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A review by catevari
Ran Away by Barbara Hambly
4.0
Another delightful outing from Hambly. I was explaining to a friend how I now read so many more new (to me) authors than I ever have, but so many of those books make me forget what a deep, abiding pleasure that reading can be. When I read Hambly, I always find that deeply absorbed, completely immersed pleasure again.
As well, Hambly's one of the few White authors who, to my mind, writes of other races and cultures with lucid mindfulness and a humanist empathy that seemed remarkable before I started reading so widely and now that I do, seems almost completely unique.
This outing gets deeper into Benjamin January's exile in Paris; not just the still-painful memories of his dead wife, Ayasha, but the places and friends he knew so intimately and left behind when he returned to America. It adds fullness not only to Ben's backstory and character, but a greater context of the tragedy of Ayasha's death and how much it cost him to leave that piece of his life behind, regardless of the happiness he's found now.
Because the book goes so quickly into an extended flashback, I was worried that the bulk of the mystery would be set in the past, in Paris, and that the secondary mystery presented in the prologue would end up being an afterthought. I really needn't have worried, though; Hambly did an excellent job of blending those past and present events--and events and characters from the series--into a single, cohesive ans satisfying whole. I'm so pleased Severn House picked up and continues to publish this series; I'll keep buying them as long as Hambly keeps writing them.
As well, Hambly's one of the few White authors who, to my mind, writes of other races and cultures with lucid mindfulness and a humanist empathy that seemed remarkable before I started reading so widely and now that I do, seems almost completely unique.
This outing gets deeper into Benjamin January's exile in Paris; not just the still-painful memories of his dead wife, Ayasha, but the places and friends he knew so intimately and left behind when he returned to America. It adds fullness not only to Ben's backstory and character, but a greater context of the tragedy of Ayasha's death and how much it cost him to leave that piece of his life behind, regardless of the happiness he's found now.
Because the book goes so quickly into an extended flashback, I was worried that the bulk of the mystery would be set in the past, in Paris, and that the secondary mystery presented in the prologue would end up being an afterthought. I really needn't have worried, though; Hambly did an excellent job of blending those past and present events--and events and characters from the series--into a single, cohesive ans satisfying whole. I'm so pleased Severn House picked up and continues to publish this series; I'll keep buying them as long as Hambly keeps writing them.