I’m pretty sure if this wasn’t an audiobook I would have DNF’d this. It took a while to get going, which is way less of a big deal when it’s an audiobook since I have them running between 1.25x and 2.5x, depending on the cadence of the narrator. Some people talk very slowly. In this case, I had a lot of design work to do so just left it on all day.

It didn’t actually start grabbing me until almost halfway, and then it ramps up well. The character work is alright, interactions are better. And this would have easily been a 4 star book if the mystery had delivered for me. I didn’t know it was going to be *that* kind of mystery and it ruined it a bit for me. I thought it was going to be a lot more interesting and grounded, and not tapping into Wells and Lovecraft, the later of which I pretty much never find interesting. If you’re into that though, I could see this being a 4-5 star read.