Published By: Orbit
Pages: 432
Released On: 21/11/2024
Kembral Thorne is spending a precious few hours away from her newborn, and she’s determined to enjoy herself at the year-turning ball. But when the guests start dropping dead, Kem has no choice but to get to work. She’s a member of the Guild of Hounds, after all, and she can’t help picking up the scent of trouble. Especially when her professional and personal nemesis, notorious cat burglar Rika Nonesuch, is also on the prowl.
At the heart of the mayhem is a mysterious clock that sends the ballroom down into strange and otherworldly new layers of reality every time it chimes. As the party plunges through increasingly dangerous versions of their city, Kem will have to rely on her wits – and Rika – to unravel the mystery before catastrophe is unleashed on their world.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I had this book on my list of “books I want to buy” that I have on my phone, and so was thrilled when I received an early digital copy.
This is the first of Melissa’s books I have read, but it looks as if she’s a proficient fantasy writer, which will give me plenty to read in the future.
There is no map in the early digital copy I had, but there was a space for one to come, which I love. I’m a great lover of a map in a book. I am also a great lover of chapter titles instead of Chapter One, Chapter Two etc. So that was a good start.
It’s a mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, adventure, magical, mystical – at times it’s almost like a locked room, escape room, murder mystery type book.
It didn’t quite live up to what I was expecting, but it did have it’s plus points.
It is mainly set in the fantasy versions of our reality, which means creating environments that are recognisable, but a bit blurry in places. And that can be hard to do. Keep on foot in reality, but the rest of you in who-knows-where, but Melissa has done it so well. You can understand that there is this everyday setting, but you can also see all of these fantasy locations just as clearly. She’s created such an atmosphere, for good and bad, that gives you a little spark when you’re reading it.
There is so much depth and layers to this book, literally within the plot, but also within the themes and storytellings and emotions.
One negative I had though is that whilst I felt the plot and scene building and settings was developed really well, I can’t say the same for the characters. They all felt a bit one-dimensional, which isn’t an instant problem, but I would have liked a bit more. And the dialogue between these characters felt a bit ropey in places. It’s not like I can give any advice on it, it’s just that in some books, you feel as if you’re listening to a real conversation, but with this it definitely felt like Melissa was trying just a bit too hard to make it flow naturally, and so it stood out a bit.
I do wish there was a character list at the start of the book, but that’s only because I struggle to remember a large cast and how they relate to each other, so it would have been nice to be able to flick back for reminders if needed.
Another issue I had – and it’s the same when I watched Groundhog Day, which I believe this echoed, is that there was a bit too much repetition. I know, I know, that’s the whole point of it, I get it. But for me, there’s a fine line between it being an interesting story device and you being fully invested in trying to stop these repeats, and going on for too long that it starts to frustrate and bore, and this was verging on that. If it had less repeats, or if each repeat was slightly shorter it might have been better, but I felt the pacing was off and it dragged slightly.
Overall I would say it’s a 5 star premise, but with 3-3.5 star execution. I would still recommend it to fantasy fans as it is very interesting, and I believe it’s the first in a series so there’s scope for more development. The settings and environment are the stars of the show, beautiful and with so much depth, really visual and just explodes off the page. The characters weren’t developed enough for me and the pacing was slightly off. It did have a very strong ending I’ll give it that; it was worth it to get to the ending. But overall, a strong start to what I imagine will be a very popular series – and one I could see translated very well to screen.
Books By Your Bedside 