A sister travels to Faerie to search for her missing brother, who is a Christian missionary. A haunting and atmospheric read. ( )

Boring, boring, boring and then incredibly disgusting. I hate when I read books that waste my time. ( )

In general, I take blurbs with a grain of salt (this will be a terrible pun if you've read this book sorrynotsorry) but the comparison to Crimson Peak is very, very apt. It's super Gothic, with lots of "I can't tell you because of ~*~reasons~*~" and an uhhhh? sibling relationship at the center. But with the fae instead of ghosts. And heavy religious overtones (but not in a proselytizing way).

Overall, very creepy and atmospheric, but weird. ( )

This was a fun exploration of a new country briefly, then a claustrophobic slog, then got really going when her brother finally turns up. Incest is not my favourite trope and "but we're not *really* siblings" doesn't really ameliorate it in my eyes but it did fit, and it crept on the reader so that by the time it became explicit it was already clearly A Thing. There were a couple of other revelations like that, starting of "hey, wait a minute" and then shortly afterwards being "yeah...." Of course I was most interested in the linguistic investigations into Enochian, and of course very little detail of that was given, but the eventual historical revelations were satisfyingly explanatory, and the resolution satisfyingly creepy. ( )

Well, that was a trip.

I liked the epigraphs a lot; I adored the research. I also think I can say now that I like gothic fiction. This was extremely gothic. Also super messed up - and in some ways it went further than 1800s gothic fiction - but I think it was on point.

It did really slow down after about halfway (or whenever that next section of the book began), but I stuck with it because I figured it was coming around to something at the end. And it did! I just wish a bit more happened in the 50-75% region.

But interesting! I didn't really like the cover and reviews made me think it would be worse than it was. Just think gothic. ( )