[books 2016] Spark and Carousel
36. Spark and Carousel by Joanne Hall
Disclaimer: Jo is one of the BristolCon mob so I spend a fair amount of time in the pub with her.
I keep going to Jo's book launches but as my to-read pile has its own room, I hadn't got round to actually reading any of her books yet. Also, she writes more traditional fantasy than tends to be my thing. I mean, this one's set in a city, but it's a city at a late-medieval level of development.
I was pleasantly surprised. While it's not exactly up my street, the writing is good enough and the plotting tight enough to keep me interested. While there is magic and clearly a hierarchy and structure of magic use, this is incidental to the story rather than something the whole story is based around. The characters are interesting. The world is pretty grim but not without joy and hope. The black magic was creepy as hell.
The rest of her books have just been bumped up the queue, and there's a new one out next month.
Disclaimer: Jo is one of the BristolCon mob so I spend a fair amount of time in the pub with her.
I keep going to Jo's book launches but as my to-read pile has its own room, I hadn't got round to actually reading any of her books yet. Also, she writes more traditional fantasy than tends to be my thing. I mean, this one's set in a city, but it's a city at a late-medieval level of development.
I was pleasantly surprised. While it's not exactly up my street, the writing is good enough and the plotting tight enough to keep me interested. While there is magic and clearly a hierarchy and structure of magic use, this is incidental to the story rather than something the whole story is based around. The characters are interesting. The world is pretty grim but not without joy and hope. The black magic was creepy as hell.
The rest of her books have just been bumped up the queue, and there's a new one out next month.