I have the
biggest book hangover I’ve had this year and that’s saying something after
reading my 68th of the year. I went on a binge when my exams had
finished, sue me.
What book
gave me the hangover? It’s actually a trilogy. Something Strange and Deadly, A Darkness Strange and Lovely, Strange
and Ever After.
The
absolutely amazing Susan Dennard has written the best series I’ve read so far.
I realise that we’re only halfway through the year but I feel confident in
saying that I don’t think anything (even the release of Queen of Shadows – Sarah J Maas) is going to compare to the
fabulousness of this trilogy.
I’m a little
late to this party with Strange and Ever After having been available for the
past year but, honestly, I didn’t think I would be interested in this series
until the Truthwitch announcements. That book seemed so otherworldly and
magical that I wanted to read through Dennard’s previous works to get a feel
for her writing. It was the announcement of Dennard’s new series – available Jan
2015 – that made me want to read her older one. I’m not ashamed to admit to
that in the slightest.
The Something
Strange and Deadly (SSaD) trilogy follows Eleanor Fitt and the Spirit Hunters
as they attempt to put a stop to the necromancer raising the dead in 1876
Philadelphia. Eleanor’s once wealthy family has been thrown to almost poverty
and her extremely overbearing mother sets out to wed Eleanor to a wealthy
family to raise the family back to former glory.
Eleanor, our
wonderful Eleanor, has other plans involving the finding of her brother and the
helping of the Spirit Hunters in their attempt to stop the Dead from, well,
doing what the dead do, really. We all know zombies, right? They want to chomp
on the living and talk about who’s showing the most bone.
Following
Eleanor, Jie, Daniel, and Joseph – the latter three being the Spirit Hunters –
as they stop the Dead in Philadelphia, Paris, Marseille, and Egypt, is the most
fun I’ve had following fictional characters for a while. For some reason
everything I’ve read lately has had the same basic storyline where good wins
and the guy gets the girl or, more accurately for these books, the girl gets
the guy.
I am happy
to report that good does win out, the necromancer is destroyed and the Dead
stop rising. I am absolutely fucking ecstatic to report that the girl does not
get the guy. For long.
I think that’s
why I loved this trilogy so much.
There’s so
much build up to epic romance between Eleanor and the wonderful inventor that
is Daniel Sherridan, and they don’t get to see it through. Evil triumphs over
love. And, you know what? Eleanor gets on with life.
She doesn’t
stop living just because Daniel is gone. Sure, she attempts to get him back,
but she does not succeed. She is
denied the chance to live out her epic love story with a man that may come back
as he was or completely changed. Dennard does not give in to the temptation of
giving her main character the romantic ending, like so many authors do these
days.
Instead we
get a strong as hell woman that emerges from the hellish experiences she’s been
through from the very beginning of the series. This woman has lost her family,
she’s lost the love of her life, to this same person. And she destroys him and
gets on with her life.
Her friends
are there for her and she knows it. She knows that, with their help, she can
continue to live, to see out the dreams she had with Daniel even though he is
no longer by her side to see them himself.
That is
fucking beautiful.
5/5
