RogerBW's Blog

Direct Descendant, Tanya Huff 02 July 2025

2025 horror-romance-fantasy. The town of Lake Argen, deep in rural Ontario, seems quiet and boring. They work hard to keep it that way…

Some years ago I read Huff's Valor's Choice, the first of a long mil-sf series, and was unimpressed; but I'd heard good things about this. It's a cosy sort of horror; Cassie, one of the narrators, grew up here and is used to all the magical weirdness, so she casually drops in side notes like

we hadn't had a seer since my mother's second cousin twice removed ignited after not noticing the symbol she'd created while free-hand quilting

in much the same tone as would be used in a more conventional book (and is sometimes here too) for small town colour. Cassie is also one of the descendants of the founders of the town, and the hugely powerful supernatural being under it has Chosen her to be its Mouth (yes, there are many significant capitals here). Which means power, but also a lot of responsibility.

Meanwhile Melanie is a teacher between jobs, recruited by an acquaintance of her mother's to go and look into a disappearance. Sure, he wandered into the woods and bears got him, but Grandma just wants some closure. Yeah, right.

Cassie and Melanie fall in instant love (which is so heavily signalled that I was frankly expecting a late revelation that something in the town had been actively pushing them together), but Melanie doesn't know anything about magical weirdness, and sooner or later Cassie is going to have to tell her… oh, and something really bad is happening on a supernatural level, but nobody's quite sure what yet. There's a very effective balance of supernatural and interpersonal tension, not to mention that one of Cassie's powers is to Tell people to do things and they absolutely will… but if she does, how can there be any honesty in a relationship afterwards?

Perhaps the reconciliation after the inevitable split is a little too easy, but it is happening on a battlefield, so. Overall I very much enjoyed this, with usefully different perspectives and writing styles from the narrators (I was never in doubt as to which one I was reading, even when I picked up a chapter after a break), and people whom I liked even though I generally have a low tolerance for Quirky Characters. There are real perils here alongside the just plain folks rural atmosphere, and that's a thing that's both hard to balance well and very rewarding when, as here, it is.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
Valor's Choice, Tanya Huff

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