Genre: Magic

Reading Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series is usually a good, but often mildly frustrating time for me as they’re decently fun reads that are so close to being excellent. Book number three, Whispers Under Ground, is unquestionably the most tonally consistent and focused story so far that improves upon all my biggest criticisms of the previous installments. While Midnight Riot/Rivers of London (I’ll be referring to book 1 as Midnight Riot for consistency) and Moon Over Soho suffered from overly loose, meandering plots that attempted to weave together two separate cases, Whispers Under Ground smartly focuses on just one case and allows its dry, tongue-in-cheek British style to be front and center. Despite the improvements across the board, unfortunately I found the core mystery investigation to suffer from inconsistent pacing yet again and the culprit/reveal to be rather random which holds this back from a higher rating. Each novel in the series so far has had an underlying theme that’s tied to the magical crime case and some type of fantasy element/being; Midnight Riot was themed to the theatre while Moon Over Soho was heavily Jazz-focused. Whispers Under London’s thematic flair is the visual fine arts (though one could…

Despite having a lot of wonderful elements on paper, I thought book #1 Midnight Riot/Rivers of London was messy and unable to seamlessly mix its two story arcs, lore and world-building, and an urban noir investigation together coherently. The ambiance, setting, brief history lessons and Peter’s character voice helped cover up a weakly constructed plot and investigation. Thankfully I trusted other reviewers that wrote the series gets better as it progresses which I can see now. Akin to enjoying a glass of fine wine in a jazz bar hindered by an amateur musician (or what I would imagine it would be like, I’m not a drinker personally), I found Moon Over Soho to be a cool and low-key entertaining experience provided I not look too closely at some of the finer details of its plot. Across the board, Moon Over Soho felt like a true sophomore sequel work that was more confident and focused compared to Rivers of London. There’s a bit less action here than the obvious riot plot, but just about everything else is stronger across the board. Similar to Rivers of London, Moon Over Soho features two separate story arcs. The first involved multiple oddly timed deaths…

This might be the earliest I’ve ever read a newly published book as I ninja-ed it the day my library got a digital copy and I was very excited based on the synopsis and listed genres. For me, the Book of Doors was a solid comfort read (note, NOT the actual Comfy read genre) that felt nostalgic in the first half, invoking the wide-eyed magical feel of many YA fantasy books I read growing up yet clearly intended for adult readers. This book is also fully targeted towards book lovers with countless descriptions and settings based on book collections, stores, or libraries (to be expected for a story involving magical books). What I did not expect was the surprisingly ambitious and well-executed time-traveling/manipulating second half that manages to recover and tie-up the narrative successfully after a disjointed mid-section. Despite the obviously heavy fantasy elements provided by the magical books (I assume it’s not mentioned in the synopsis as not to show it’s trump card early), the Book of Doors should first and foremost be considered a soft time-travel drama. A young women in her 20’s living day to day in New York, Cassie is at the pivotal stage in her…

A haunted- or rather “enchanted” house on a private undeveloped island, a mysterious institute tasked with managing said properties in question, a budding and free-spirited writer teaming up with a prim and proper housekeeper; oh and there’s a dangerous magic-stealer on the loose. Charlie Holmberg’s Keeper of Enchanted Rooms has a lot of great elements working for it that should’ve culminated in an enchanted and dreamy experience. Unfortunately for me these pieces weren’t assembled in the most effective manner which made the overall reading experience feel underwhelming and a missed opportunity. With its diverse plot threads, the Keeper of Enchanted Rooms is a lot of things. Taking place in New England in 1846, it’s sort of a historical fiction novel (more on that below) with a fantasy and magical theme. However in actuality, the story is better described as a cozy fantasy of sorts; I’m not sure how to describe it beyond being slow-paced and comfortable. The fantasy elements are beyond magical realism, the romance isn’t strong enough to be considered romantasy yet the magic is not development enough to be pure or hard fantasy. The book feels like it’s intended as an adult novel due to the age of…

It took me longer than it should’ve to learn that Rivers of London was released in the US as “Midnight Riot” hence why it took me so long to read this despite it being high on my to-read list. In hindsight the rename makes perfect sense as Midnight Riot is a much more appropriate title for the better of two core plot/cases covered in book (not to mention that the series this book ended up starting is also called Rivers of London). Confusion on its dual-title release aside, I wanted to like Midnight Riot a lot more than I did as it has such an exciting premise. Peter Grant is a probationary constable/loose police officer who is assigned as an apprentice to Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale after having a run-in with a ghost while on surveillance duty following a grisly beheading murder at Covent Garden (as in the actual real Covent Garden, all locations are either real-life places or are heavily inspired fictional interpretations on boroughs of London). In training as both a supernatural investigative officer and a magic user, Peter Grant and Thomas Nightingale team-up to unravel the truth behind a series of seemingly random murders who’s only…