Pretty Good

I picked this up on a two for one sale on audible and was pretty excited but saw some not so great reviews from bloggers I trust and thought “oh no, did I waste a credit” but I actually really liked this one. I was a tad bit disappointed by the ending as I felt unfulfilled. It felt like there wasn’t a real solution and answer beyond saying “It was THIS creature!” I thought since this was a series there would be MORE rather than just a one off? But even just the way the case was solved left me feeling dissatisfied. It had this great big build up and then I had it figured out at 63%. I guess I was anticipating an overarching enemy to be explained/discovered/talked about, but that didn’t happen and left me a little confused and unsettled. It made the story feel incomplete.

I did like the relationship between Abigail and Jackaby, especially since it was platonic. I also really liked that Jackaby saw Abigail’s worth and that he acknowledged it to her instead of keeping it to himself. He told her on multiple occasions that what she noticed might be mundane, but it wasn’t necessarily something he would see so she was useful (which is the closest thing to a compliment a Sherlock Holmes-type gives, I guess). I liked that Abigail quickly adapted and understood and caught on. She was very resourceful and liked to take charge, even if it meant she herself would be in danger. She realized that it was more about saving other people and the welfare of other people than herself. I also really liked that she was independent and made her own decisions — even if they weren’t decisions other people approved of. Jackaby was kind of a poor knock off for Sherlock Holmes but I think he had something special with the whole supernatural thing, which I hope gets explained a bit more in the next book.

However everything happened so quickly — a couple days in the story! — so nothing really felt explained or developed in a way that made sense. So much happens that it feels like it has been more than a couple days but really it wasn’t that long. And for Abigail to have such strong feelings for someone in that time was kinda “k??” but I digress. I would have liked a bit more time spent on this case — and all the cases in the future — so that we get more development of Jackaby and the other side characters, including a literal duck and a ghost. Whose names have escaped me because they didn’t have much to add to the story this time around in my opinion. Other than to give us insight into the world Jackaby lives in (and proof that supernatural things exist tbh).

I think I’ll continue with this series as it was the most interesting period piece with supernatural elements novels I have read since THESE VICIOUS MASKS (and I’ve started and stopped a lot since then).

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