Reviews with content warning for Murder - Seasonal Fears

I didn't love this as much as Middlegame, but it was still delightful. Very different than that one but just as much fun. I like seeing how these books tie into the series McGuire is writing with Avery and Zib.

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leanne_miron's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Melanie has been dying her whole life under the watchful eye of her alchemist father, Harry has been by her side for as much of it as he possibly can. When they both collapse during practice after school it kicks off a road trip with some strange companions to try and fulfill a destiny Mel was designed for and Harry was born for. But they're not the only ones who could fill their seasonal roles...

Long sections of complicated worldbuilding are conveyed through explanations, repeated with the building familiarity of a fable, and the shifting tones of a bedtime story gone terribly awry. Convoluted concepts are told and revisited, which makes it soothing and easy to follow, since if one version doesn’t click there will be another try. Most of the story is a conversation, between the characters, the narrator explaining the how and why to the reader. It’s a style where the “why” of each thought is just as important as the “what”, twisting and curling around each other. I love dialogue-heavy stories so I had a great time. The characters are traveling by car for much of the book, so the general cadence is conversation punctuated by violence as they run into other candidates, or the few times the narration cuts away to the aftermath of violence another candidate is doing elsewhere.

Mel and Harry have the comfortable rapport of a long-established relationship and even longer friendship. It gets a bit strained at times because they're young (still in high school) and suddenly discovering you have to leave immediately with a kid you just met can be rather stressful on any relationship. Jack ends up knowing so much that at times I kept forgetting she's still a kid, and I was grateful for the occasional reminders of that fact.

This wraps up several things left hanging from MIDDLEGAME, at first by featuring a minor character from that book. It waits until halfway through before pulling in any major characters from the first book, a decision which works very well to establish Harry and Mel on their own, completely separate from any of the very strong personalities in MIDDLEGAME. When they do show up their appearances are important and brief, confirming the stories as part of one larger whole, but refusing to overshadow the Seasons.

This is an entirely new storyline, linked to MIDDLEGAME by alchemical experimentation and the general goal of embodying natural phenomena in human forms, but featuring a new group of characters and a new way of ordering the world. It won’t be the last book in the series. It leaves open what these particular characters will do next, as well as the more general question of what other things the alchemists have got up to, what other forces are pinned to flesh or naturally manifested. It both introduces and resolves the very important issue of the Summer and Winter monarchs.

This would mostly make sense even if you start here and haven’t read MIDDLEGAME, it’s such a complete story that I think it could be satisfying and understandable to such a reader. However, I definitely recommend reading MIDDLEGAME first, as well as the important but slightly more optional related series, The Up-and-Under by A. Deborah Baker, to know who Avery and Zib are.

As I approached the final chapters the resolution at first felt a bit anticlimactic, a bit too neat and solved after so much effort… then I actually finished it and that feeling is solved by one raising more issue and applying a more definitive catharsis. It fits the pacing and tone of the rest of the book very well, in addition to paying off a detail which was established almost as soon as the book began but hadn’t really mattered yet.

SEASONAL FEARS is an excellent sequel to MIDDLEGAME and a great book in its own right, don't miss it!

Content Warnings

kadtide's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kaleidoscope_heart's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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adancewithbooks's review against another edition

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3.0

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

Seasonal Fears was a long awaited sequel for many Middlegame lovers. I can't say I was a lover of Middlegame but I certainly enjoyed it for what it was. I'm not sure I can say the same for Seasonal Fears.

The book introduces us Melanie and Harry, childhood sweet hearts. Melanie is seriously ill however, a heart condition. Life seems fairly simple outside of that but when both go down at the football field, a whole new world opens up for them. Possible reincarnations of Summer and Winter and a scheming father.

A lot stands and falls with me when it comes to characters. And in this case I was not grabbed by our two characters. Neither Melanie or Harry grabbed me in anyway. They just kept feeling like these teenage stereotypes of supposed true love. I just didn't care for either of them and none of the side characters were very interesting.

Even the entry of our Middlegame characters felt stereotypical. They didn't quite feel like the characters I got to know in the previous book.

The story itself is interesting. Reincarnations of the seasons is a rather interesting take that has always drawn many towards it like elemental magic. That there are many possibilities, and different ones on different continents I like. Different continents have different ways with seasons and if you are going to have human reincarnations it makes sense to deal with that.

However I found the ending itself, the actual choosing of the reincarnations, weak.

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collopy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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utopiastateofmind's review against another edition

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5.0

(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

Seasonal Fears is this perfect mash up of a rich and complex fantasy world, a love that might be doomed - jury's still out - and a fight that just might change everything they ever knew. While it took me a bit of time to get used to the world, and honestly I could very well be missing things, I ended up adoring every moment. McGuire is able to balance a world we think we know, from Middlegame, and introduce another dimension (I loved the interactions from the first one here). Overall it feels multi-dimensional and a bit otherworldly.

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