Oliver Moss

The Bell in the Fog by Lev AC Rosen -

This is one of the best books I've ever read. Lavender House, the first in the Evander Mills series, was a solid mystery but a little paint by numbers. Intense things would happen to the MC, but then we wouldn't see his thoughts or feelings about it. This book really digs a lot deeper and is a better book on every front.

The books are set in post WW2 San Francisco and that odd period in history where gay people had just been able to find each other and the military had been pretty permissive of homosexuality during the war, only for people to scatter again and there to be hard crackdowns. The mystery, the characters, the vibes, the really leaning into an interesting moment in history, amazing.

Rough Pages by Lev AC Rosen -

This is the next and most recent book in the series and wow, it is not the best thing I've ever read. It's a mess. The stakes are so similar to the last book that it undercuts a lot of that book. Characters the MC was close to in the last book he's suddenly distant from. The structure was so similar that at one point early in the book I predicted that the murderer would be X for Y reason, and it would create a feeling of N for because M. And, bingo! Also, having the murder create of feeling of N because M twice in a row is weird.

The writing is overwrought. The plot involves queer books and I am very into the idea of their importance and the impact they had especially before the age of mass communication. For me to find going on about them overwrought is a feat.

The writing uses some heavy handed metaphors at times, but it suits the noir setting and when the metaphors are spot on it just really works. They worked in the previous books, but here they are some swings and misses sometimes.

I will read more books by the author and other Evander Mills books. But man, I am not even getting into the meat of some of the problems. I knew how the MC would react in a situation simply because it was such a beat for beat retread.

Ghost of Lies by Alice Winters

This was a random title laying around on my Audible account that I started because I wanted a break between the two Lev Rosen books. it's the start of an m/m mystery series involving a police detective and a guy who can hear ghosts. It was really good! I was very unsure of it at first because it has a very annoying shipper-on-board trope and some of the 'jokes' of the MC's friends are very OTT, but the more the story unfolded the more invested I was. There were also some really funny moments. Some characters that seemed annoying at first I liked more once we learned more about them and their reactions made sense.

This was a real surprise. I slog through a lot of m/m books looking for good stuff, and this one I just grabbed as a break between Evander Mills books was so much better than most of what I’ve read. I wish I knew why I bought this, random shopping or a recc somewhere? I feel like it was something I bought because I had credits and was just poking at the Audible store, but I am not sure.

The narrator was also amazing. The character voices were distinct, which really helped with clarity at a few points.

I am still not sold on how OTT two side characters are or how much quippy dialogue there is, but a few points in the book had me cracking up. Also, for the main character, he’s not just randomly quippy, it’s a defense mechanism for how being a medium makes him seem nuts at times. I feel like the origin of the 'quippy genre character' is about how quips can diffuse or redirect social awkwardness when characters need to do weird things, but this is the first time I've felt like it made sense and wasn't just there because it's a trope. We actually see his thought process a few times and it just really reframes the whole thing.

I like that it feels very complete. I am eager for the next book, but if the writer leans into the quippy and friendly-harrassment-as-joke stuff more, I can pretend it’s a stand alone.

Ghost of Truth by Alice Winters

For the first four fifths of the book the quipiness and friendly-harrasment are toned way down and the MC has better boundaries. It makes sense for the MC in a character growth way. I was vibing with it.

A good chunk of the mystery seemed very obvious to me, but that wasn't a bad thing. It made sense that the characters wouldn't see it at first and introduced a different source of tension from knowing the danger they were in better than they did.

Then it fell apart. The plot started to drag, and then the weird boundary crossing harassment from friends was back and one a whole new level. It's like the author was trying to hold back and then let loose in some weird ways.

Audible is constantly reccing me Alice Winters books, mostly from other series with covers and titles that put me off. I want to peek at a few other series like the shifters or maybe the vampire stuff, but in a 'there is nothing else that looks good in the fridge, and hey it's edible' way. I do have some e-books I want to read, but I am trying to focus on audiobooks to reduce eyestrain. Also, some books on my TBR list are ones where I specifically want the text format or aren't available as audiobooks.

Halfway through the second book I thought I was going to be writing a glowing review of the series, despite a few faults, but nope. It's a frustrating mix of surprisingly good and ... what the hell?