Being June 22, yes, I’ve read the new Harry Potter (spoiler-filled first thoughts on my LiveJournal). However, I thought I would clear the decks, so to speak, on the book log, by catching up on the backlog before starting the slow and detailed re-read that will inevitably spawn enormous posts here and on the LJ.
[split for import into MT; hit “next” at the bottom of this post]
First up is Teresa Edgerton’s The Gnome’s Engine, which is the sequel to Goblin Moon. At the end of that book, our protagonists were heading for the New World to flee their several enemies. This book opens a year later; our protagonists have spent the year getting established and getting the idea for the titular machine, but otherwise not much has changed: villains still searching, True Loves still separated by circumstance, etc.
This is kind of an odd book. The plot takes a while to get going, there are some plot threads whose relationship to the overall plot is rather ambiguous, and the end-of-book confrontation is distinctly anti-climactic. The best word I can think to describe it is “genteel”; it meanders along, with bad things presented in a non-bleak tone, and at the end everyone picks up their toys and cordially goes home. I think I liked it, but again, it was odd.