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.