My birthday is in January. And when my distance book club suggested that I pick the theme for the month, I chose fantasy. We haven’t done that yet, as a group, and it’s definitely my comfort genre. This was the suggestion that won. Though I love fantasy, I had actually never heard of this book. So, even within one of my main genres, book club steps up yet again to spread my gaze! Plus - that cover design is beautiful.

This book is the first in what looks to be a longer series. Set in a world that closely parallels WWI England (or at least that was my interpretation), but with some added magic. For real magic. Our main character, Miles, is a doctor treating returning soldiers (from a war between our setting, Aeland, and neighboring Laneer) in a psych hospital. He is able to see there’s something deeper wrong with them, due to his magical abilities, but he can’t let on. He has to keep the fact that he has magic secret or he’ll be sent to an asylum for witches…because magic is forbidden except for in a few core (read: wealthy and powerful) families. Those families are a life Miles escaped from years ago, but with a greater tragedy on the horizon, he must make a choice between anonymity and solving the mystery and protecting his country.

This book was a really entertaining mix of alternate universe, magic and mystery. Right from the beginning we are thrown into the thick of things, with an accusation of murder and cover-up, the secrets Miles is clearly keeping, the real reason returning veterans are killing themselves and their families, and what the real story is behind the witches asylums and the powerful families in Aeland. It’s a lot to try and figure out at once, but it is doable to the extent that the author provides the answers. But I felt like, more than once, inferences/connections were made or intuitive leaps occurred that we, the readers, just didn’t have enough background or explanation for. As the story progressed, some of the information is revealed, but, to be honest, sometimes it isn’t. There were a number of situations or descriptions that I felt really lacked the depth of development the story needed and deserved. I feel like I never got a full explanation for aether and how it was used…and though the ending explained kind of how they got it, there was still a lot about it that seemed unclarified. I felt similarly about the magic system and the way it was used – there was singing and linking and secondaries’ parlor tricks and I just never felt like I held a clear picture of it all in my head. I think it all relied too much on parallels with real history and assumptions of what the reader might know from reading other magic systems/theories and never elucidated enough in its own right…which made the end more confusing than I wanted it to be. Plus, by that point, the single problem we had been dealing grew into two big problems, both revealed in totality right at the end, and with all the jumpiness and sparsity in plot development and world-building it was just too much happening with too little understanding of how and why. Last, from a character front, I could never get a sense of the relationship between Miles and his sister Grace. She took advantage so many times and he forgave so much and then she felt so guilty and then the whole cycle started over and I couldn’t really tell what either of the actual personalities were because they go so lost in their complicated interactions with each other. And, since Grace is really only in the story through her interactions with Miles, that means I never truly got a sense of her. And since she was a main character…that situation really needed work.

There were still a number of things I enjoyed about the book. Small things like bicycle chase scenes and a character that cannot tell lies (which I am a fan of, as a trope, because it allows for such creative manipulation of language when done right) were fun to read. And bigger things, like the Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson vibe I got from our main characters, were great too. The clue following, mystery solving, pieces of the story added a lighter feel that really contributed to the fast, easy ambiance of the read. I definitely enjoyed the romance between our protagonists, Miles and Tristan. All the more so because I feel like Holmes and Watson have some serious chemistry that the fandom, of course, never gets to see fulfilled, so having that here was satisfying. Their connection was full of tension from the start. I liked the steam between them and all the little moments leading up to the culmination. But I felt like where it ended, the very end, was too soon/too perfect/too easy and that bothered me. Which was a frustrating place to leave it. Last, the attention paid to an important issue, that of mental health needs in returning soldiers, that has been and still is, completely overlooked as a critical health need, was fantastic. The way it’s dismissed and disbelieved as a “real” problem is terrible and, though the symbolism and metaphors for it here were anything but subtle, it’s an important topic, so I appreciated its centrality to the story. It makes me feel like the song Zombie, by The Cranberries, should be the official song of this book. And, in case you want to know a random fact about me, I love that song (the original and the recent cover by Bad Wolves).

Overall, I did enjoy the time I spent reading this. There was a lot going on and the pacing was handled fantastically, so the story never dragged. The issues of plot development and character consistency that bothered me are, probably, enough to not make me want to read the next books that come out. But I also cannot say that I regret the time spent reading this one. I just wasn’t caught up in it enough to care what happens next.