Mads > Recent Status Updates

I am really enjoying the two perspectives!

So much foreshadowing!!! What do you mean “Be safe” would be the last words she’d say to him????

I’m enjoying the grumpy-grumpy pairing of Elspeth and Ravyn, and the forced proximity/fake dating elements too are just really great!

I can’t stop reading, I find the Providence Cards to be such a cool magical concept, and now that the main conflict of the novel has been laid out, it’ll be interesting to see how Elspeth goes working with a resistance group

The time-travel mechanics of this cafe are quite intriguing and definitely different to how a lot of time-travel plots typically go. The pacing is faster than I thought too, which is not a bad thing

I am really enjoying the world-building of this novel, it feels very eery and spooky, definitely a vibe I have been craving post-Halloween!

I am actually DNF’ing this book here, it is too slow for me and I thought the stakes would feel higher and more important but characters just… let things happen to them. It’s a shame because this book’s prose is written well.

Some stuff is happening, the stakes of calendars disappearing meaning an eternal winter… but it’s still so slow

The rules of the time travel are interesting

The pace is fairly slow, so it is taking me longer to get through, but it’s starting to pick up a bit more now!

Very interesting developments so far!

Things are getting intense! 👀 I just want Laura and Carmilla to be happy

I’m really enjoying the way the book is written, and the premise of an island that collectively forgets random objects. Who is policing this, if there a curse on the island?? So many questions!

Like the freckles, it made her – not unremarkable, as I had feared to find her; but marvellously, achingly real… I thought, How queer it is! And yet, how very ordinary. *I am in love with you*.

** is supposed to be italicised.

“…and when she turned her head a little to put her hat back on, I saw a strip of pale flesh at the nape of her neck where the collar ended and the hairline began that – for all the fire of the hot, hot hall – made me shiver.”

Very relatable moment of desire and arousal, given the time period and the presence of hot women.

“Have you ever tasted a Whitstable oyster?”

I know that oysters were considered an aphrodisiac in older times, so this being the very first sentence of the book already brings to mind a sensual undertone to the rest of the paragraph.

I am excited to start reading this, I am going to be annotating physically and digitally

Kinda guessed that The Darkling wasn’t all he said he was, and had blindsided a naïve Alina into thinking that he was going to protect her and have her help him close the Unsea.

I’ll be interested to see what Alina’s going to do now to thwart his plans?

The romance between Alina and the Darkling seems… somewhat forced. Definitely falling into the trope of “tall dark and handsome” MMC being unable to control the urge to kiss the “plain jane girl boss” FMC