I picked up this novella intending to read maybe 1/3 of it before bed. I ended up inhaling it all in one go, then feeling too emotional to go to sleep for over an hour. Absolutely no regrets.

Honestly, I adored pretty much everything about this tiny book. The impeccable noir vibes. The cold, alienating allure of the setting. The complexity of it, with all the magical orders and wars between heaven and hell, painted in the lightest strokes due to the format constraints and yet so vivid. The bittersweetness of it all, and the reminder that sometimes you pay a high price and don't get everything you want/need, but what you do get is still worth it. And, of course, the characters. My, the characters.

Helen is definitely going to stick with me for a long while. She has all the trappings of the noir detective, but underneath the cynicism you'd expect from one, she has so much love in her. Love that pushes her, over and over, to sacrifice so much for the sake of her loved ones, no matter the consequences—and no matter their opinion. Is it selfish or altruistic? Both. Love like that tends to be both.

I absolutely loved the romantic storyline. Edith is just as compelling and complex as Helen, and the bond between them is so strong. Honestly, as much as I love regular romance novels focused on characters coming together, I'm a sucker for established relationships in fiction. Love stories, after all, don't end when the first set of obstacles is defeated and the couple settles on the decision to tackle the rest of their lives together. That's only ever, I believe, where the real story starts. I love seeing couples (or for that matter policules, but that's irrelevant to this particular book, of course) actually working together as an established unit. The stakes always feel so much higher when it's a long-standing love/relationship being tested; if something goes wrong, the characters wouldn't just lose a chance at a happy ever after, they'll lose everything they've already built. And so when they get to keep it, the triumph is so much sweeter. 

This book does precisely this kind of thing so well. The bond and the feelings between Helen and Esther shine in every scene. They're so close, and yet they both keep such big secrets from each other, for really valid reasons—and when those secrets come to light, they accept it and move on together with this new information. I don't know, there's just something so special about it, and how perfectly it's interwoven with the overall mystery plot, all the demonic/angelic fantasy trappings, and the subplot about Helen's past and her relationship with her brother. So much good stuff packed into such a small book. 

Also: that one morning scene with Esther and the sparrows? And the one where Helen was reading The Great Gatsby? And absolutely every time Marlowe showed up on the page? Perfection. All of it. The kind of scenes that are going to live rent-free at the back of my mind for months or years to come.

After hearing that the third book in this series is finally out, I just had to go back and re-read the first one. Happy to say it's position on my list of all-time favorites remains unchanged. It's the book that made me fall in love with the slice-of-life fantasy subgenre, and it's everything I look for when I crave a story of this type: thoughtful, character-driven, and cozy in the best way. The type of cozy that doesn't shy away from the painful and difficult things that can happen to us in life, yet focuses on how we can deal with these things and make life for ourselves and each other better on the other side.

Just like the title suggests, this book is all about journeys and healing. On the surface, it's about two healers taking a two-year trip with a caravan, making stops in various settlements along the way to offer their services to those who need them. Really though, it's about two very different people learning about themselves, and the world, and letting go of the aspects of their past that weigh them down. Agna is a somewhat spoiled rich girl, a recent graduate of of a low-magical academy, who signs up for this job to follow in the footsteps of an old friend she idolizes, and also to prove herself to her parents. Keifon is a military medic with a lot of darkness and trauma in his past, coming from a completely different culture with different beliefs. Naturally, they start by clashing. But through working together, sharing the same wagon and tent, dealing with various hardships on the road, and, eventually, talking a lot, they build a beautiful friendship and lift each other up.

That friendship, along with the fact that it firmly stays in the friendship territory, is among my favorite parts of the book, alongside all the tremendous character growth and the culturally rich queernorm setting the story takes place in. There are some hints at a future possible romantic entanglement, but they're always played down in favor of just, you know, being friends and found family for each other. Much as I love enemies-to-lovers storylines with opposites attracting, the relationship between Agna and Keifon is just so refreshing and so right for them. Just thinking about their interactions can make my day, I swear.

I really love how the author handles pacing. On one hand, the story feels really slow-paced, because of how thoughtful and in-depth each scene is. On the other hand, it covers two whole years in under 300 pages, focusing on all the right moments in a way that never feels clunky or rushed. Truly masterfully done. Unfortunately, while the storytelling here shines in terms of structure, the book could really use an extra line editing pass, which is the sole reason I'm not giving it full five-stars. I tend to be lenient with self-published books when it comes to the occasional typo or such, but here, there are whole passages punctuated so weirdly that it sometimes pushed me out of the story. However, I don't remember paying all that much attention to this when I first read the book—likely because I had a way better attention span then, and good brush off the distraction of a rogue out-of-place ellipsis quite easily without losing focus. So this shouldn't be a big problem for anyone who isn't so mind-foggy as I am these days!

If I had to describe my impression of this book in one word, the word would be "puzzled." So many aspects of it just made me go... "Why? Why write it like that?" To be clear, I'm not referring to the content/concepts behind the story. What gets this reaction out of me is how they were executed. When it comes to the actual concepts, I actually really love them! There's plenty about this story to enjoy. The setting is interesting. The characters and their arcs have potential, and it's sweet how they're doing their best to be kind and considerate at all times. The romance evolves in interesting ways, both in terms of romantic and sexual dynamic. And I generally adore slice of life stories and slow burn. So this was supposed to be a book just made for me, right?

Wrong, apparently.

While I do enjoy character-driven slice of life books, I find that I want them to be, well, character-driven. I need the characters arcs and internal conflicts to come at the forefront of the story. Just like in a more high-stakes adventure novel I would expect every scene, even the downtime ones, to somehow move the adventure forward, in a character-focused slice of life I expect every scene to be about the character's journey. Here, I didn't get it at all. In fact, the character's journeys are totally buried under pages and pages of fluff, to the point that when they do recall what the supposed tentpoles of their arcs are and decide to think or talk about it, it hardly feels natural.

Like... Greid is supposed to be lonely, getting over his recent break-up, and coming to terms with his submissive nature. Beryll is supposed to be building a life of her own after getting out of a cult. Both those arcs have great potential and can be interwoven in interesting ways. Instead, the characters literally just Netflix and chill. There are multiple instances of the kind of inane conversation all of us have with our roommates. "What are your plans for the day? What should we have for dinner? Do you want to watch wrestling again?" It's way too mundane, too samey, and doesn't really tell me anything about the characters, the way it is executed. There are entire chapters devoted to describing food, made-up soap operas, infomercials, and goddamn blanket onesies. Everything else just drowns in this stuff. There are occasional relationship developments, poignant conversations, and funny lines of dialogue, but it's like trying to make out snippets of songs in a cloud of white noise.

Also, the characters feel so much younger than they should be. I did a double take when I read that Greid was supposed to be in his fourties. I was convinced that he was younger than Beryll. The way he acted, his thought process—all of it screamed "twenty-something" to me. Like, in one of his earliest appearances, he states that his ex was wrong to call him immature for smoking shade (a weed equivalent), because he was old enough to legally buy it, so that was the most mature thing he could do actually. Tell me this doesn't sound like someone who has *just* got old enough to buy legal drugs/drink/whatever, I dare you. 

With Beryll, I guess her immaturity is a little more understandable because she had spent her entire life in a cult. However, I have problems with her characterization as well. It's not just that she doesn't act thirty-five, it's that her behavior is inconsistent with her stated intentions. In the early chapters, when she's still in the cult, she's supposed to be "playing the long con," convincing the cultists that she shares their beliefs and values. What she actually does in those first few chapters is pointedly dress differently than literally everyone else and, in a conversation with her devout cultist friend, diss the object of their devotion. How that doesn't raise any suspicion is a wonder. It's the kind of behavior I would expect from a "not like the other girls" teenager in a YA novel, and even then I would raise an eyebrow if there were no repercussions. Also, later on the degree of Beryll's unfamiliarity with the real world keeps varying. It's mostly brought up when it comes to stuff like "I've never tried coffee or burgers," then gets forgotten when she does things I would expect someone who's been very sheltered and exposed mainly to a specific flawed world view to have trouble with. Such as various social interactions.

I have a bunch of other books by Lily Mayne on my TBR. From the blurbs, all of them look super intriguing, but I guess I should take a deep dive into reviews before I decide if it's worth reading them.

This book was actively recommended to me as something that would scratch the itch left by Charlie Adhara's fantastic but sadly finite Big Bad Wolf series. I fully admit it's possible that if I picked it up for some other reason, I would be a bit less strict. Beyond the surface similarities, like being investigative urban fantasy with werewolves and m/m romance, these books really have little in common. The Soulbound 'verse, for once, is a lot more expansive and varied—and I feel like it's both this novel's strength and downfall.

On one hand, I'm extremely impressed by the rich lore the author crafted and by how all those elements—magic users, shifters, demons, gods, vampires, and more—all mattered to the plot. On the other hand, the plot often got seriously bogged down in all the worldbuilding, especially given the way the lore was introduced. There were SO MANY infodumps, OMG. It's unreal. Especially at the beginning—it felt like the story just couldn't start properly, because every page or two everything paused and there were a few paragraphs of densely worded explanations that I could barely process. Because I expected to read an exciting urban fantasy novel, not a guidebook on a made-up world. It was also so awkward and unnatural given the third person limited POV—as if the main character felt the need to suddenly just stop everything and think about a number of things that are supposed to be perfectly familiar to him. It's like if you, hypothetical future reader of this review, paused right this moment to conduct an elaborate inner monologue on what Storygraph and book reviews even are. I bet you don't feel the need to do that, do you?

This heavy-handed delivery made it hard to follow the plot in more than one way. Like, I'm still not sure if it's a plot hole that during their second meeting Marek tells Patrick something like, "You didn't say you were a mage, we thought you were just a cop." Like, come on, Marek cast an anti-eavesdropping spell when they first met? Although he did describe casting it differently than his previous spell, so maybe Marek assumed he was a witch and not a mage? How am I supposed to know that, though? Was that information contained in one of those guidebook-style detours that I glossed over because I wanted to get on with the story parts? It certainly wasn't in the story parts.

As for the romance plot, to be honest I didn't feel any strong chemistry between the leads and I felt like their mutual investment in the relationship grew too quickly. What frustrated me that given these guys' respective backstories and personalities, there was a lot of potential for me to absolutely fall for their romance, but something was constantly off. Probably the balance of the action/mystery storyline and the relationship storyline, for the most part. And again, there was plenty of potential for syncing up those plots to help them move together more smoothly! But it was completely missed in favor of infodumps and some other needless wordy moments.

I'm probably still going to continue with the series, because the setting intrigues me, and there are a lot of characters here who seem interesting. Though unfortunately few of them are anywhere near what I'd call "fully realized," possibly because there are just too many people and other individuals on these pages to give anyone proper screen time and significant chance to establish themselves. But... yeah, this wasn't the reading experience I hoped for, especially when I kept comparing this book with Charlie Adhara's far more thoughtfully crafted works.

A random observation: I vibe much better with Courtney Milan's novellas than her novels. Somehow, in her novellas the central romance arcs always end up better paced, to the point that those shorter books don't feel short at all. All the beats get hit at just the right times, the relationships unfold naturally, all that. Whereas in the longer books such as this one, I always find there's some rockiness, especially in the first half. Some aspects of the attraction between the MCs feel rushed, others drag on, and it takes a while for the story to find its footing and pace. The Duchess War was no exception in that regard.

Despite that rockiness, I really liked the story. Both characters are flawed, have lots of depth, and compliment each other really well. I loved how they very gradually opened up to each other and, consequently, to the reader about their respective past, especially in Minnie's case. As usual for Milan's books, the main couple was surrounded by a rich cast of compelling, well-developed side characters who all had their own truths they held on to. Not all of them were easy to sympathize with, but I always ended up understanding where they're coming from and why they do what they do. Of course, with the big glaring exception of Robert's father (though to be fair he's less a character and more backstory material).

As for the main characters, I have to admit Robert frustrated me a lot. Though it was a good kind of frustration, the kind you get when a character feels really alive and has a big seed of likability in them, so you just want to shake them and demand that they stop self-sabotaging. He's such a good guy and always tries to be so noble, but he does it in ways that end up causing at least as much problems as they solve. Like he's got this idea of what it means to be a good person who isn't at all like his dreadful father, and he has serious trouble applying that high ideal to real life situations that require more flexibility. Or more thinking about the actual other person in the room instead of projecting your ideals on them. He does show growth throughout the book, though, and there was that one part where his idealistic nature came really, really handy.

In contrast, Minnie is delightfully practical and thoughtful. She has her own ideals, but she's a lot more rational about them, and she's such a strong character. I liked how her practicality wasn't seen as some kind of flaw she should work on by opening up to the world, but rather it was Robert's idealism that caused problems and Minnie's rational approach that helped them both solve those problems, even in super emotionally charged moments. There's something incredible refreshing about this. Also, her backstory was revealed masterfully, in that awesome way when you get new information, look back at the previous chapters, and realize the clues were out in the open from the start, you just lacked the context to place them.

Other things I enjoyed: 
- The way Courtney Milan once again packs an incredible amount of character and plot development into her smutty scenes.
- The numerous non-romantic relationships the characters are engaged in, such as Minnie's friendship with Linda and the questions of trust within its context; Minnie's relationship with her aunts and a mixture of gratitude and bitterness at her lack of choices that permeates it; Robert and his mother slowly working through all the ways she hurt him in the past, and all the ways he was used to hurt her; Robert's circle of friends with all their mutual support and banter.
- The prose and the historical atmosphere.

Pacing issues aside, this is a great romance book. 

I'll preface by saying that I'm not at all familiar with the TikTok series the novel originated from, so I might be missing out on some of the context. Then again, this is supposed to be a regular book, not a fanfic, so I don't think it should depend on the reader's familiarity with the source!

Overall, I think the story has good bones and a bunch of great ideas, and that's precisely why the execution was so disappointing. It's like i kept getting promised cookies and given plain bread instead. The first 100 pages or so are at least internally consistent and resemble what I was promised by the cover and the blurb, although Evie isn't exactly who I envision when I think about a "sunshine" person. From the tone of the early office chapters and the way the book was promoted, I expected a bubbly, ever-kind, ever-optimistic cinnamon roll. Evie probably thinks she is that, but she's not. She's awkward, keeps acting younger than her age, has a slightly cringy sense of humor, and she feels more angry than kind or optimistic, just hiding it under a veneer of niceness. The Villain keeps praising her for being surprising and thinking outside the box or something, but I see none of that. Maybe he should talk more to his other employees. A lot of them seem more fun.

Oh, and speaking of the Villain/Trystan: for all that he has quite a few POV chapters, they hardly tell us anything about him. They seem mostly to revolve about his growing feelings for Evie, even when he should have other things on his mind, like, you know, people trying to kill him and planting bombs in his uber secret HQ. In fact, pretty much all of the truly important developments and revelations about the Villain's own life are shown through Evie's POV, and then when we get to the Villain's next chapter, he's barely concerned with all the big stuff, because Evie just sneezed prettily or whatever. This kind of turns Evie into a Mary Sue type of character, not in the "oh, look how perfect she is" sense, but in the sense that the world and the narrative keep bending around her to artificially boost her importance.

The mood of the book is... swingy. It tries to be a spoopy cozy fantasy. It tries to be an office comedy. It tries to be a romance. It tries to be both insta love and slow burn. It tries to tackle serious topics, like sexual assault and being let down by parents and being shoved into the caretaker role for a younger sibling and dealing with a parent's chronic illness. It goes back and forth between flirting with those topics and presenting a cartoonish world where a bloody head hanging from the rafters is no biggie as long as the guy who did it is nice and pays you on time. The stakes feel super low for most of the book because of that cartoonish aspect, then they suddenly escalate. The office comedy aspect starts off promising, then dwindles just when the relevant side characters seem to start gaining depth.

Honestly, it's all just... very messy and feels like the author wasn't sure what kind of story they were trying to tell. Perhaps a couple of extra rounds of developmental editing would have helped figure that out and whip the book into a better shape.

Such a quirky and charming read! This is very much an enemies-to-lovers story full of banter that starts of somewhat vicious, so it's probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I was personally immediately intrigued by the animosity between Hart and Mercy and wanted to get to the root of it, as well as see what it would take for them to mellow toward each other. In both regards, the story didn't disappoint.

The plot is pretty close to the movie You've Got Mail, so I guess it's a good thing that it's been ages since I last saw it. Even so, a lot of the turns the plot took made me recall entire scenes from that movie. So in that regard, if you're familiar with You've Got Mail, you're likely to find the book predictable. However, the characters and the setting make it feel really fresh. 

The setting in particular absolutely enthralled me. I did have a minor problem with how disclosing information about it was handled. For the first few chapters, the author didn't really explain anything, just immersed the reader into the setting by having characters reference various details that are completely natural for them and trusting the reader to put the puzzle together. I loved that! It's my favorite approach to fantasy world when done right, and it was done so right here. I was enjoying piecing together all the information about zombies and demigods and the world in general. 

Unfortunately, a few chapters in, it felt like the author second-guessed herself and hurried to include a conversation that explained and clarified multiple points, leaving little room for mystery. It wasn't exactly a case of "As you know, Bob," and the infodump-y dialogue was justified in-fiction. But it still felt vaguely disappointing. Especially since later on, the same thing kept happening later in the book: the author would introduce some concepts and setting aspects, let the reader start figuring them out, then jump in with a detailed explanation. I wish she stuck to the first approach consistently.

All the characters felt alive and fun to hang out with. I enjoyed the contrast between the two leads' arcs. Hart's is more of an inner journey: making peace with his past, coming to terms with being a demigod, opening up to the world. Mercy's arc is focused on the external events, such as keeping her family business afloat and dealing with her family members who want the best for her but have trouble hearing her when she tells them what she wants. They're both able to catalyze important changes for each other, but they don't step in to solve each other's problems. Rather, each of them inadvertently helps the other become the better version of themselves able to tackle these challenges successfuly. That made for a great dynamic both for the relationship and the plot.

The one aspect of their romance I didn't enjoy was the third act break-up. I get it, I get it, testing the relationship around this point of the book is an important genre convention. However, why go for the break-up route? It felt rather contrived in this scenario, and Mercy seemed to be majorly overreacting, almost out of character. Besides, since the disagreement happened right when Hart's internal conflict reached its peak, it would seem like a great idea to do the same thing with the Mercy-centric external conflict and have that be part of the relationship test, for more "compare and contrast" between the two arcs. So in that sense, the break-up also felt like a missed opportunity.

Despite these flaws in how the romance and the worldbuilding were handled, this was absolutely an enjoyable experience. There's lots of humor here and lots of interesting interpersonal relationships. I liked how queernorm this setting is, with two gay couples among the important secondary characters. The mentor and apprentice relationship between Hart and Duckers was among the highlights of the story for me, as well as Zeddie's journey to figuring out his calling. I was also rather impressed by the prose: it flowed well and was generally immensely readable, but I'm also left feeling like I've learned a bunch of new/lesser used words.

This is one of those novels that read a lot like a travelogue for a made-up world, combined with a classic coming of age narrative. Despite being set in a high-tech sci-fi world, there's a distinct fantasy vibe. In part, it is because the MC comes from a more "high fantasy" type of longevous elves society. In bigger part, I feel, it's because of the overall structure and vibe of the book.

Sediryl was a pretty good conduit to experience the diverse, intricate Peltedverse. She's very young and inexperienced and sometimes does stupid things, but she's insatiably curious and always willing to learn and grow. That's something that quickly endeared me to her from the first few chapters. Still, for a big part of the book I felt like her function was more that of a lens for the reader to study the world through; then, at some point, her personal arc got a lot more meaning and her character gained depth.

Overall, the pacing was a bit patchy, fluctuating between slow, thoughtful explorations of the multicultural society and fast-developing personal relationship. Also, I think that for M.C.A. Hogarth the ellipsis is what an em dash is for me, and I respect that! But I also have to admit I'm feeling incredibly done with ellipses after reading this book. They were everywhere!

Well, I have one question after reading this comic, and it's aimed at myself: why the hell did I keep delaying reading it? Seriously, I should have believed the hype. It's so good. 

The art style completely hooked me from the first few pages. I loved the dark neon colors and the overall noir-ish style. But it's the characterization that made me fall in love with the story. Hades and Persephone in particular are absolutely adorable, and the overall portrayal of all the Greek gods is great. The author does an awesome job of putting her own spin on these mythological personalities while retaining a distinct Olympian vibe. 

There was a certain plot point closer to the end, the one with Apollo, that did make me wish I took better care to check the trigger warning. It didn't exactly come out of the left field, far from it; there was sufficient build-up that allowed me to mentally prepare, but I just kept wishing that wouldn't happen. The way it was handled made sense in fiction, for the setting and the character arc alike, it's just... well. On me for not checking the warnings. I don't want to share explicit spoilers, but if you're sensitive to sexual assault and coercion stuff, don't repeat my mistakes.

Anyway, back to the positive stuff: I absolutely loved the portrayal of Hera here. In the last few Greek mythology retelling I remember reading, she kept ending up as the shrieking scorned woman who seems to hate her entire gender. While it is easy to see how it's rooted in the mythological canon, this interpretation is getting tired and ignores plenty of other aspects of her divine identity which were fully utilized here.

Three other random thing I loved:

- The relationship between Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades

- Hades's dogs! All of them, but especially that little floofy ball of rage!

- The portrayal of the Underworld. The art throughout the comic is awesome, but in those parts it just reached new heights.

Can't wait to get to the rest of the story!

I'm just absolutely failing to get into the writing style. Something about it keeps losing me, maybe it's too dense for me right now? A pity, because the story looks promising!