SYNOPSIS
Viv just wants work—any work. Well, not quite any work. But she’s desperate enough to accept a job offer as personal assistant to Jasper Renner—the rich and mysterious owner of the Renner Tea House—even though odd things happen whenever he’s around.She expects to deal with rich, entitled Melbournians and a full business schedule. Instead, Viv finds herself following Jasper into a strange new world where a murderous madman has been incarcerated in a secret floor at the old Kew Asylum that may or may not exist in the human world as she knows it.
Reality is just as worryingly soft at the old tea house itself, which hides a few too many not-quite-human secrets. In one of the downstairs rooms, there’s a little girl who has been a little girl for a suspiciously long time; in the uppermost floor, there are a few windows that show a view that doesn’t exist in Melbourne. And then there are the giant cephalopod tentacles that appear from nowhere and disappear again, seemingly at will…
Now Viv isn’t sure if she’s going mad, or if the world itself has gone mad and the lunatic in Kew Asylum is the only sane person she knows.
This Australian Urban Fantasy is heavy on gothica, dark cosy/cozy, and crikeycore. There are a lot of murders, a lot more u's than you might expect, and some waking nightmares that may affect those with parasomnia.
MY THOUGHTS
In the beginning of the story, Viv was clueless about the paranormal aspects of the world around her, so it was really interesting seeing her discover it. Jasper and Luca were very interesting and mysterious characters for very different reasons. I was eager to learn more about them.
This was exactly the kind of book I needed at the time. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys twisty urban fantasy. It might be helpful to have read some of Gingell's other Between and Behind books, but it does stand alone. There's no language or spice, but there is quite a bit of violence. It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I'm diving right into the next book!
FIVE STARS
