The Monster of Elendhaven

Having sexual assault to make your character's backstory more dark is not cool, especially this early on.

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just a gruesome little story that I wanted to live in longer despite how grubby and terrible it was. definitely read with caution if assault - especially of a minor - is triggering to you. 3.5 things from the sea, rounded up.

3.5 actually

This was on my wishlist for so long! I recently saw it on a list of great ‘horror novellas,' so I decided to finally grab it for this spooky season. Such a cool cover and nice quality for a little hardcover novella. 
Firstly, this story is very inventive. A dark and criminal world, the dark and criminal city of Elendhaven, the dark and criminal population, all of it read well for me. This is best labeled as a fantasy horror. There's world-building, magic, a sorcerer, an industrial-era-esque cityscape, an assassin/gutter rat, and a mage-hunter. I enjoyed the writing and also how the author presented the world. Whenever a story has swords/knives, magic, and firearms, my mind always goes directly to the Dishonored video game franchise. Which is a good thing, because I love Dishonored. Not to mention the dirty, back-alleyed hustle of the city. Definitely a hit for me. 
Secondly, with this being a novella, the pace was fast. With that being said, I still kind of felt like it didn't exactly lead somewhere, there should have been more, or a more definite ending. I didn't dislike the way it ended, it just felt like it didn't exactly jive with where it was headed originally, but maybe that's the point... 
Personally a 3.5/5*. Enjoyable, quick, spooky. 

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht starts with a dark promise of scintillation and details so sharp and vivid they slice like a knife. For example, “Thin ice isn't a problem for the sea; it's a problem for the blind idiot who steps out on it. The fool who breaks it gets sucked under; the ice, it mends.” The visual is stunning.

An idiot on unforgiving ice falling through, passing into the icy depths as a relentless and ruthless sheet of ice mends the whole. The idiot disappears as if he never existed. It is gorgeous; it is the type of description that sticks with a reader. Sometime in the future, when a reader is next to a frozen lake, the visual of unforgiving ice will come crashing to the forefront of the reader's mind. It will cause them to take a massive step back from the edge.

The Monster of Elendhaven is brutal and full of passages that evoke such dark imagery. If I was to judge the reading experience of Giesbrecht's use of language and imagery, this is one of the most haunting and atmospheric books I have read in a long while. But a story cannot just be extremely quotable passages, and that is where it ultimately went off the rails for me.

The premise is that there is a town, a dark skulking village on the edge of a seashore where everything is poison. “(it) sulks on the edge of the ocean. Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily.” Many things may kill you in this dark victorian-esque town, most notably is “A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart and long pale fingers yearning to wrap around throats. A monster who cannot die.” This monster is a man named Johann, a man who remembers nothing of his creation. He is a man who cannot die, and he has tried many times. He has thrown himself off buildings, stabbed himself, poisoned... everything. He will not die.

The other character of the book is a man named Florian, who is a different kind of monster. Florian is an accountant by day but something else entirely by night. Johann becomes infatuated with Florian. These two monsters swirl and dance around each other like leaves caught in a tornado. There is gruesome detail, murder most foul, and a love story that left me a little confused and uncomfortable. Johann almost stalks Florian, but Johann is in for a surprise as Florian is no one's prey.

In the end, though, while the visuals and detailing in this book is spectacular, the plotting felt very shaky. It is a story that needs a nudge in a direction. If it is horror, revel in the spectacle of it. If it is a love story, fabulous. These two characters shall enchant me. But being in the middle left me neither scared nor enchanted with the love between the two main characters.

This is an interesting book, but I can't really say I enjoyed it. I thought it was a romance, but it's a horror novella. There's a lot of explicit violence and gore, including people suffering from a plague. Johann is a murderer and delights in killing. If you prefer to look for content warnings, you definitely need to do that for this book. Or if there's something specific you avoid, ask me.

Florian is evil. Imagine the evilest villain you can. I don't mean the fun kind of villain, but someone you actively loathe. For me, I think of Prince Regal in the first Farseer Trilogy and Kai Winn from Deep Space Nine. Now imagine this villain has a henchman who is completely devoted to them, and they have sex. That's pretty much the nature of the pairing between Florian and Johann. It has an element of fated mates, as well, in a way that I found extremely off-putting.

I don't mind gay villains but these two (especially Florian) are written like deviants. Johann says flat out (not a direct quote), “you prefer men because no woman measures up to your sister.” I'm not comfortable with anything about that. It also would've been really easy to make this world queernormative, but instead, they're transgressing with their relationship too, in addition to all their actual crimes.

I did like the dynamic between them because I've never read anything quite like it. Florian doesn't have any soft edges. He is actively cruel to Johann at every turn. Johann is a brute but he loves everything about Florian, including his cruelty. There is no explicit sex, but the love scenes are like twisted games. Very dark and strange.

I also liked the imagery. The crumbling industrial city was very easy for me to see and it felt original, while reminding me of other settings. The streets and interiors felt desolate and decayed. This writer is skilled at establishing mood and at painting a detailed picture.

I think I might've enjoyed the book much more, despite all my distaste, if I had liked the writing style, but I did not. It's overloaded with metaphors. I am kind of pretentious myself and I rarely think that about books, but I did have that feeling here. I wasn't enchanted. But I listened to the audiobook and I liked the narrator, Daniel Henning, who was new to me.

Overall, I only recommend this to people who enjoy horror. I don't like the nature of the relationship, and I don't believe we are at a place as a society where we can conscionably write queer relationships this way without doing harm to the perception of real people's lives.

This was right up my street. Very dark and haunting with a slight m/m bent. Johann grew up on the streets not knowing where he was from or who he was, named on a whim by a drunk sailor who immediately met his end after, but then he sees Florian and is drawn to the dandy in a way he doesn't understand. Murder, magic, plague, all in a very dark, viscerally described setting. I commend the author for getting so much story into so little pages (a mere 103 in my copy) but also left me wanting more.
The only problem I had is the last chapter (with John, similar origins to Johann) was very confusing as it was unclear if this was Johann or a completely new character and it also sounded like Sondenfell was actually London (very Jack the Ripper vibes when describing the murders).

Overall, it was a fun, quick read that's not going to be for everyone.

“Monster, monster, monster. When you say it it starts like a kiss and ends with a hiss.”

Delightfully perverse. Perfect ending.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5 stars

My first thoughts upon finishing this book: Wow! But... what did I just read?

This book is creepy, atmospheric, and amazing. I loved every minute of it and have serious plans to re-read it.

This novella focuses on a man who no one seems to remember and can't die. He does bad deeds to survive and have fun. Then he “introduces himself” to another and gets involved in a complicated plot revolving around their desolate, dying town.

The whole time I sat there trying to figure out their connection, the magic behind what was going on, and what exactly they would do. And yes, I read this novella in one sitting. While the length is perfect, I totally could have used so, so much more.

Now, I will admit that I usually don't like short stories, I need more – and while I felt that here, it was in a different way. I wanted more because I wasn't – didn't want to be done with the story. There is so much mystery here, so much story told between the lines. I cannot wait to read this again and see what new tidbits I glean from it.

Let me spare a few lines for the two characters – our monsters. They are creepy and gritty in different ways with backgrounds and motives that shape what they do. I adored them and their gory ways. The thing is, I wasn't sold on there being a romance. Do they have a relationship? Sometimes I thought yes, other times I felt like Johann was just pushing limits, as he does.

I completely enjoyed reading this book, but I'm saying 4.5 stars because there were totally parts I didn't understand or may not have understood correctly. But the vibes, the writing style... beautiful. While this is the first book I've read by this author, it will not be the last.

I received an ARC of this book from Tor.com Publishing in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Names are powerful things. For a long time, Johann of Elendhaven was a thing without a name. After a drunken sailor named Johann in a fit of violence, Johann's dark and twisted nature took root as he learned survival on the streets.

Monster was the best, his favourite word. The first syllable formed a kiss, the second was a hiss.
Florian Leickenbloom is the last surviving member of the family that built Elendhaven from the ground up. He's a frail magician with a passion for revenge and a talent for twisting the minds of others.

Together, Johann and Florian make for a dark and twisted pair. Even though I found myself rooting for them to triumph over the innocent town of Elendhaven, I was never truly invested in their fate. Both are unrepentantly despicable and equally deserving of the title Monster of Elendhaven.

The Monster of Elendhaven is not an easy story to describe. It's a bit like a gay Frankenstein meets a post-apocalyptic Count of Monte Cristo... only darker. Johann and Florian are nearly as terrible to each other as they are to Elendhaven, and despite the sexual tension between them do not expect this story to be a romance. While this novella is a brilliant and gripping horror, it would make for an absolutely horrendous love story.

Death is kind. It's only life that holds suffering.
The broader world in which this story takes place is fascinating, even if mostly confined to the background. A magical disaster akin to a nuclear Armageddon took place hundreds of years ago, and the city of Elendhaven is built in one of the craters that were left behind. Parts of the world were corrupted beyond repair, and the occasional deformed creature still appears from time to time.

There's also a secret organization of deadly Mage Hunters who don't take too kindly to magicians abusing their powers.

The Monster of Elendhaven is not fun. It's not happy. And by all that's dark and unholy, it is not a romance.

It is, however, a compelling and disturbing dark fantasy that's lingered in my imagination for weeks.

More reviews at The Fantasy Inn.