Guia de Aves del Estrecho de Gibraltar. Field Guide to the Birds of the Strait of Gibraltar

~ HAPPY RELEASE DAY! ~

>> you know the drill - obligatory spoiler warning for those who haven't read the original Hollow Folk series yet! believe me, this spin-off hits more keenly and with more oomph post-HF, once your brain's undergone a fundamental change in its chemistry.

[4.25] yesterday i sat myself down at my desk with the full expectation of knocking out a review before dinner - back straight, fingers poised, ready to produce a clickety-clackety melody on my mechanical keyboard - only to find the words wouldn't come. i was dazed. overcome. and feeling a wee bit fragile, to be completely honest. imagine me encased in a bubble wrap burrito with red “handle with care” tape slapped across my chest. a little something like that.

i don't do well with endings or goodbyes. i gratuitously ponder the end of adventures i have yet to embark on, and then oftentimes get too lost in premature mourning to fully appreciate the ride once my turn's come. a week of quarantining hasn't helped much either, both dulling my physical senses and sharpening the emotional ones. in essence, i'm unstable enough as it is. so why not read the final book of a Gregory Ashe series to add fuel to the fire?

GA had me in the first half, not gonna lie. i regrettably haven't found the mishmash of factions and leaders in this universe to be massively compelling and i can't quite put a finger on why that's the case - are they too tame? too shrouded in cryptic flimflam for me to make heads or tails? or did i just devour these books without pausing to savor them properly? (the last one. definitely the last one.) the shorter length of these books may have also undermined the sense of urgency and threat from these vertiginous antagonists, because as much chaos as our heroes have had to bear already, it still feels as though we've only scratched the surface - but that could very well be my insatiable greed talking.

the faltering reached its peak with a few situations requiring a touch too much suspension of disbelief for my liking (i know, trying to logic the paranormal genre is futile, but the brain does what the brain wants), but trust me when i say hang in there: those last gobsmacking chapters downright made me their prisoner. if you had passed by my room then and did a double, triple, quadruple take, you would've caught me in a new state of mental distress each and every time: buffered screams, explosive laughter, statue-still shock, silent flopping about like a fish on land, the list goes on. my family didn't even deign to check in because they're already well-accustomed to my emotions going haywire. just another day of going full bananas over fictional characters.

now, when i tell you the Jimmett ship goes through it, i mean it in every sense, shape, and form of the phrase. i had to give myself a few moments to collect my composure, because the way some scenes had me scrambling to pick my jaw up off the floor...


we were all thinking it, but HOLY KAMOLEY. no punches pulled, which was oddly & perilously cathartic in the entirety of this wild whirlwind of startling reversals, nostalgia trips, and bitter doses of biting honesty.

Emmett remains the snappy, zesty fiend we all know and love. a wild, injured animal you stumble upon on the side of the road with a charismatic allure that compels you to offer a helping hand, only to return home with a failure in the books and one less functional limb. sure, he's a handful. but he's Jim's brattylicious handful.

Jim(bo Baggins), on the other hand, has miraculously managed to maintain an inhuman level of composure so far. until now. the more we learn of his past, the closer his hour to assume a razor edge, taking a page or two out of the all-consuming Manual of Mayhem, approaches. this is a two for one combo that might just break your heart.

but throughout the highs and lows, interlaced with the miasma of fear, pretend, and vacuity, they recognize on a bone-deep level that they are each other's anchor when circumstances set them adrift, and guiding beacons of light in the lifelong struggle of giving oneself grace.

Thank you to the author for providing a complimentary copy of this book; this is my honest review :)

—-pre-release thoughts—-

makes grabby hands who else wants to join me in screaming for March 24 to arrive already so book 3 can drop when book 2 hasn't even been set free yet? the good ol' gut's telling me we're going to be wishing they were released mere days from each other for sanity's sake