Sunday Soupçons #37
soupçon/ˈsuːpsɒn,ˈsuːpsɒ̃/ noun
1. a very small quantity of something; a slight trace, as of a particular taste or flavor
Sunday Soupçons is where I scribble mini-reviews for books I don’t have the brainspace/eloquence/smarts to write about in depth – or if I just don’t have anything interesting to say beyond I LIKED IT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT TOO!
Two books I had very different feelings about! But as they both feature alchemy of one kind or another, I figure they can go together.
A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC with dysgraphia, major neurodivergent character
PoV: First-person, past-tense
Published on: 1st April 2025
ISBN: 1399725424
Goodreads
The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match in the gripping sequel to The Tainted Cup—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.
In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.
To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.
Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.
Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.
Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-03-09T14:21:47+00:00", "description": "Impossible murders and cursed sapphics!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/sunday-soupcons-37\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Jackson Bennett", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "1399725424" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 4, "bestRating": "5" }}On a technical level, this is probably excellent: the prose is as great as Bennett’s always is, Din’s voice continues to be fun, and as best I can tell (I’m not a good judge) the mystery that needs solving is very well-constructed! Lots of early readers have loved this, and I think I can see why.
Unfortunately…I was really bored. I was interested initially – the first bit of the mystery, trying to find a man who has vanished, had me hooked, though in hindsight I wonder if most of that was just me being excited to return to this world. But I very quickly lost interest. Which is probably on me: I don’t tend to care about detective-y stories, which means this probably isn’t the series for me – but I loved book one so much I expected to enjoy Drop of Corruption too.
I mean, middle books in fantasy series always have this problem: in the first book, we’re learning about the world, which is entrancing with the right storyteller, but book two has to hold our interest without that. It probably doesn’t help that Drop of Corruption takes place outside the empire, in a nation that wasn’t interesting from a worldbuilding perspective (it’s not a Medieval Europe-lookalike or anything, but the trappings are pretty familiar, with nothing that stood out to me). After being hypnotised by the strangeness of this world in the previous book, that made Drop of Corruption a letdown.
An even bigger disappointment was the gradual realisation that no, this book has nothing at all to do with the previous one. This trilogy doesn’t have an overarching plot; Drop of Corruption is functionally a standalone. I know plenty of readers won’t mind this, but I want series that are tied together or standalones with a much bigger plot than this. (Exceptions exist, like the Cemeteries of Omalo trilogy, but that has a magic combination of prose, worldbuilding, and characters that can keep my interest despite the smaller-scale, unconnected plotlines. I don’t care enough about Ana and Din as people to want to read about them for their own sake, and Bennett’s prose is super readable, but not what I’d call beautiful.)
I really felt like the plotline of Din’s debts was a waste of time; it was barely an issue, and neither was Din’s desire to leave Ana’s service and go work on the Walls. (Ana promises at the start of the book that if Din hasn’t seen why what they do is important by the end of this job, she’ll help him go, and maybe I’m just being Very Autistic, but I didn’t feel that Din’s points were ever addressed properly – and therefore don’t understand what happened there.)
All that being said – most people who loved the first book are going to love this one too, I have no doubt. And I’m happy for them! Even I, who didn’t love it at all, feel obliged to give this four stars, because it being wrong for me doesn’t change that it’s (I think) a great example of what it wants to be.
But for me, Drop of Corruption lost or set aside most of what I loved about the first book, and I’m not sure that I’ll pick up book three.
The Oblivion Bride by Caitlin Starling Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: F/F
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; dual PoVs
Goodreads
{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2025-03-09T14:21:47+00:00", "description": "Impossible murders and cursed sapphics!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/sunday-soupcons-37\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Oblivion Bride", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Caitlin Starling", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 4.5, "bestRating": "5" }}
A deathly magic. An arranged marriage. A curse in the blood.
In the glittering city state of Volun, Lorelei Steddart never thought she'd be anything but an office drone-until her family all die under mysterious and likely magical circumstances, leaving her to inherit everything. To figure out what's happened, her uncle marries her off to the city state's top War Alchemist, Nephele Corisande, an intimidating older woman who might just be able to save her. But what starts as a marriage of pure convenience becomes something deeper. Soon Lorelei and Nephele must untangle a terrible magic that has metastasized into something new and unstable, born in Lorelei's blood.
Obviously I will pounce on anything Caitlin Starling writes, so when I heard she had a queer science fantasy out with Neon Hemlock? I couldn’t hit the buy button fast enough!
Nephele Corisande is an unstoppable force, a world-ending weapon, a calamity in the shape of a fiancée.
And I regret nothing. This is a gorgeous little novella, brimming over with aching emotion: Lorelei, last scion of a noble house she doesn’t want, exhausted and just wanting to be allowed to dye her hair pink again; and Nephele, the prince’s War Alchemist, severe and isolated and duty-bound to unravel the curse killing off Lorelei’s family. It’s amazing to me that Starling conveys the intensity of the incredible awkwardness between them at the beginning – the first scene with the fertility doctor is dehumanising and awful, and you can feel poor Lorelei’s humiliation at going through it with this terrifying stranger present – and so deftly transforms it, alchemist-like, into a growing love that’s so easy to believe in. In so few pages! Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another novella whose romance was so convincing and real to me.
She shifts, then, caging Lorelei in with her arms, gazing down at this girl who has been handed to her, who needs her, who is so fierce it makes the stars dull in shame beside her. From an obligation to a mystery to an obsession–Nephele can think of no finer path to adoration.
Starling has created an interesting setting, where mobile phones exist but magic has turned the world outside the cities into unstable chaos. There are remnants of ancient, powerful, long-lost civilisations, and railcars that run on magic; Lorelei undergoes fertility treatments while Nephele battles magical machines. The setting, and society, are familiar in so many ways, and then wildly not in others, in a way that delighted me.
But the characters are the best part. I loved seeing Lorelei grow in confidence, find her spine and her teeth; and I loved seeing the badass, cold Nephele soften and trip into Catching Feels. They’re both so incredibly human; Lorelei in particular makes some very stupid calls…but they’re so understandable in context, because she’s grieving and scared and tired. Nephele throwing herself into finding and removing the curse, first because it’s her job, then because she’s offended it’s eluding her, and finally because she’s frantic to save Lorelei… It’s wonderful, and convincing: you feel all of it with her. There’s little whispers of a Beauty and the Beast situation, kinda, in that Nephele is magically powerful and intimidating and scary-looking and Lorelei is just sort of given to her…and of course, that Lorelei is maybe the first person ever to really see Nephele as a person, not a useful weapon??? *chef’s kiss* Delicious. We love to see it!
I would happily read an entire novel of these characters and this setting, but Oblivion Bride is exactly the right length as it is: Starling knew exactly what story she wanted to tell and exactly how many words it needed, and gave it that, no more and no less. There’s always something so satisfying about a short story or novella that is exactly the right length, where the story has not been squashed down or stretched further than it should be, and Oblivion Bride hits the sweet spot.
The actual explanation for the curse felt very abrupt to me, and I didn’t like what I understood of the ending (and a fair bit of it left me confused), but this was a wonderful read that I need more people to know about!
Trigger Warnings: [View post to see spoiler]
The post Sunday Soupçons #37 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
