I received this book for free from Netgalley, Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Uncanny Vows by Laura Anne GilmanPublished by Simon and Schuster on November 28, 2023
Genres: fantasy, Fiction, General, Historical, Romance
Pages: 384
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: Netgalley, Publisher
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Following the events of the high-stakes and propulsive Uncanny Times, Rosemary and Aaron Harker, along with their supernatural hound Botherton, have been given a new assignment to investigate…but the Harkers believe it’s a set-up, and there’s something far more ancient and deadly instead.
Rosemary and Aaron Harker have been effectively, unofficially sidelined. There is no way to be certain, but they suspect their superiors know that their report on Brunson was less than complete, that they omitted certain truths. Are they being punished or tested? Neither Aaron nor Rosemary know for certain. It may be simply that they are being given a breather or that no significant hunts have been called in their region. But neither of them believes that.
So, when they are sent to a town just outside of Boston with orders to investigate suspicious activity carefully, the Harkers suspect that it is a test. Particularly since the hunt involves a member of the benefactors, wealthy individuals who donate money to the Huntsmen in exchange for certain special privileges and protections.
If they screw this up…at best, they’ll be out of favor, reduced to a life of minor hunts and “clean up” for other Huntsmen. At worst, they will be removed from the ranks, their stipend gone—and Botheration, their Hound, taken from them.
They can’t afford to screw this up.
But what seems like a simple enough hunt—find the uncanny that attacked a man in his office and sent him into a sleep-like state—soon becomes far more complicated as more seemingly unrelated attacks occur. The Harkers must race to find what is shadowing them, before the uncanny strikes again, and sleep turns into murder—and the Huntsmen decide that they have been compromised beyond repair.
But their quarry may not be the only uncanny in town. Botheration and Aaron both sense something else, something shadowing them. Something old, dangerous…and fey.
I love this series. I love the Harker siblings. I especially love Botheration, our lovable Hellhound companion. This second volume is filled to the brim with a low-level anxiety that is the result of the complications the siblings encountered in the first book. They’re keeping an apocalyptic level secret, even from their own superiors. Everyone who has ever lied about something important has wondered if other people could read it on their face, and it’s common knowledge that one lie leads to another leads to several more.
After months of being sidelined after their last case, the Harkers are finally sent on a new investigation. Is this a return to action or a potential setup that they’re supposed to lose?
Are the Harker siblings in too deep? Can they recover? If they’re thrown out of the Huntsmen, will Botheration be removed from their care? Because c’mon, who cares about the state of the world when there’s the love of a pupper on the line?!? (I’m being serious here. I would be less upset by Aaron and Rosemary getting locked in a dungeon than I would be by the removal of Bother from the story-line…)
Then, of course, are the siblings’ own secrets. Aaron’s throwback nature and tendency to use the forbidden Fey magic he’s not supposed to know in the first place, and Rosemary’s secret desire for stimulants and violence. I have more sympathy for Rosemary than I do Aaron. Aaron’s nature is an accident of birth and not his fault. But Rosemary? What sensible woman in that time period wouldn’t have a desire to get hopped up on speed and do incredibly destructive things in the name of justice? … As a matter of fact, that’s not all that different from our current time period, to be honest.
Even with the incredible tension of this book, I think this world is fun to play in. I know that we’ve been incredibly focused on the siblings’ predicaments in these first two volumes, but I’m itching to get a view of the wider world. There’s a war going on in Europe, after all! What the heck are all the rest of the Huntsmen up to??
Basically, my review of this book amounts to:
