I wanted to like this novel more.

After all, what could be more fun than another Jemisin novel (especially after just completing her Broken Earth trilogy)? It has an original premise, unlike most any other fantasy I have read; it speaks powerful characters, rich in difference, all fairly realistic; it works not only Jemisin's natural dialogic rhythms, but also the credible and complex psychologies; more still, the antagonist of the novel comes straight from a 'legendary' source, the

Cthulhu mythos of Lovecraft

, played on with Jemisin's declaratives on racial themes.  

Perhaps it is because some of the writing here has fallen too predictably (if I were less forgiving, lazily) to genre formula. The 'cover-up' has a groan-worthy obvious name, the head-scratching innocent victims simply "cannot see" the evil, and the entire novel runs fairly close to a "gathering of the Fellowship" form: writing too heavily to the marketing of future books in the series rather than offering a satisfying story on its own. 

A distracting read, at times entertaining, but I'm not certain I can read further on this series.