Thank you to NetGalley and Hodderscape for the eARC of this book! <i>Lord of the Empty Isles</i> tells a tale of grief, love, and unlikely circumstances.

Remy Canta finally has everything in order to take revenge for the death of his brother. Five years ago, Idrian Delaciel cast a curse that caused Remy’s older brother to wither away, and now Remy is ready to give him a taste of his own medicine, but when the curse rebounds back onto him, he must find Idrian and his crew and find a way to set things right.

This book is a wonderful mix of sci-fi and fantasy aspects and is a wonderful representation of grief and the fear of letting go. Remy’s development through the book is so wonderful to watch as his life seemingly flips on end and rights itself one chapter and friend at a time. The development of the characters is super well paced and really feels like the characters are getting to know and trust each other in real time.

But sadly, there were a lot of things in this book that really brought down the rating for me, and a lot of it comes down to the fact that this story just feels underdeveloped.

To start off, the “tethers” were very poorly explained throughout the book. I feel like it would’ve been a big help to have a guide at the beginning to which types of tethers are which and what they mean because not once did I understand what was being spoken about when it came to the tethers. It also left me with so many questions, are fate tethers rare? If so, how do some characters have so many? Do tethers only appear to other people? How do the unrequited ones work? How do rotbonds work in full? The concept is very cool but it lacks understanding and explanation.

Next is a lack of general concept of time. When writing a story in space, it is very important to be clear on the timeline since you don’t have a day/night cycle to guide you and I could not tell anyone the timespan that this book took place. It also gets more confusing when you consider the time that it takes for a withering to complete because apparently, Cameron’s took multiple weeks but Remy’s took a week with a fatebond in proximity? It just doesn’t make sense. The symptoms of the withering don’t align either so overall, what happened.

This is a picky little thing but I could never tell when characters were entering or exiting. Whether that be rooms or conversations I was always surprised by new voices appearing and this doesn’t just apply to the stealthy character because that’s the only scenario where this makes sense.

Another issue is that I felt like this book was trying to accomplish too much plot wise. We had the main action plot and the character driven plot fighting for dominance of the story when they should be working together to propel it forward.

Finally, there was just an overwhelming lack of clarity of the relationships in this story and the bonds only tangled that even more when they should’ve made it easier. I will admit it’s partially my own fault for skimming over where it states that this story is queer-platonic but there are other relationships that also lead to confusion. I won’t say names to avoid spoilers but a lot of very mixed signals between different characters just make everything confusing.

In conclusion, this book had a wonderful concept but the overall execution is very poor. I got some general enjoyment from it but I feel like my one motivating factor was “maybe if I get to the next part everything will make sense” and sadly it never really did.

In theory, this should have been one of my favorite books this year. It's got heavy found family, criminals with hidden depths, an interesting twist on soul mates, enemies to friends. And it is good. But man it took me forever to get into it. There was something about the writing that was hard to get through. The plot was also a little basic, with the corrupt government and the Robin Hood like outlaws.
It was pretty decent though, once I got into it. It follows Remy, who has been seeking revenge for the murder of his beloved older brother for years now. Criminal mastermind Idrian Delaciel was behind it, and finally, he is able to cast a withering (the same fate that got his brother). Only to discover that he's fatebound to Idrian, and must seek him out in order to last long enough to figure out a way to survive this curse. Once he finds Idrian, he finds out that the whole crew is fatebound to him, and so they set off to continue keeping their people safe while trying to escape the curse. All the while, Remy must hide that he cast the curse because the quickest way to break the curse is to kill him. That's a fun twist, I will admit.
Along the way, Remy realizes he was wrong and he grows as a person and there are multiple heists. At the end of the day, I'm glad I read this, even though it took me a while.

DNF at 10%. Couldn't get into this book. I didn't love the writing or the characters. Both were underdeveloped and needed significant changes. The characters specifically bothered me, all of them were really annoying and made decisions that didn't make any sense or acted irrationally all of the time. This is definately personal preferance, but this book would have been better just as a fantasy, rather than a sci-fi/fantasy blend.

DNF @ 52%

I’m still having trouble believing that I didn’t like this. It’s not like it was morally repugnant or anything. The world building was a little less than impressive, but it was alright. The characterization was similarly acceptable (but we’ll get back to that in a minute), and their interactions were annoying; when the story proceeds to the isles and the thieves, and they speak all in lingo and implications (things like “gimme the usual” or “we’ll bet the usual” or “do I really have to say it?” really get to me), any flow halts. I realize the author is trying to keep the pace fast, the story moving, but this part further alienated me.

The big thing—and this may well be a *me* problem—is that I didn’t like Remy. And I don’t have a terribly good reason for this. Sure, he’s young and immature, but that’s hardly unique to fantasy. I just didn’t like him, or enjoy his chapters. And since he’s the only MC… well, the entire book began to grate on me.

After that.. what can I say? The plot isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly innovative. Same for the characters—minus Remy, of course—or the world-building. Just not the book for me, it’s that simple.

I remember requesting this book on Netgalley, while also pre-ordering the book, thinking this was gonna be a nice sci-fi romance with a touch of fantasy. I was therefore really happy when Hodderscape granted me a review copy, but since I noticed that cozy romance is starting to bore me a little I was also a little afraid to start reading this novel. I don't know where it went wrong with the marketing, but this book turned out to be so so so much more than I had expected it to be.

The book started exactly like I had expected. I was actually convinced during the first reading session that I was eventually gonna cancel my pre-order. I was completely and entirely wrong. During my second reading session the politics appeared and the book all of a sudden became a million times darker than I had expected it to be. And since we were experiencing everything through Remy's eyes we also felt the shock, betrayal and pain he felt.

I don't wanna give too much away, but this book does an amazing job showing how politics work, how propaganda works and how it's possible to make so many people believe that what you do is for the best even if it's not. It's also an amazing book to show that you really have to get to know people to really understand AND judge them. No matter how much you've heard and learned about someone, you can never know who has been controlling the narrative.

I also really love all the love in this book. All the forgiveness. All those times people are trying to understand someone despite their emotions pushing them into another direction. In a way, despite all the dark scenes and despite all the sickening moments, this book is therefore also really hopeful and inspiring. We see people overcoming hatred. We see people willing to look at things from someone else's perspective. We see people trying to be forgiving and understanding.

I will certainly keep an eye on this author.

This book! It's gorgeous, bittersweet, and hopeful, with a wonderful crew of found family, high-stakes action, a fascinating system of bonds, and a story of grief and healing that will both heal and break your heart. The twists kept me guessing throughout and I fell so hard for all the characters. Highly recommend this one to sci fi and fantasy fans who like any of the elements mentioned above combined with beautiful writing!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the arc! Opinions are my own.

As soon as I started Lord of the Empty Isles I could not put it down and finished it in one sitting. It was everything I loved in a title from the complex grey characters to the found family. The only thing I would highlight is there is no romance here (Remy himself is aroace), and the relationships are queer platonic.
Instead, it features bonds greater than friends and beyond that of family or lovers. Lord of the Empty Isles has a magic system that explores the idea of rope-like bonds between people. Our main POV character Remy is hunting down the man who killed his brother Idrian. However they are boeded together and they must help each other grow and heal to break the cycle of violence that has lead them down their dark paths.

If you loved Everina Maxwell's Oceans Echo and Line and Orbit by Sunny Moraine then this is the book for you! Wonderfully written and a devastatingly sad, Land of the Empty Isles is a cozy scifi-fantasy blend featuring an aroace protagonist, a found family, and queerplatonic relationships on top of its epic scifi story that I could not put down.

A lovely, inclusive, emotional tale. This is a fairly easily digestible sci-fi for anyone who doesn't read the genre much. There is an interesting "magic system" based on emotional and fate tether bonds, which I found unique and enjoyed learning about.
Many of the characters are dealing with guilt and grief, and there is a lot to unpack throughout the book. Everyone is trying to do the right thing, but they also have different ideas about what that is.
The focus on platonic relationships, especially between the aroace MC and friends both new and old was enjoyable.
There are some fairly common themes at the base of the story, but the details added by the author made it into something different than I've read before.

Thank you Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the eARC!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

It is quite dark at times, which I wasn’t expecting honestly, but it worked perfectly for the story. I especially loved the magic system. It was so unique and profoundly interesting. The concept of tethers was wonderful.

I was worried I wouldn’t be able to connect to the characters and I couldn’t have been more wrong. I found them to be likable and easy to love. That’s one thing about this book I wasn’t expecting and I can admit I learned a lot here. I was surprised and immensely touched by the amount of love in this book. Both between the characters themselves, their relationships and by the writing. This book if full to the brim of love, perhaps not the way I wanted it to but absolutely valid and profound all the same and in the end I felt like what I had been afraid would make it hard to connect with this story, was in fact the thing that made me care so much about the characters.

The only thing I wasn’t too sure about was the ending. It felt a bit rushed for my liking and would have preferred a little less exposition.

Overall this was a very enlightening and enjoyable read, deeply loving and profoundly heartfelt. I would recommend this book to everyone, even if you’re not quite sure about it. And especially for those who enjoy a character focused story.

Thank you to Hodderscape and NetGalley for the ARC. These opinions are my own and I am sharing them voluntarily.

I will post to my Instagram and Goodreads.

5/5

Started on 19/05/24
Finished 23/05/24

ARC provided by Netgalley.

Let's be clear, it's my favorite read of the first half of the year. I love every single characters of this book. I would defend them with my life.
The story is amazing, the plot is so great I loved discovering new things about each characters and their linked through each chapters.
If I had to compare this book to an already well-known book it would be the hunger games.
I recomend this book. I will be buying it when it gets released. I want so much more about these characters.

This had a really interesting premise, a queernormative world, and a band of found-family robinhood type characters doing heists and murders for the greater good. It also had a unique magic system that is unlike other fantasy I’ve read. However, I also think it got bogged down a bit in unnecessary details and didn’t go enough into the individual characters to make their stories hit emotionally.

My biggest issue with the book is also what made it most unique—the tether system. It’s both under and over explained, which is frustrating. I have no idea why the tethers form (magic? fate?) or whether everyone has tethers, if some people get married without tethers, etc. Yet I DO know a lot of random information about what it means when a tether attaches to the hand versus the gut versus some other place—despite that ultimately being irrelevant to the plot of the story. I felt so bogged down in details about things I didn’t need to know and yet still wanting more details about things that weren’t included. Some of the details were a little too convenient/unrealistic when it came to coincidences of how everyone is related.

Still, the way the life and backstory of the main character interweaves with all of the people he meets was pretty delightful, and I really appreciated how reasonable people were in seeing that they were doing the exact same thing that he had done but to different people. A nice lack of hypocrisy for most characters throughout. I also appreciate that they didn’t shoehorn a romance into the plot even though the MC and his enemy/whatever easily could have followed that trope. I did find a lot of the political stuff very high handed and unsubtle but with how detailed the book gets into the lives on Alta, I didn’t really mind.

I really wish we had gotten POVs from some of the rest of Idrian’s gang and more information about their backstories. I would have loved to know more about them and their lives.

Thank you so so much Netgalley & Hodderscape for letting me have an advanced copy of this book!!
I loved this book, I loved this book, I LOVED THIS BOOK!!
From the very first line I was instantly taken by the story, and I fell in love with the cast very very quickly. Everything about this book is phenomonal, heartwrenching and beautiful. The world and magic is unique and makes you feel very immersed in it, with wirldbuilding explanations weaved in as epitaphs.
This is described as a queerplatonic love story, and my gosh is it full to the brim with love. I sobbed multiple times and have so many moments highlighted.
No criticism here, I absolutely adored this <3

From the description of this book, I thought I was going to get a sci-fi adventure with a Robin Hood-like character, a creative magic system, and some found family along the way. And I did get all of that, but wrapped in a story that is ultimately a sweet, optimistic exploration of bonds between people and of grief.

Remy is set on revenge. His brother was murdered five years ago by a withering, a spell cast upon him that ultimately led to his death, and being a witherer himself, Remy is uniquely qualified to avenge his brother's death. The withering backfires, linking Remy to the man he was trying to kill and cursing them both, and of course Remy begins to discover that things aren't always as they seem in his world.

There was a lot to love in this story! Set in a queer-normative world with an aroace lead, the worldbuilding and politics of the story were some highlights I didn't expect. I did expect this to be a very character and emotion driven story, and so everything tied back into the characters. Which I like as a reader - I want to get emotionally attached to my characters and emotionally messed up by them, I want them to be the driving force. And they certainly were here. I didn't get quite latch on to any of the characters, but I did appreciate them and would be down for subsequent books that are just like. Adventures of the crew of the Astrid. That would be fun!

This whole book was quite fun, though it did have darker moments than I had anticipated. It was a bit like a spacey Robin Hood, and hey, who doesn't love seeing the little guys take on corruption and shake up our main character's world view?

The other big standout for me was the emotions behind this. You can tell that <i>care</i> was put into this story, and I did just think it would be a fun heist story, but at its core, it was actually much more concerned with the characters, and bettering their world, and especially how they had all been touched by grief. This was a book about mourning, about resiliency, but always with this thread of hope in it. The emotional beats were lovely, and the tenderness in the writing shone in those moments.

I did waver a bit between 3 and 4 stars, and I think this is ultimately a 3.75 star book for me. All was going quite well, parts seemed a little bit shallow, I wasn't obsessed with any characters, but that was okay, I was having a good time and pretty enchanted by the tenderness, so in a pretty good mood overall, and there was some adventure, and then the climax of the big political adventure plot kind of . . . brought this down fairly significantly for me. This was probably in chapters 23 and 24 out of 25, so really right at the end, but there were a couple of confrontations with characters that just didn't work for me. One was more minor, but just felt too easy and like some paragraphs to get from point A to point B were maybe missing, rushing from one place to another (there were a few other moments throughout the book like this, to be completely honest), but that was still okay. But the "villain reveals all" chapter just really soured the ending for me. It seemed too easy, and much too cliché, too cleanly wrapped up. The end of chapter 24 and the short final chapter 25 ended the story on a high note for me, and I was in a good enough mood to let that act as a recovery, but it was a bit of a near thing.

Overall, a bit of a delight, a bit of character-driven emotions, and a sweet, fun read.

<i>Thank you to the publisher, Hodderscape and to NetGalley for the ARC.</i>

Lord of the Empty Isles has a fantastic premise, and anything billed for fans of Becky Chambers will catch my attention!

There were a lot of elements that I really enjoyed, including the queernorm world and the representation; the magic system was also intricate and very original. It was a lot darker than the Wayfarers comparison would suggest, which isn’t a criticism - I just went in unprepared for the layers of dystopia, despair and grief. Despite this, Lord of the Empty Isles is a heartfelt read and the central curse plotline carries you through the more intense elements of the book.

Thank you to Hodderscape and Netgalley for this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

In an unexpected turn of events, I've just found my new favourite read of 2024. This book... I don't even know how to review this book for no words that I can write will do it justice, for no words will capture the beauty of this book, or how much it meant to me.

This is one of the most beautiful books, if not the most beautiful, I have ever read. This is Jules Arbeaux's debut novel, and I am so excited to see what they will do next after this outstanding debut.

This is so much more than a sci-fi novel. The sci-fi elements are there of course (a great deal of this takes place on space ships and moon-planets) and are done excellently, with such fresh and unique world building. The concept of bonds and tethers, witherings and fighting against a corrupt and lying government, and every thing else that came in between was such a wonderful surprise, and I loved the depth and nuance that came with every element of this.

What this book really is, at it's heart, is a tale of loss, grief, and the journey to healing, the anger and hurt and nuances that come with all of it. Remy is such a remarkable protagonist, and it was truly such an honour to join him on his adventures. I'm very grateful to have never experienced the pain Remy went through, and yet I still felt such a kinship with him (perhaps because we're both aroaces with brothers called Cameron 😂). And it's not just him. The stories of Idrian, Yves (perhaps my second favourite besides Remy), Tirani, and all the rest of them were so painful and heartbreaking to read, but so so worth it in the end. These characters, their journeys to find the courage to let go and begin to heal, will stay with me always. I love a book with the found-family trope (especially when the characters are queer), but this book took that to a whole new level. These characters are messy and hurting and nuanced and they make mistakes (pretty BIG, revenge driven mistakes), and yet that's what makes this book so wonderful and so so important.

This book is heartbreaking, heavy, and it's going to make you cry a lot (please keep tissues on hand as you read), but it is such an important and wonderful story. I will never forget these characters, this world, this story. Thank you, to Jules Arbeaux, for forcing your wonderful story forever into my heart.

I have never meant a book recommendation more than I have this one. Next month, pick up this book with tissues ready and be prepared to fall in love.

Delightful book! Dark at times, but all the better for the story of grief, pain, and identity it's telling.
The magic system is new and unique (confusing in the beginning, though), and the characters leap off the page! My favorite part was the emphasis on platonic relationships (MC is gender nonconforming/aroace), which we so rarely see explored to this degree.
My only complaint is that some characters felt a little too immature for their age at times, but overall it didn't take away too much from my enjoyment.


Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Welcome to Verdine, filled with people in pain and an abundance of greenery, and just up there? They're the Empty Isles, filled with people in pain and definitely no greenery. The world has burnt and been regrown, and now we've got to look after it, except, if you disagree with the authoritarian government you get sent to the penal colony that is the Empty Isles. The lord of the Empty Isles, Idrian Delaciel, killed Remy's brother and only family five years ago. Remy wants vengeance for his brother, and he's going to stop at nothing to get it.

This book! This book! It grabs you from the first pages and it doesn't stop until the last. I sat down and read it in one sitting and don't regret a thing except that it was over. The pacing is good, the characters are real and so is their pain. The world that Arbeaux has created is stunning, with a magic system that reminds me a little of Holly Black's curse workers world. There's a lot to keep up with about the different bonds, and it might have benefitted from a reference of them at the back, but I can understand that Arbeaux probably didn't want to reveal some of that information until it was needed.

In this queer normative world, everyone seems to have suffered unbearable losses, and family is such a large theme of this book. Tied together with an aroace lead character and what is quite clearly a queerplatonic relationship just, urgh, insert keyboard smash here. I don't know how to properly articulate that this is everything I want in a book. Closeness and focus on intimacy without the need for romance, without the need for sex. We're all valid and this book reminds us that we have stories that are there to be told as well.

Would I have wanted more Remy and Idrian time? Definitely. Would I have liked even more moments of them caring for each other and learning who they're going to be to each other? So so so much. Does it make it a worse book without them? Oh, not at all!

I want every story about these characters. I want a whole series of their adventures before they take down the main bad guy. I want more.

People always love those quick summary lines, and I suppose for this it's firefly but queer and with some magic, but, that just doesn't do this book justice at all.

Losing half a star for a couple of coincidences too many and a few friction points that didn't quite have a satisfying conclusion. Also that I think we could have had a million books in this series and it still wouldn't be enough space to tell Idrian, Remy, et al's story!

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘈𝘙𝘊.

Lord of the Empty Isles is like if Treasure Planet and Howl's Moving Castle had a baby. We're talking space heists, found-family, magical curses, revenge plots, rebellion, sacrifices, a queer cast of characters and a handful of prison moons. It has the ingredients of a veritable space opera, but sticks to the orbit of one planet and its many problems. Those that break the rules on the planet's surface (ecological crimes, having too many children, and generally disrupting the status quo) are sent to one of three moons to serve out their sentence. But not everything is so binary, and the punishment may not always fit the crime (if there's even a crime to begin with)...

This is definitely a joining of science fiction and fantasy. Characters are linked by tangible threads called 'tethers' - they represent everything from love and friendship to mutual goals and entwined fates. It's a well conceptualised magic-system, though outside of the main crew it's not as big of a deal and it perhaps could have been. A character named Tirani can see these tethers when they're invisible to everyone else, but her skillset is never really capitalised on. We learn more about this magic system through the rhymes and quotes at the beginning of each chapter, but they ultimately feel a little superfluous.

The protagonist, Remy, is mourning the loss of his brother who, to all intents and purposes, was cursed to death by his childhood hero, Idrian Delaciel (a pirate of the non swashbuckling kind) - daring, yes, romantic... not so much. There's not a scrap of romance to be had here, but we're well fed on queer-platonic vibes. Anyways, when Remy decides to return the favour and casts a revenge-fuelled curse himself (also known as a 'withering') it has unintended consequences. What follows is an adventure through space, time, pain and grief as he finds himself having to infiltrate Delaciel's crew.

All in all I enjoyed this particular adventure, though it did take me getting to around the 40% mark to feel those first glimmers of real investment. My main struggle was with Idrian as a character, I think. I didn't find him charismatic enough to be the leader of his motley crew. There were no rousing speeches or banterific jibes or eccentricities that would make one fall in love with him. A lot of the time he wasn't even present on the page. The idea of his character was much more appealing than the reality, but perhaps we're being handed the gift of realism here. Sometimes that can be good and humbling - don't meet your heroes and all that - but I think I was in the mood for chaotic and charismatic. Instead we got sleepy and self-destructive. I could probably tell you more about Remy's brother (who's long dead before the first page) than Idrian, or even Remy himself.

My qualms are definitely just personal preference, because this is ultimately a well conceptualised SFF stand-alone with a lot going for it. If found-family, political strife and morally-grey heisting is your thing, it's one to pick up!

Lord of the Empty Isles was an adventure and I am so grateful I got to read it as an ARC. I loved this story and the characters we got to meet along the way. This book was emotional, with sibling death being one of the main themes of the book. We experience grief through the eyes of these characters, but we also see them grow to understand, forgive, and trust others. It's a beautiful story that had me crying, which is not typical for me.

The science fiction aspects were pretty easy to understand. When the world convicts someone of a crime, they are sent to one of the Empty Isles, which are 3 moons near the planet, so there are some space ships and a space station involved.

There is no romance in this book, so if you are someone who needs romance to enjoy a book, then this one probably isn't for you. Alternatively, if you are looking for a book with asexual, nonbinary, or gay characters, this book is definitely for you!

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys science fiction and fantasy merged, as well as people who love found family and are looking for more queer representation in their reading!

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC! In return, this is my honest review.

Loved it! Lord of the Empty Isles managed to make me laugh and bring me to tears as it took me for a fast-paced spin through the stars (or, well, through some artificial moons and an orbital supply station, to be more accurate). Author Jules Arbeaux skillfully navigates unique world-building, a well-rounded cast of characters, and a deep, heartfelt emotional core in order to present a novel which I would’ve happily consumed in one sitting if life had permitted it.

Lord of the Empty Isles follows Remy, a deeply wounded young man who believes that finally casting a killing curse on the person who ordered the assisination of his brother five years earlier will allow him to heal - or at least, to feel something. When the curse rebounds on him and reveals that Remy is bound by fate to the man he wants dead - the infamous Idrian Delaciel - Remy and his closest friend, Tirani, leave their home to track down Delaciel and his crew, in a race against time and magic.

As he wrestles with his own grief and rage on his journey off-world, Remy also has to confront and challenge his conceptions of privilege, justice, morality, healing, and family. Eventually, Remy comes to see that he and Idrian, his childhood hero-turned-boogey-man, may not be so very different after all, and to understand why it is that they share a fatebond.

While Arbeaux shines in presenting a cozy, soft scifi adventure chock full of found family, queerplatonic relationships, and an aroace main character, they shine equally brightly in presenting a profound look at grief, at anger, at the places grief brings us to and the feats it may allow us to accomplish, as well as, ultimately, just how freaking much it can hurt to heal. There are parts of this novel that are so emotionally raw that if you, the reader, are bearing a fresh grief of your own, it may be best to come back to this novel a little later down the road.

In addition to grief, Lord of the Empty Isles deals with concepts of propaganda, oppression, and incarceration. Arbeaux handles these with a reasonably nuanced attention, given that the novel is so relatively short and fast-paced. Don’t expect to come away with any new revelations on government propaganda or the prison industrial complex, but given that I don’t think that that’s what Arbeaux was aiming for, I personally found these topics to be addressed appropriately.

My one complaint is that I wish I had more. More time with these characters, more chances to see them interact and develop, and more time to see the world that Arbeaux has clearly spent a significant time developing. On one hand, I understand that this would be a fundamentally different novel if the pace were slowed down long enough for that, but on the other, I can’t help wishing that it wasn’t over so soon.

I will certainly be keeping my eye on Arbeaux for any future releases, and highly encourage you to do the same!