Oh, I liked this one! The narrator is hilarious (and what a great idea), and the plot did live to expectation. It was funny, fast -paced, and not overly predictable. Plus I'm a huge fan of the era! The clothes!
But please, Alexis Hall, as much as I like the more mainstreamy books - it's high time something new in the style of the How to... series is written!

— 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 —

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Mortal Follies
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): Alexis Hall
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: LGBT Historical Fantasy
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 6th June 2023
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝: 4th May 2023
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 3.25/5

“The truth, my dear one, is that I burn for you, that I have always burned for you, that I want you in all the ways that a woman can want or can be wanted. But the words taste like blood in my mouth and saying them chokes me.”

A curse, a spiteful goddess, and a hobgoblin storyteller focus on Maelys Mitchelmore whilst in turn, she focuses her attentions on the daughter of a duke.

This was definitely a mixed bag of feelings and thoughts for me. There were some aspects I enjoyed and some that I didn’t so I have really struggled to rate this.

My favourite part of this story is the dynamic between the trio of Miss Mitchelmore, Miss Bickle, and Mr Caesar. I found their banter funny, flowing and fulfilling. Miss Bickle was by far my favourite character. Her fanciful personality coupled with the regency of high society was really compelling.

And it was genuinely hysterical! There are moments in the story that I can look back on and smile endearingly with delight.

I also really enjoyed and really genuinely loved the writing. I would definitely read more by this author. The quote at the beginning of this review is proof alone that the writing is beautiful and captivating. It disappoints me that Mortal Follies didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

There were elements of this story that genuinely felt discombobulated to me. I loved the concept of a hobgoblin narrating the story but I disliked the actual execution. I found the intrusive input of opinions and side notes really distracting. I would be trying to immerse myself and invest myself in the adventures of Miss Mitchelmore and the narrator would but in with comments such as ‘I had to pay rent the other day and it was horrible’ and I’d think ‘wait, WHY are you paying rent when you can turn yourself into a piece of stray fluff?’ Perhaps I missed something with the hobgoblins backstory but either way the narration style was really distracting to me.

Another aspect I wasn’t crazy about was the romance itself. With the Duke’s anxieties and aversions, the romance felt one sided to me at worst and awkward at best. Miss Mitchelmore did so much of the heavy lifting for their relationship to even begin it was disheartening.

And lastly the plot. I actually thought the plot was the weakest part of the story and that this book relies heavily on tropes for enjoyment purposes. There were underutilized characters, basic reveals, and the urgency felt congruent in the first half of the story and frustrating in the second half.

However, I do recommend reading this, especially if sapphic regency fantasy is your thing. The banter alone is worthwhile.

Fridge B, Reviewer
Whilst queer Bridgerton with magic is an excellent premise, be very aware that the execution comes at a prize of an external — and incredibly unnecessary — narrator, too fond of sound of their own voice to ever allow us a connection with the characters. Fight me on this, but how is one meant to build a sense of intimacy and emotional investment with romantic leads if I am seeing their story through the eyes of a self-absorbed, whimsical and easily distracted character with little to no empathy? And that spills into structural weaknesses as well: so many rambling diversions and focus on whole hosts of characters that don’t play any role whatsoever in the main developments, nonsense coy intermissions that are not even very suspenseful, annoying smugness that comes with omniscient narrator… bottom line is, I was not amused.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Please be aware there are some mild spoilers below.

I am so disappointed to say I DNFed this. Te premise is great, the concept was promising, but I just couldn't make myself go through with it. I didn't like the narration, I didn't like the characters, I didn't like the pacing, I didn't like most of it.

Firstly: the narrator. I've always liked the character of Puck (in general) and in the prologue I was thinking "oh, cool, this is gonna be neat," but that was the end of that. Not only is he an insufferable character, he's a bad narrator. I don't mean in an "artistically faulty/unreliable, way" I mean in a "you're so pretentious and won't stop talking about yourself long enough for me to actually get invested in the plot because you keep pulling me out of it for no reason" way. I couldn't go a paragraph without Puck saying about how he turned into cigarette vapors expanding someone's lungs or something. I just... ugh. I kinda get what the author was going for but I don't think it worked.

When it comes to the characters: they were not worth reading. They all have one thing going for them, one characterization. It's the main character, the love interest, the ditzy best friend, the Black gay man, and that's all they are. I didn't see any emotion from anyone about anything, much less between them. Part of this was due to telling instead of showing, but overall there was nothing.

The romance: The main character and love interest have NO chemistry. I had to put the book down at the scene where one was talking about f***ing the other because it was so stiff and weird?? I sensed absolutely zero attraction from either. Nothing. It's not that it was badly built, it's that there was nothing built at all.

Still giving it two stars instead of one because I think it's a good idea and it's sapphic and I just desperately wanted it to be good even though I couldn't finish it.

Fun and whimsical romance with a dash of fantasy. Excellent! I loved how loghthearted and joydul the romance was, it helped balance out the plot, and also made the romance not too cheesy, oit just seemed like what would naturally have happened to anyone under these circumstances. I liked the slight mystery element to the plot as well, and felt it it wrapped up nicely. I did however feel i was almost reading several seperate stories, where maybe some blending between was needed, but even then the stories and central conflicts where enjoyable to read, and made for a cute romaticisy. I also really liked the characters and felt they went well with each other

I ended up really loving Mortal Follie by Alexis Hall.
It was so much fun to read and I really loved the characters.
I also loved the way this book was written!
I definitely highly recommend this book!
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was SO excited when I got the email saying my ARC request had been approved. A magical lesbian Bridgerton?! AMAZING! Except............ I hated it.

I'm don't like giving negative reviews. I typically round up and think of how much work the author has put in and how cruel it is to dismiss their hours of work so easily.... but I'm not kidding when I say I hated some of the author's choices and I ultimately couldn't finish the book. I rarely don't finish books! Maybe one per year? I'd already DNFd a book this year so I wasn't expecting to have another so soon.

The problem is that the author decided that Puck (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) was going to be the narrator. An incredibly irritating narrator who kept inserting his stupid comments into the story.

From the very beginning I felt like I was at a distance from the characters. Typically, I feel like I'm maybe watching a story play out while peering over the characters' shoulders or standing uncomfortably close behind them. Here, I felt like I was watching the story through binoculars peering from a distance into someone's grubby living room window to a small TV in the corner. I just didn't feel connected to the characters and instead of being able to fall into the story I kept being reminded that I was reading a book with an incredibly annoying, unnecessary narrator and the story was just an afterthought.

I've rounded this up to 2 stars. I feel very bad about it because I've enjoyed this author's work before, but this felt like a complete misfire.

I received an ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Guys the narrator is so fucking annoying that if it weren’t for him (it?) I think I would’ve liked this book SO MUCH more.

So, this is set in 1814 in Bath, in a world where magic and spirits and pagan deities exists and are an accepted fact of life. The narrator is a sprite/hobgoblin/whatever from the Other Court, who’s all about telling stories, and is therefor following Maelys about in order to collect the events and retell them later. This sprite (Robin) is doing so from the modern world where he’s exiled to and has to suffer things like standing in queues and paying for groceries in Tesco. It sounds like a fun framework narrative, maybe, but there is only so much “it pleases me not to share these details with you” and “I know [thing] but I won’t tell you about it” and “I chose to leave then as I was sure nothing noteworthy would happen” and so on and so forth I can take before it just gets annoying. I get it! You’re an immoral spirit blah blah blah and not an objective truth teller or whatnot! But lampshading every single moment Robin is leaving something out is just. Why. Why can we not as readers be simply allowed to infer that Robin is withholding story by simply…ending the scene?? Fuck off, seriously. And that’s not even mentioning how often Robin will go on about the inferiority of mortals and his disdain and how he doesn’t have a heart and blah blah
Hall, if you wanted to give me a wholly unsympathetic narrator, then congrats. You succeeded. I hate your fucking narrator and I hope you never write another book narrated by him.

As for the rest of the book. It was a similar kind of silly queer romp you would expect from Gail Carriger’s parasolverse, just with a lot fewer werewolves and vampires and rather more spirits, gods, and curses. It was alright. For the first half of it I was invested in Mae’s curse and the push-pull relationship she has with Lady Georgiana, and I liked her cousin John (though I’m very annoyed at the dropped subplot with his ex boyfriend) and her bff Lizzie (who in many ways reminded me of Carriger’s Ivy Hisselpenny). Where this book entirely stopped being fun for me was after the halfway mark - Mae’s curse got resolved at exactly 50%, after which followed the most infuriating “courtship” in which Lady Georgiana treated Mae rather cruelly and Mae continued stubbornly pursuing her. At about 80% Georgiana finally starts a sexual relationship with her and they go on fucking for a bit until Mae stubbornly gets her to agree to a romantic relationship…st which point (90% ish) Mae gets hit with *another* curse.

This is where I really got tired. Georgiana goes off to save Mae from the curse by sacrificing herself and then Mae obviously goes after her and makes a bargain with the same goddess and succeeds in completing a few impossible tasks, all in the last 10% of the book, ending the story with Georgiana back in Mae’s arms alive and…that’s it, no resolution at all to what the fuck was going on with Georgiana to make her continually push Mae away (it was implied, but they never had that resolution between them) and treat her like a child. I’m supposed to believe they have a HEA after barely being shown what their relationship would look like - when most of it has been dysfunctional?
And then! To make it worse! The excuse for NOT giving us an epilogue or any resolution at all is…the narrator saying its not their job.

I mean what.


Final verdict: pacing and plot was off and all over the place, and the narrator fucking sucks. It was otherwise a fun book but it felt without real consequence - especially when Mae’s *parents* failed to showe much distress about their daughter’s impending doom. If the characters are dismissive about danger, then why should *I* care?

This book is just delightful. Hall is so talented at writing funny, sexy rom-coms that leave me with the biggest smile on my face, and this one is no exception. Seeing Miss Mitchelmore open up and explore new romance was so much fun, and I kept chuckling to myself at Hall’s dry jokes - I will read anything they write in the future and highly recommend all of their books.

Whilst queer Bridgerton with magic is an excellent premise, be very aware that the execution comes at a prize of an external — and incredibly unnecessary — narrator, too fond of sound of their own voice to ever allow us a connection with the characters. Fight me on this, but how is one meant to build a sense of intimacy and emotional investment with romantic leads if I am seeing their story through the eyes of a self-absorbed, whimsical and easily distracted character with little to no empathy? And that spills into structural weaknesses as well: so many rambling diversions and focus on whole hosts of characters that don’t play any role whatsoever in the main developments, nonsense coy intermissions that are not even very suspenseful, annoying smugness that comes with omniscient narrator… bottom line is, I was not amused.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC, all opinions my own.

I loved this book. A Sapphic Regency romance involving a serious curse brought on by an excess of good manners, plus fairy textiles, Sulis Minerva rising from the springs at Bath, picnic-adjacent naiads and some magical chickens. With literary references scattered lightly through it like the most wonderful glittery confetti. The story is related by Robin Goodfellow (fallen on hard times, writing for a living) who you may remember from one of Shakespeare’s plays. Where he was *not* credited for his contribution.
.
A frolicsome delight, which is as much about stories, and how stories are told, as anything else. Thanks (yet again) for the joy, Alexis Hall.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a digital ARC of this book to review.

Mortal Follies is a book that I would describe as genuinely entertaining. The use of the narrator as a third party perspective offering their own insight, comments and humour made this book so enjoyable to read, even the acknowledgments made me laugh. The way Robin interacts with certain characters while observing our main cast pulls you in to the story.

The addition of a low-fantasy narrative brought in an additional dimension to Hall’s writing that I hadn’t experienced in their other books, a wonder that even some characters didn’t understand and led to us learning with them. I will, however, say that this muddied some of the clarity in other parts of the plot and meant that by half way through it almost felt like a resolved narrative that got dragged out by seeking romantic resolution.

Similarly with Something Spectacular, we were faced with a love interest reluctant to commit to a relationship so the disruption in the narrative arc could have felt recycled, but Hall brought in an additional element (which I won’t spoil) that made it unique.

Their discussions or queer identity within a regency setting always feel fresh and interesting, characters are less concerned with labelling themselves and more inclined to discover and pursue what makes them happy, I really like this.

Such a lot of fun! For anyone who loves Georgette Heyer-esque Regency historical rom-coms, you'll adore the tonnish style of the plot, and for those of us who love magic and witchery and faerie, then having Robin Goodfellow as the narrator adds a lot of wry humour. I was expecting the sapphic elements to be spicier, but they are none the worse for being less graphic than some sexier rom-coms. I loved it, and if there is more from this author, I'll be seeking those out. Recommended.

4.5 stars

Overall, I feel like the story was 4 stars and it gets an extra half a star because I loved the narrator.

This is the story of Maelys Mitchelmore who starts the book cursed by an old god, and it goes on from there. A lot happens in the book, she falls in love, maybe gets cursed AGAIN, but is helped out the whole time by her cousin, John Caesar, and her best friend Lysistrata Bickle, as well as the Duke of Annadale, Lady Georgiana Landrake. The story is very entertaining and I love how a regency novel is woven through with all of these old gods and goddesses, as well as magic and lore.

But what truly makes this book is the narrator. I won’t say much about him, other than that he is perfect, and snarky, and funny, and I would read any number of books narrated by him.

This book is definitely a bit more on the bonkers side of the AJH canon, but it totally works. I also nearly died and then cackled when I came across a reference to another utterly bonkers book in this one. It was so perfect.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for allowing me to read an arc of this book

While it did take me a while to get into this book, as historical settings usually do, the inclusion of magic, fantasy and gods and goddesses were definitely something that made this book really interesting to me. The story is told through the point of view of a magical creature, which was also a unique feature that I haven’t come across before and it was really cool!
The story follows a young woman who finds herself cursed and this plot, while interesting, was also a little unsettling to me, but I did really appreciate the trigger warnings. I found the animal sacrifices to the goddesses very hard to read, and I did have to skip those parts.
Other trigger warnings include- threat of sexual assault, talk of death of family members, murder and violence.

I LOVED this book!
It's fun, exciting, tumultuous and sapphic.
It's incredibly written with one of the most enjoyable narrators I've read.
I was rooting for our two main characters from the beginning, and there are a cast of lovable side characters who made me laugh out loud (I very much want a friend like Miss Lysistrata Bickle!).
The plot is winding and I truly didn't know where it was going to go, but in a way that kept me on the edge of my seat and not wanting to put my book down, even at 3am.
There are plenty of regency-style rom-coms, but the integrations of magic and the otherworldly in this story is an incredible choice. Hall handles the intersection of magic and the strict rules of the Ton so well, so much so that I want more stories from this incredible world that he has created.
An incredible story, will be recommending to all my friends.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What an amazingly funny and engaging start to a book, I’ve never laughed and been interested so much in any prologue.
The story of our two FMCs is captivating and scintillating. Weaved deftly in between mythology and the old gods, their story of finding love, life and each other while battling social norms and niceties is one of my favourite reads of the year so far. All told by the narrator - who I would have loved to hear more from and I can only hope has more stories lined up to tell us very soon.

I was lucky enough to be able to read this as an ARC.

Written from the perspective of Puck from the court of Oberon (yes THAT Puck!) It follows the story of Miss Mitchelmore & the Duke of Annandale. It feels like Bridgerton meets Midsummer Night's Dream, the characters were funny and had depth to them, I really liked Miss Bickle because she just wanted to have the story that was unfolding happening to her.

I really enjoyed the story and the subtle nods to other stories was really enjoyable!