🕯A Restless Truth🕯

By Freya Marske @freyamarske

I read A Marvellous Light earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was delighted to get my hands on an arc of the second book in The Last Binding trilogy.

Description:

Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She’d hoped for plenty of it when she agreed to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy. She even volunteered to serve as an old lady's companion on an ocean liner. But Maud didn't expect the old lady to turn up dead on the very first day of the voyage.

Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham. Violet is everything Maud has been trained to distrust, yet can’t help but desire: a magician, an actress and a magnet for scandal.

Surrounded by open sea and a ship full of suspects, Maud and Violet must learn to drop the masks they’ve learned to wear. Only then might they work together to locate a magical object worth killing for – and unmask a murderer. All without becoming dead in the water themselves.

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I liked the bits of Robin’s sister, Maud, that we got to see in the first book, so I was pleased that she is the main character of the second book. There’s no mid-trilogy syndrome here, this books ups the ante from the first book, adds in a tense, trapped aboard an ocean liner setting, and gives us lots of fun new characters.

One of my favourite things about this book was Lord Hawthorn, a character briefly shown in the first book, playing a much larger part in proceedings, and giving us a glimpse into his backstory. Fingers crossed for more!

Like the first book, there is a well done LGBT romance, but the steam level is definitely raised a bit in this book. Maud is on a journey of self discovery and it is played out very nicely.

The magic elements of this story continue to be fascinating and the plot rips along at pace. Things are well set up for the final book and I can’t wait!

Thanks to @netgalley @torbooks and @panmacmillan for the review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely DEVOURED this book. I loved the first one and knew I had to read the sequel asap. I was initially sad to learn that this wouldn't focus on Robin and Edwin but very quickly grew to love the brand new (and only slightly new) cast of characters. Freya Marske writes such fun characters that you don't only want to get to know, but hang out with, be friends with, and who you know you'll miss as soon as you close the book. The worldbuilding, in particular how it expands on the previously established world, is phenomenal. I love the way the magic is secret but the little tidbits of history and general magical culture that is sprinkled throughout make it feel very real. What I loved the absolute most about this book was the emphasis on female relationships. Yes, in the main sapphic couple, but also in other ways. The mentorship/comradeship between Maud and Beth, and female friendships scattered throughout. I can't get the quote following quote out of my head: "an ache had lodged itself in her heart. A shrapnel piece of all the histories of women who'd been important to one another stretching back through time." Perfection!! I would like book three now please!!!

This adult fantasy book is a mix of so many genres; mystery, fantasy, magicians, historical romp, theatre, The Grand Tour/Cruise, Ghosts, growing up and acting out, and not least a very sexy read. Freya Marske has obviously had fun bringing these all together with skill and panache. This is the second in the series. I’ve not read the first but had no difficulty understanding the continuing story. I’m looking out for the first book, and definitely can’t wait for the next. Thank you to PamMacmillan and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine freely given.

I loved book two of the trilogy, and I confess I went in a little anxious. Not that I doubted that Marske would deliver, but I did worry that I'd miss Robin and Edwin too much. And while I did miss them (never fear - they are mentioned, and they do get a lovely cameo), it didn't take long for me to be entirely engaged by Maud Blyth and her sheer determination, lack of guile and strength of will.

We meet Maud aboard a ship that has just departed New York for England as she walks into the room of her travelling companion to find that she is dead. Although not a magician, Maud has good reason to suspect that this was not a natural death, and so she determines to figure out who killed her companion and why, whilst also avoiding the same fate. She enlists allies in the form of Violet Debenham, a young woman returning to England having fled her family several years before to live a freer life as an actress in the US. Violet, a magician, just happens to be the blond who has been cropping up in Robin's visions. And she's very, very attractive. We met Lord Hawthorn in book one, and, he's the most reluctant recruit, but gradually he's won over by Maud's honest charm and bloody-mindedness. He's still an arse, but he never pretended he wasn't, and it's lovely to see a warmer, more generous side to him, even if it is mostly wrapped up in insult and copious eye rolls. And lastly, Alan Ross, roving journalist, not a magician, but a highly suitable set of eyes and ears around the ship (fingers crossed we get more of him in book 3). And so the unlikely band try to identify suspects and work out motives, as the stakes get higher and the threat of danger becomes more real.

So, as much as I loved Robin and Edwin's dynamic in book 1, I very much enjoyed Maud and her merry band racing around the ship trying to stay one step ahead of whoever was out to kill. I think Marske did a better job with pace in this book, and the tension (both sexual and dramatic) made it hard for me to put the book down. Maud is a wonderful character, and comes into her own from the very beginning. We know something of her backstory, through Robin, but we get to see how her experience of their parents has impacted her. As awful as her experience was, I love that she's developed this tough resoluteness in the face of insult and malice, knowing that words cannot change who she is, make her smaller or destroy her. She's wonderfully naïve in many ways, but is quite aware of that, and refuses to be ashamed, instead striving to learn as much as she can when she comes up against something she doesn't understand. Hard relate to her learning a lot about sex through books (I very much related to Edwin and his commitment to the belief that there is a book for everything, and it was delightful to see a hint of that in Maud, too).

Her dynamic with Violet was well done, because it was both hot but also full of care. Violet is older and clearly more experienced, and Maud younger and keen for experience, and there was potential for exploitation. But that doesn't happen, because as much as Violet hides her true self behind layers of facade, she's very careful when it comes to Maud, aware of boundaries and what it might mean to cross them. When they do get together, we're at a place where they know enough of each other for it to mean something real, and we know enough of them as characters to know that even if it goes nowhere (as if!), it was a positive experience between two equals in mutual respect and attraction, if not experience. It's very hot.

While it makes most sense to read this after the first book, I reckon you could probably get away with reading this as a standalone, which not all second-part-of-a-trilogy books manage to do. I have no idea who'll lead book 3 (I imagine there are clues, but I need stuff spelled out), but I hope we get more of the foursome, hopefully with Edwin and Robin in tow too. Bring it on!

After A Marvellous Light introduced us to a MxM romance, A Restless Truth focuses on a very sweet FxF romance. Similarly to Robin and Edwin, Maud and Violet both bring a lot of emotional baggage on this sea journey that they have to work through before they can enjoy their happy ever after.

The characters are rounded, human and well-developed - Marske's talent as a writer shines through on every page as she creates characters that might easily step off the page and talk to you.

What I enjoyed most, I think, was seeing more of Lord Hawthorne, who in the first book was still portrayed as a bit of a one-dimensional villain figure, but who gets to play a larger role in this book and is revealed as a much more complex character who, I suspect, will take center stage in book three, and I'm HERE for it. I can't wait for his derisive notions about romance to be turned on their head.

What worked least for me (but may well work for you) were the sex scenes. They (deservedly, in my opinion) received a lot of praise in A Marvellous Light and it feels like Marske decided to add more of a popular thing in this book, and it got to the point where it was really too much for me - and I do enjoy the occasional steamy scene and have read my fair share of smut. In the end I started skimming them, because I simply could not face reading another one.

Pacingwise it felt a little odd. There is non-stop action with nary a dull moment, but it does not always move the story along. The characters are always racing somewhere or duelling with someone, either verbally or physically, are always chasing down clues, but most of these are dead-ends and leave them exactly where they were before; and for the first two-thirds of the book, in spite of non-stop action, nothing much really happened. The last third of the book by contrast solves all the conflicts and finally brings the confrontations that actually move the story along, making this part of the book feel very feverish and breathless.

Part of the problem here is perhaps that it is a second book in a trilogy. The first was all mysterious build-up and the third will be all exciting resolution, but the second is left with the ungrateful task of bringing the threads together, of (so to speak) unbusheling the reader and reveal some of the information of what has been going on all this time, while still be interesting and exciting in its own right.

All in all, I did not love it quite as much as the first book, but since I absolutely loved the first book, that was perhaps too much to expect. If you're looking for a sweet FxF romance with plenty of steamy scenes, with rich world-building, intriguing characters and ships (literally as well as metaphorically!), then I'd absolutely recommend picking this one up.

I want to thank NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here expressed are my own.

Having loved the first book in this trilogy I went eagerly into the followup and reader, I was not disappointed.
This time we have Robin's sister Maud and a theatre actress Violet aboard a ship travelling back to England, and we have more magical japes, more murders that our protagonists have to solve and more romance which all absolutely hit the right marks time and again.
We also get to see more of Hawthorne, and I'm now a little fond of him (didn't see that coming).

Freya is a writer who can weave her own magical spell, combining all the elements of her book to perfection with a deftness of touch that's as full of magic as her wonderful characters. I cannot wait to see what she does next.

The only thing I didn't like was the fact I now have to wait for book 3 when I have absolutely no patience to see how everything wraps up for our beloved foursome!

I'd read and quite enjoyed the previous book in this series (A Marvellous Light), so I was quite happy to wangle a copy of this one from Netgalley. Unfortunately, while the author seems to have solved some of the pacing issues which plagued book 1, they've been replaced by a heavy amount of 'it's been X time, therefore more sex scenes needed'.

The basic premise of A Restless Truth is that it kind of follows on from the previous book (with someone searching for one of the missing plot mcguffins that came up in book 1) but that's a minor element in what's a combination of murder mystery and coming out story set on an ocean liner. Our protagonist this time around is Maud - to be honest, although I just finished this book yesterday, I had to look up her name and that's not a good sign! - who's the sister of one of book 1's protagonists. Maud doesn't have magic but has agreed to travel as companion to a woman who's now been killed - Maud discovers that she has psychic powers and, alongside her growing interest in and literal entanglement with our other protagonist, is able to use these powers to help advance the plot.

All in all, it's a pleasant enough story though I found myself scrolling past the interminable sex scenes that the author just kept throwing in. They didn't really advance matters as far as I could see and I was left feeling kind of unsatisfied by the whole book to be honest. Meanwhile, it's pretty clear to me who book 3 is going to focus on, given the heavy hints being dropped anvil-like about two other characters.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via Netgalley. This is my honest review of the book in question.

Delightful and such a fun adventure. I love this series and would highly recommend this one too. Fun adventure story that had my heart. Can’t wait to see what is next.

I’m really disappointed to say I didn’t love this one. I absolutely adored A Marvellous Light and, given the description of ‘Lesbian knives out on a boat,’ I was excepting this to be a five star for me. I saw another reviewer describe it as ‘subdued’ and I think that really hits the nail on the head.

This book was missing all of the cozy, fanfiction-y, charm of the first book. Unfortunately, I just didn’t like or care for the plot. Given the isolated setting, the stakes should have felt really high but nothing felt urgent or desperate. The magic also felt a little lacking here and because I was struggling so much with the setting, plot, and magic, I struggled to care about the characters. I did like the characters, Violet especially, and I would be intrigued to see where their stories go next, but I don’t know if that’s enough to make me pick up the next book.

I do think the romance was well done and I loved seeing Maud learning what she liked as she came out of her shell.

Overall, this book just felt vastly different to A Marvellous Light in writing style, vibe, and action. While I am quite disappointed, I may continue the series in the hopes that the charm from book one returns.

More LGBTQ+ magicians, murder and mystery? Yes please!

The book is a sequel to the fabulous A Marvellous Light, although focussing instead on the previous protagonists sister, Maud. I was worried that this shift in perspective wouldn’t be as good but how wrong I was.

The book takes place aboard the R.M.S Lyric, a sumptuous White Star ocean liner, and we find our heroine on a mission to help her brother and his partner on their mission to assemble the pieces of a contract. But as anyone who has read the first book knows, things won’t go exactly to plan…

Maud was one of my favourite characters in the first book, a plucky young girl with a smart head on her shoulders and a fire in her belly, and I feel she really came into her own in this book. We see her grow as a person throughout the Atlantic crossing and by the end, she’s become a woman who knows what she wants and how she’s going to get it.

We’re also introduced to Violet Debenham, another woman who knows her own mind and a character I absolutely adored. A woman of British society running away to New York and becoming a theatre magician? Perfect! We see her peel back her layer’s throughout the book and get to see what she’s come through to become the fabulously camp magician we get to experience in this book!

There was a lot of background information given too in regards to the supporting cast, from Lord Hawthorn to the Forsythia Club. I felt it really added to the immersion of the book while also giving plenty of titbits to keep me intrigued. As well, the action scenes had me on tenterhooks and the mysteries kept me guessing all the way through the book.

Again there is some explicit scenes, these ones of a sapphic nature, but I felt they did add to the characters involved development and I thought handled the “coming out” experience well.

My only criticism of the book was that I felt it introduced some interesting new characters that, although we got a good introduction of, they were then rarely seen again. There were characters I thought “oooh they sound interesting” such as Diana Yu and other than a brief appearance near the end we never get any real time with her which I would’ve enjoyed.

Overall a really solid read for me, I’ve given it a 4 out of 5 and can’t believe I’ll have to wait so long for the grand finale!

A fantastic sequel, well written with an enchanting storyline and well developed characters that were believable, relatable and jumped out from the page. Really enjoyable

I absolutely loved Marvellous Light so was so happy when I got my hands on this!

Here we have Maud, Robin's sister, carrying on the cause of the Last Contract and finding the items.

So Maud gets on a ship called Lyric under the guise of an employee of Mrs Navenby when tragedy strikes. Maud then meets Violet Debenham and catches up with Lord Hawthorn, who we've met before, to investigate!

'We’re not in one place or another. We could be going anywhere, in the darkness. The sun could rise tomorrow and we could be in—Alexandria, or Venice, or among the islands of Japan.'

Loved Maud, she is so self depreciating, quite innocent but very eager to learn and to please and she gets the job done!

Violet so self assured, lives her life how she wants to and good on her. Her free living, not caring what anyone thought (and in those times must've been hard for a woman), was a breath of fresh air.....and it certainly impressed on Maud!

Loved how the time period was described, loved the descriptions of the clothing, the ship, the tale of how it all started and loved that different material of rings helps with magic. I especially loved Maud and Violet together. 'I’ve never had to pretend to want you, Maud Blyth.'

There is just one thing I want in the next book. Lord Hawthorn is so intriguing for me. He is so far removed and closed off so I want him to have a hea, it will be so shocking for him that I'd love to see the look on his face and hear the realisation in his brain!

I loved this sequel!!! A sequel worthy of A Marvellous Light, one of my favourite books of the year. The characters shine off the page and the plot kept me on my toes. One of the best things was getting answers to questions from the first book and new questions which will hopefully be answered in the last book! I can’t wait for the book to be published.

A must read. This book rolls all of my favourite things into one book: LGBTQ+, magic and historical fiction. I was not sure that this would live up to the first book but it absolutely exceeded all of my expectations. The character development in this book was great and I cannot wait to see where this story goes in the next installment.

A Restless Truth was the steamy, infuriating, cruise-killing delight that I didn't know I needed until I received an e-ARC from NetGalley, so thank you! I will provide an honest and thorough review in exchange.

Where to even begin? I’ll start, self-indulgently, with the characters, and say that a marvel of this book for me is Violet Debenham. Dear god. I am afraid of the reflection of myself I see in this character, who is so carefully and lovingly crafted by Marske. She is repressed, and angry, and so deeply afraid of intimacy, and I was equally enthralled and aghast to see a female character exhibit exactly the same personality traits as I do. As an autistic woman, I felt deeply connected to the self-sabotage and self-isolatory mechanisms Violet employs throughout the novel as a form of self-soothing for her trauma, and I shed real tears of solidarity over her use of sex as an emotional outlet.

In the style of A Marvellous Light, the swapping of Maud and Violet's perspectives allowed us to experience fully each woman's emotions without forcing contrived dialogue, especially from Violet, who is so flawed and guarded as a character. We learn her backstory through glimpses of the inner monologue that plagues her day-to-day and see a different, darker side to her character that perhaps Maud, idealising her, doesn't detect earlier in the book. This prevents her character from becoming flat and allows nuance within the narrative. We can relate to these characters so much more easily when we can hear what they think instead of just what they say.

Maud herself gives us as readers pluckiness, spontaneity, and that “oh, fuck it” energy I adore. I was afraid her sparky character would be lost to innocent demureness in the face of a more experienced sapphic counterpart, Violet, and was proven very wrong. I loved the gentle way that she turned the crystal ball of sexuality in her hands, letting herself experiment, and unravel, and eventually discover herself through current and historical experiences. She’s a fearless and smart young woman who was a delight to read in the perspective of.

I grew especially and unexpectedly fond of Flora Sutton and Elizabeth Navenby, and the tender relationships navigated throughout the Forsythia Club's small portion of the novel. Their relationship touched my soul, and I felt their yearning and longing through my screen as I read. Not only them, but the intimate intertwining of young women forced into the background of magical society and concealing a power in The Contract that they knew would never be taken seriously if they were to divulge it. I felt connected to these girls who found solidarity in marginalisation but never let it prevent them from practicing and learning together.

I didn’t expect to see a certain character [eyes emoji] return in this instalment either, but I was surprised at how deeply he warmed to our main cast when he was so thorny and unattainable in A Marvellous Light. He melted like butter in the palms of Maud’s hands, but she simply seems to have that effect on people. I enjoyed the banter between him and the cast, especially when we consider the class disparity between them, and it was nice to see that in the end he acknowledged the power he holds over the working-class. I was, in general, very happy to see that Marske touches briefly on class tensions throughout this book. With most of our main characters hailing from the high middle and upper classes, it was sobering to see how differently the second and third-class passengers aboard the liner, and as a working-class person, I felt it was a very honest portrayal.

The pacing was quite slow for me at the beginning, plot-wise, but the gradual build-up is to be expected for the theme, and I enjoyed learning more about the characters and their relationships as the plot itself warmed up. Reading the book itself gives off this energy that I can’t describe, but I was really engrossed, and I had visual imagery of the liner and the surroundings each time I picked it up. This was the case with A Marvellous Light too – Marske has this excellent ability to world-build in such a way that even I, who has trouble visualising physical elements of books, found myself lost in the atmosphere of the Lyric, and I swam through its halls and drank coffee at its parlour just as the characters did. She has a grasp on my senses and knows how to appeal to my imagination without boring me to death with sense descriptors.

And unsurprisingly, I also loved the sex in this book. Freya promised me steamy, and I was not disappointed. I feel like sapphic smut is too often bubble-wrapped and sanctified – it was so nice to actually feel the characters' lust for each other in a more carnal sense, while still remaining pleasant and flush-inducing to read! I find Marske has a superb talent for balancing on the line between extravagance and filth in these scenes, and I mean that as an utmost compliment.

I will say that though this didn't hit me on quite the same level as A Marvellous Light, hence the four stars instead of my previous five. The setting and subject (a cruise, and a murder-mystery style theme) don't particularly suit my personal interests as much as a reader, so this is where I put the fault. A Marvellous Light gave me dark academia, though, so it’s no big surprise that it failed to hook me as effectively as its predecessor. I found myself putting A Restless Truth down and then returning to it more often than usual, whereas I read A Marvellous Light in one or two greedy sittings. Marske's writing though remains delightful, and while I read A Marvellous Light 6 months ago, I was able to follow along smoothly with the plot and returning cast members. Nevertheless, though, A Restless Truth hooked me, and I will be dreaming of Maud Cutler – sorry, Maud Blyth – and Violet Debenham for many nights to come.

Thanks to Netgalley, PanMacmillian and Freya Marske for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my review.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as A Marvelous Light, but I can't put my finger on why exactly that is. I still enjoyed it, but I think A Marvelous Light is better.

4 stars.

I absolutely loved A Marvellous Light, so I had high expectations for the second book in The Last Binding trilogy, and I'm glad to say that it definitely did not disappoint! I adored the protagonist of this book, Maud, and whilst it took me a while to warm to Violet, I ended up really liking her by the end. Their relationship and the evolving dynamics between them was so interesting and I found myself rooting for them to succeed, even when it felt like conflict was brushed aside quite quickly at times. The prose is gorgeous - a pure joy to read! - and I'm definitely intrigued by the magic system and the potential it has to grow and develop in this world.

Whilst I loved the characters - both the central couple, as well as the well-developed side characters - the mystery wasn't as gripping as I would've liked. There were definitely parts of the narrative I was only interested in because of the characters and the romance.

Nevertheless, a highly enjoyable read with an incredible magic system and characters you'll fall in love with - I don't know how I'm going to wait for the next book!

4.75 stars

Magic! Murder on the high seas! Sapphics!!

A Restless Truth is the follow up novel to A Marvellous Light, one of my favourite books from last year and I'm pleased to say this one completely knocked it out the water. Full of the same humour, sparkling magic and electric chemistry between characters as book 1, this book is a joy to read from start to finish.

We follow Maud Blyth (Robin's sister) on a transatlantic boat crossing as she tries to investigate the murder of Elizabeth Navenby, an elderly lady she was travelling with and keeper of another piece of the last binding items. She teams up with the rakish socialite Violet Debenham, who has many secrets and walls of her own, Lord Hawthorne, a grumpy and powerful ex-magician and Alan Ross, a revolutionary and badmouthed reporter who happens to moonlight as a jewel thief. Together they must attempt to solve Mrs Navenby's murder and locate the missing piece of the binding whilst trapped on a boat with potential murderers, cut-throat family members, scandals and a whole menagerie of wild animals (which sounds random but adds a lot to the overall chaos). I've seen this book described as lesbian knives out on a boat and honestly that is very accurate.

I absolutely adored Maud as a character. she is probably my favourite female protagonist so far this year!!! The character arc she goes through throughout the book is honestly beautiful and you are just so proud of her by the end! She is stubborn and headstrong but also very kind and loving and determined to be good, rather than just seem good as her parents were. She starts the book a little naïve and too trusting but grows into her self and her confidence throughout the book and over the course of her own investigation.

I also really enjoyed Violet as a character. She is quite closed off and has a lot of walls up inside but to the outside she presents a very bubbly, devil-may-care attitude. I really enjoyed seeing the layers peel back on her throughout the book, she is a very fascinating character. I also loved the shameless sapphic rake thing she had going on. It was also interesting seeing how her character tied more into the plot at large as the book went on, she is heir to a large fortune from a distant relative and is now being welcomed back into the family she previously ran away from, with shady motivations of their own.

Violet and Maud had such great interactions. I loved the way Violet took Maud seriously when previously she had often been dismissed as a silly woman and how Maud saw beneath Violets sparkly exterior to the bite underneath! Also Violet helping Maud discover her sexuality was so good and touching and I'm just saying Violet Debenham can debauch me anytime she wants.

This book is less of a romance than book 1, there is still lots of chemistry, banter and sex (!!!) but I would say it feels a lot more like the beginning of a relationship rather than telling the whole story. I actually really enjoyed this, it felt different from a lot of what you see in romance and I'm pleased the author didn't rush to make it into a super serious relationship, just allowed the characters to explore and discover each other. I couldn't stop thinking of the song At The Beginning from Anastasia towards the end of the book - I feel like it fits their story perfectly! I thought the author captured the beautiful hope and fragile joy at the start of a new relationship really well. Also the sex scenes in this book were excellent, I loved the incorporation of sex toys as well - especially in a historical context I though this was so interesting!

The side characters of Hawthorne (who we have met before in book 1) and Ross (new character) were one of the absolute highlights of this book for me!!!! I cannot wait for book 3 which I'm pretty sure will be their book and the teasing bits we got of the relationship as well as their current dynamic I can honestly see them being my favourite of the 3!!!! Hawthorne is a bit of an asshole but you seem him soften throughout this book and you can tell he really cares about Maud, Ross and Violet deep down. His type of character is such Katy bait and I already love him so much so I don't know how I'm going to cope in book 3. Also I loved Alan Ross who is a new character we meet and is so cheeky and charming and I can't wait to find out more about him.

I love Freya Marske writing style, it feels fun and light-hearted whilst also being emotional and discussing some heavier topics, for example in this book the characters insecurities and previous abusive relationships. I thought this book worked very well as a middle book in a series as it furthered the plot of the overall arc but still stood on its own as an individual novel (which could honestly probably be read as a standalone!) that had a satisfying mystery and plenty of shenanigans.

Overall I love this series and would highly recommend it!! If you love historical romance, a hint of magic and murder mysteries this is definitely the series for you. I'm always on the look out for more sapphic historical romance books and I'm pleased to have this one to add to my favourites - Violet and Maud will stay in my heart for a long time <333

Wonderful historic novel with a lovely storyline! The characters are intriguing, it can feel slow at times but persevere!

The sheer amount of pure chaos energy this book has! Honestly, the powers of “wing it” were in charge of the plot, which is befitting the kind of protagonists Maud and Violet are. When I reached the scene where a whole menagerie of zoo animals stampedes across the Transatlantic boat where the events take place, I was only nodding sagely, like ah yeah, this is the kind of story where it does not seem out of place. It is up to you if you enjoy these levels of chaos, but it’s definitely a feature in this book.

Things I liked and cheered on:
- the way the book unabashedly embraces sex, and sex-adjacent entertainment. There is simply so much joy and fun and shame-free attitude in the way book speaks about sexual desire, pornographic literature as entertainment, and sex as an act. That in its own right is a pleasure to see in fantasy, but that with two female leads? Hell yes.
- watchinf Hawthorne be elevated-slash-relegated against his will from the role of a hot and depressed bitter ex as we saw him in Marvellous Light to the role of a long-suffering elder brother and an all-purpose get out of jail free card 😆 Can’t wait for him to get his other book.
- and we get to learn more about the society of witches! Cooler older generation ftw.

Thank you #Netgalley for an advanced copy of #arestlesstruth