"..tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be."

Well, I sobbed 😭.

There's such a strong focus on everything Kathy and the others are not told, on them learning which questions cross an invisible line, and slowly just accepting the silence and that strange emptiness around huge parts of their lives. They hear rumours, but never push too far, almost out of fear of what they might uncover, whether it's good or bad. I think those gaps and that emptiness in Kathy's (and consequently our) understanding of her reality and the way it makes us as readers feel, were done so well.

It really makes you think about all the things happening in the real world that we don’t fully acknowledge or talk about out loud. The way we sometimes notice something is off, maybe say "this is CRAZY" to each other… and then just move on and accept it without digging any deeper, with a feeling of "well, what can be done".

That last "supposed to be" in the last sentence of the book destroyed me.

4.5 ✨ This was exactly what I needed after my last few reads (ranging from super sad to super frustrating haha). No miscommunication, no pointless drama - any conflict came from external factors, and instead of tearing people apart, it just brought them together and they dealt with it like a family 😭.

The romance was a bit on the overly sentimental/mushy side at times, but I still really enjoyed it. Honestly, I think I’d keep reading even without the romance, because everything with Morgan putting the team back together was genuinely interesting. I also did not expect THAT ending, and I’m so glad we got two full stories with Brody and Lawson at the end, it gave us the closure we needed.

0.5 ✨ RANT.

I’ll start with the positives - the cover is nice. And I ended up switching to audio for the last 20%, while I was walking through the city centre listening to it, and not one of the usual "hey, want to talk about…" people stopped me. I’m convinced I must have looked borderline murderous while listening to these pretentious musings so hey, IT DID HELP WITH SOMETHING. YAY.

Because wow. She genuinely didn’t seem to have a single nice thing to say about ANYONE she met. Everyone was described in such harsh, almost dehumanising ways -"lizard", "saggy", and so on. It also very much read like someone coming from a very privileged background, and the way she was condescending towards other tourists while… being a tourist HERSELF was WIIILD to me 😭

She also seemed to be so much harsher towards women, especially mothers. Meanwhile, men were often described more neutrally - even when admitting to things like not being good to their wives or not being loyal. Those moments were just… stated. But a woman with children? Suddenly it was all negatively loaded descriptions and questioning her "control" over said children for no real reason.

And I’m sorry, but the way she talked about the local food?? You go to another country and describe their cuisine as repetitive, talk about a "feeling of disgust in your suspicious palate", and frame Italian food as some kind of disciplined variety… while coming from a country known for BEIGE cuisine 😭 Like, it’s fine if it’s not your thing, but maybe keep AT LEAST SOME of that to yourself.

Also - a FULL. CHAPTER. of them playing tennis. For WHAT. It had absolutely nothing to do with anything, it was just about her wanting to beat this one guy, and meanwhile her husband and kids? Irrelevant, apparently 🫠

Part of me died reading this and I’m not getting it back.

4.25✨

I really liked the main characters from Of Blood and Aether, so with book two not yet on the horizon, I was definitely looking forward to getting a little something extra in the meantime.

This was exactly what the title promised hahah, so I'm not complaining. It added a nice bit of depth to both main characters, giving more context to who they are and how they work together, without overcomplicating things.

At the same time, it didn't introduce anything so major that this suddenly feels like essential reading before book two. You can skip it if you want (since it's a bit longer than your typical novella), and you won't feel lost.

That said, it definitely made me even more curious and excited for book two!

Thank you to the author for the advance copy!