. So she clings to what beauties and wonders she can, finding small cracks in the walls of her curse. Then, in a dusty used
book shop in New York City in 2014, she meets Henry - the first person who actually remembers her from one day to the next. Perhaps she has finally found a way out of
her ill-advised bargain... or perhaps Henry's curse, like Luc's deviousness, is greater than she imagined...
Review
I went into this with high hopes and good recommendations. Early on, those were well met. Addie is a determined, if impulsive, young woman, born in the wrong time
(or at least the wrong social class) to follow the path she craves, willing to take any chance to escape a life that will crush her to nothing... even though she was
well warned not to pray to the gods that answer after dark. Luc is an inhuman creature, somewhere between a god and a devil, who finds himself oddly fascinated by his
latest catch. Henry is a man who was cursed, in some way, from birth, a boy who feels so much he can barely function without being overwhelmed. As Addie and Henry
develop a relationship that seems to defy both of their curses, flashbacks reveal her duels with Luc... duels that, naturally, she tends to lose, save her stubborn
determination not to surrender when he calls. Early on, it's an interesting examination of two wounded souls (three, perhaps, if you count Luc; his obsession with
Addie is a weakness he does not want to admit), delving into the world of art and how ideas can thrive in various media even when memory is unreliable, set against
the backdrop of history.
At some point, though, it settles into a circular pattern of brooding, hurt, and angsty people being broody and hurt and angsty, going through the same motions of the
same hurts again and again and again in their lives, punctuated by the odd trip to an underground music club or experimental art exhibit or obscure theatrical
performance. Around and around and around again, then back around, and for all that it was decently written, it wasn't progressing the plot, or even deepening the
characters, because it was showing me things I already knew, if in a very slightly altered setting, at each pass. Even the best music grows monotonous when it refuses
to end. By the time it finally came to the climax, I was more exhausted than truly invested, and the wrap-up... without spoilers, I can't go into specifics, but it
felt like it cheapened one character and my investment in them. Possibly that was a result of how I'd grown weary of the seemingly-endless circling and prodding of the
same wounds. Or possibly The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue just plain wears out its welcome well before it ends. Overall, it's a decent book, but I found myself
thinking I'd have enjoyed it more had there been a little less of it.
In four worlds, four Londons once stood side by side, accessed through the magic that all shared... but things changed with the fall of Black London, consumed by
its own hungry powers. Now the ways between worlds are closed to all but the Antari, blood magicians marked by one pure black eye, of whom only two remain:
Holland of White London, and Kell of Red London. (Grey London, in a grey world of soot and machines, knows so little magic its people think the term a lie.) To keep
the evil of Black London from spreading, it was declared that nothing may cross between save letters between the royal houses. But Kell has managed to keep a small
side business in the three Londons by smuggling trinkets across the borders, a kernel of rebellion against the chains of duty. He never handled anything truly
dangerous - until he came into possession of the black stone, a forbidden relic of terrible strength, on a visit to the dangerously power-hungry rulers of White
London. He flees with it to Grey London, and into the path of a most determined young woman.
Lila may be a simple street thief and pickpocket, but someday she will be a pirate queen and sail the world. When her nimble fingers lifted the rock from the strange
man's pocket, she was disappointed in her take - but soon she learns more than she ever wanted to know about the other Londons, and about the stone's clever, dark
powers, and about the man whom she robbed and to whom she soon owes her life. She could have walked away, probably should have walked away, but Lila isn't about to turn
her back on the greatest adventure in her life... nor can she turn her back on magic, now that she knows its scent and strength and undeniable existence.
Their alliance was one of reluctant necessity, but it's going to take both Lila and Kell to deal with the trouble unleashed by the black stone, troubles that may see
all three Londons go the way of their lost sister city.
Review
I admit that this one took a while to grow on me. The premise is intriguing from the outset, of course - not just two parallel worlds, but four, each with their own
charms and dangers - but Kell starts out a bit flat and broody, as does his counterpart Holland. (With Kell's broody nature and the way his hair was described as falling
over his eye, part of my mind kept envisioning him as an anime character, an impression that took some time to shake and admittedly never quite vanished.) The people he
interacted with, mostly royalty, seemed fairly simple as well, and the cruelty of the siblings in charge of White London bordered on caricatured. As for Lila, she's
hardly warm and cuddly herself, and her first interactions with magic aren't necessarily intelligent given her street-honed wits. Eventually, though, I managed to immerse
in the tale as the pace picked up. It's a violent and dark story with a high (and somewhat gruesome) body count, fairly fast-paced once it gets its feet under itself,
ratcheting to a tense and bloody climax. (There is a noted tendency for characters to be repeatedly beaten, stabbed, thrown, and generally punished to borderline
ridiculous extremes, including massive blood loss, without them actually collapsing longer than the paragraph break... but, then, there is just a whiff of old-school pulp
action tale underlying the plot, and of course with magic - blood magic in particular - one can't get too hung up on the physical limits of the human body, I suppose.
Still, I was almost chuckling now and again toward the end as the characters racked up concussion upon contusion.) Though the story arc wraps up in one volume, threads
are left dangling for future adventures... adventures I might consider following if I found the sequels at the right price.
