vampires's reviews
369 reviews

this is difficult to rate tbh it certainly had some highs and lows but the highs were high and the lows were not bad just things that wiggled at my brain for the opportunity to have done something different. also it was very much playing on standard genre conventions and arthuriana so if you aren't picking up on that kind of thing i imagine it would probably not be a fun read. but i had fun. so.

the ways lucy foley disseminates information to the reader are so so masterful and that aspect of her craft CARRIED this novel to greatness

it pains me to give any story about my historical blorbo, theodora, such a mid rating. but i have major beef with the characterization of younger theodora, and although that problem goes away once she is older in the story, i disliked some narrative choices that the author made. so much so that i won't even get into it for the sake of my own health. However.... the book does improve, and overall it's not bad. but it is deeply emotionless, which is something i just hate. i am interested to see if i like book 2 any better, because with other novels about theodora that i like better, i think this is usually where they begin to fumble.

really unsure what to rate this. honestly can't even tell if it's good or not, or whether i like or dislike the messaging, or if there is even any coherent messaging at all. i almost feel like there isn't any, intentionally, the same way that everyone in-text feels about the case itself. i did like that the text resisted giving the murderer any sort of neat explanation or characterization that would have fully satisfied a narrative. obviously they were deeply unwell but there was no clean-cut dsm diagnosis there. just a story of how the mind can twist when presented with those circumstances. there are a lot of empty places in the story that we will either never fully know, or where we caught glimpses of possibilities that could have existed in another time but not in the one they were given. i was also pleasantly surprised that this was a ghost story.

the only thing that i can say definitively is that i was hooked and felt compelled to read to the end. and isn't that the one true job of a mystery novel?

individually i loved these 2 characters but the narrative seemed to kind of take their love and relationship for granted so the end result was a mid romance despite the great 2 characters. like their story together just was not invested in very much by the narrative 

pretty fun

this was good but i think i would have liked it more if we were more drawn into angelique's character like if we had some backstory pov or something to get involved in her... and also reading this while suffering from tristandelilah hangover didn't really give them a fighting chance tbh

knocked this down half a star because of the patriotism of the love interest but i do understand that he's supposed to be like the stoic detective caricature so i will simply forget those pages exist. otherwise this was so good that i cant talk about it