bailedThe magic of the series rubbed off. The world building is a great as ever but the very slow pacing and pointless melancholy of the characters and setting just didn‘t work for me. The writing of course, is great and the audiobook narrator excellent, but it doesn‘t save the book for me.
pick(2022) Second in the "Cemeteries of Amalo" series, set in the world of Addison's "The Goblin Emperor," featuring a cleric who can read the last thoughts of the dead, and uses the skill to solve mysteries. I quite like this character and this world, and appreciate how Addison finds sympathy even with her villains. I am told this is a planned trilogy so we have one (but only one) more to expect. Looking forward to it.
pickThara Celehar: Communicates with the dead. Needs a cuddle. Bad at flirting. Dreadful at not taking analogies literally.
Here‘s a thing I love about this series: I cannot follow the way titles/honorifics and names work; some things are clear enough, and there seem to be elements of gender, class, and marital status involved, but I can‘t always tell why one person gets a certain version. But Celehar does! He doesn‘t even have to think about it. …
Here‘s my #bookspinbingo board for January! I‘ll be reading the tagged book for my #bookspin and Life Among the Savages (assuming I can find it) for my #doublespin. (I mixed up the markings again. Apparently my brain can‘t make sense of the #doublespin being 10 less than the #bookspin. 😂)
pickAddison is a very good writer and I did enjoy this a lot. But I can't help comparing the Witness books against the Goblin Emperor. And they just lack something, for me. Probably the humour you could always sense in Maia. Thalar is just so depressed. These are escapist books give us a little touch of joy here and there.
Still a strong pick.
Yaaaaay! So excited for this one. Now I have to carve out some listening time in the next couple weeks.
pickKatherine Addison‘s work gets filed under hopeful fantasy, and in some ways THE GRIEF OF STONES lives up to that—but friends, it also gets DARK. Alongside the usual murderers and bureaucrats, Celehar faces off against child pornographers and malicious spirits. There‘s a lot of tough material here, and as much grief as you‘d expect from the title.
At the same time, though, TGOS delivers the pure delight of poking into this world‘s many corners. ⬇️
pickReceived to review! That definitely went places. Wow. And I have some slight hope that Thara may be learning to accept comfort and friendship again... maybe.
So glad I got a review copy! Though I'm juggling too many things at once and reading really slowly, this is my #BookSpin (or was it my #DoubleSpin...) so I hope to finish it this weekend.
Let‘s take another look at the chocolate hazelnut buns while I tell you I finished THE GRIEF OF STONES yesterday.
I‘ll have a full review closer to the release date, but for now I need y‘all to know I loved it. While it has more than a touch of Fantastical Travel Syndrome (what I call the phenomenon where you hear a TON about how the characters in a fantasy novel get from place to place), the good stuff is SO GOOD I can‘t even mind. #gaymay
I read a nice chunk of THE GRIEF OF STONES while I proofed and baked some chocolate hazelnut buns. (Yes, they‘re as good as they look.) The further I get into the book, the more I like it. There‘re maybe a few too many detailed tram journeys for my current mood (Future Me‘ll feel differently), but I‘m all over the new bits of worldbuilding and the various relationships Celehar falls into.
The last three books I finished were varying degrees of disappointing. I‘m hoping I can break the streak with THE GRIEF OF STONES. Alas, my ARC doesn‘t have a social media-friendly cover, but the insides are on point so far. Gonna soak up all this glorious atmosphere and poke into new corners of Addison‘s world. #gaymay
#WyrdAndWonder day 2 is books we #CantWaitToRead - for me it‘s The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison. I need to see dedicated, serious, lonely man Thara Celehar get the hug he deserves.
The Grief of Stones | 
