Within This Darkness

[cornerofmadness]

Within This Darkness by Chris Tomasini

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was one of my netgalley arcs that somehow slipped through the cracks, didn't show up on my list until August. It debuted in February.

I liked this a lot. There are some clunky passages and it has that head hopping style (that doesn't bother me but I know it does bug some people). It's in two different time periods, one being from WWI through to WWII and the other is 2017 Canada.

The interwar period storyline centers on five Polish sisters, the Obaras who can do magic. They can teleport between locations like the X-Men's Nightcrawler (if they can picture it they can go there) and the rest of the magic seems to be if they can imagine it, they can do it (within limits, for example they never master flight). Eva, especially, is working as a spy for the military. Agata is as well and it opens in media res with them trying to save her.

Only Agata has done some spell that has put her in suspended animation, alive, unaging but unable to awake. Her sisters are looking for the near mythic Walker who might be able to save her.

In 2017 Jeremy is a teenaged boy trying to deal with some heavy things. His great aunt Kasia's beginnings of dementia, his mother's over protectiveness and his father, a wildlife biologist studying wolves, being on a job far away. The latter two are trauma responses after the death of Jeremy's sister, Anne, a few months before. Jeremy luckily survived the car crash.

Jeremy also has a way with wolves and tries to rescue them. He's also not in school (bereavement leave) and spends a lot of time in the woods, leading to a discovery about his family, his past and himself that he wasn't expecting.

Also there is Agent Shambling, military, who knows about the sisters and their magic and believes the Douro legend involves them and he can solve it. He might know more about the sisters than their remaining family does. This also means that he is so obsessed that he has no qualms about trying to force Great Aunt Kasia into things and kidnapping some kids.

Jeremy and the sisters are all interesting characters. I liked how the story unfolded. I very much liked the stuff in the wars with the sisters. I don't know how much more we'll get of that in the next two books but if Tomasini decided to write a prequel with just them, I'd be there for it.

I thought the ending might have been a bit too easy but in the end, Shambling is more obsessed and making bad, rash decisions than he is truly evil (for now at least) I would like to see book two.



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