of mountains and seas – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

I don’t like writing this kind of review.

I was sent this book by Emily Renk Hawthorne’s publicist for a review– not only was I sent this book, but also the first book in the series, in a nice hardcover edition, and when I cracked this open to read it I discovered she’d actually sent me a copy with a signed bookplate in it, which genuinely makes me feel bad about how I’m going to review the book. I’m going to keep this brief: I liked Book One, Of Mountains and Seas, well enough, but it had some problems; my review was mixed but ultimately I liked the book enough to request and read the sequel.

Unfortunately, having completed From the Depths, I feel that it has all of the same problems as the first book, and introduces a few new ones besides, while simultaneously not showing some of the strengths of the first book. Mountains and Seas jumped back and forth among several different periods in time, for example, and rewarded paying attention. This may be the first time I’ve ever complained about a straightforward narrative, but it’s a much simpler text. Mountains and Seas had a clear villain. This book’s bad guy is a nonsentient puddle of silver goo. That’s not a joke.

The author’s habit of choosing the wrong word continues to be an issue as well, and starts off on the very first page, where the word “sinkhole” is repeatedly used to describe the first appearance of the goo. I’m not going to get into the details, but the phenomenon being described in that first chapter is simply not a sinkhole. Sinkholes do not happen indoors.

I gave this two stars on Goodreads and Storygraph; one less than Mountains and Seas. I cannot recommend that you read it. I’ll leave it at that.

From the Depths releases on June 9.

Let us take a moment to appreciate this cover, while I collect my thoughts, because I am about to write a review of this book and I’m still not 100% sure what I think of it. So I’ll start with the bit I’m most enthusiastic about, which is that if you’re going to buy this book, get the hardcover, because the paper and the cover feel absolutely amazing in the hand and it looks awesome and it’s somehow less than $10 on Amazon right now. Which … hell, less than $10 for this book may push me into enthusiastic recommendation regardless of whatever else I might think about it.

I was contacted by Emily Renk Hawthorne’s publicist and offered an advance copy of her forthcoming novel From the Depths. That book sounded up my alley, but I hadn’t read the first novel in the series yet, so she went ahead and sent me Of Mountains and Seas, with the idea that I’d read that first and then see if I wanted to read From the Depths as well. I sent a follow-up email at about the 3/4 mark of OM&S asking her to go ahead and pull the trigger on the second book. And this is the part where I want to stare at the screen for a bit, because my opinion on this book is genuinely mixed, but one way or another it’s definitely positive enough that I still want to read the sequel.

Let’s start positive: Of Mountains and Seas is a nicely complicated little novel, with multiple POVs stretched between 1932 or so and the near-present. Parts of the book are set in 1932, 1935, 1936, 1955, 1985, 1990 and 2000, with 2000 being the “now” of the book, and shut up, 2000 is so the “recent” past. There may be another couple of years sprinkled in here and there but that’s good enough for now. There are at least half-a-dozen POV characters, some of whom appear in multiple time periods and some of whom are young enough that we only really see them toward the end of the timeline. Some of them change their names partway through! It can be kinda rough if you’re not paying attention, to be honest. The main thrust of the story is that most of the characters are Shifters, shapeshifters who also possess other magical abilities, almost, but not quite, X-men style— all of them can change shape but some can manipulate rock or affect memories or various other things, and there are also a handful of magical tinctures and other objects as well. Where’s the book set? California, of course, so mostly in the real world. Shifters have their own government set up— indeed, one of the characters is running for office for part of the story— and take careful pains to avoid being noticed by the humans, who they call Statics.

Davis, one of the more important POV characters, is born to a Shifter family, but without powers. This leaves him as an exile within his own family. And then he discovers that special stones exist that will allow him to steal abilities from other Shifters, leaving them powerless (there are also special marks that can be etched into a Shifter’s skin to take away their powers, by the way) and temporarily transferring their powers to him. “Temporarily” can mean for decades or for a much shorter period of time, depending on how powerful the Shifter he stole from was and how often he uses the abilities. At any rate, that kicks off the story, as Davis goes on to make a whole lot of trouble with these stones. Oh, and he also finds a mine full of them.

On a story level, the book is pretty cool. I may actually reread it before I read the sequel; it’s fast, and there’s enough going on that I suspect I’ll need the refresher.

Unfortunately, Emily Renk Hawthorne is one of those writers who consistently violates Twain’s thirteenth rule of writing: Use the right word, not its second cousin. Opening the book to a random page, I see her use pretense when she means pretext. Opening to another, I see someone use the word apparently to describe someone losing a hand, which is not a word someone would use in this particular context. She definitely lost her hand! It’s not there! On the opposite page from that, we have a clunky bit of dialogue where someone reads a cop’s full name to them off of, specifically, their badge. First, you would not say “Thank you, Officer… Brad Smith,” because that’s not how people talk. Second, their badges don’t have full names. Police badges don’t have names at all, in fact! His name may be on his chest somewhere, but it’s almost certainly his rank and last name and maybe a first initial, and that’s gonna be it. There’s lots of stuff like this, lots of little violations of logic and words that are 90 degrees away from being the right word for the context. This will bother some of you more than others. It’s the same exact problem I have with Ryan Cahill, actually. And, interestingly, I begin a review of one of his books by praising the book for the exact same physical things I just praised Hawthorne’s about. I wonder if they used the same printer?

At any rate, this book could have used a bit more editing, so your enjoyment of it will depend directly upon how much the good story distracts you from the less-good writing. I went back and forth; I barely noticed any issues with the first half of the book, then there was one particular chapter that was riddled with problems, and after that I either got a lot more critical or the book got sloppier because I started noticing stuff all over the place. Again, I’m in for the sequel even if I end up having to buy it myself, I’m just hoping for a slightly stronger sophomore effort on the prose front.