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A review by kaa
Gods & Lies by Elizabeth Vail
3.0
Gods & Lies is a quick, fast-paced urban fantasy/mystery. I really enjoyed the world-building, but wasn't as much of a fan of the mystery or the developing romance. I'll consider reading the next season of the series, which finished recently.
I generally like secondary-world urban fantasy better than urban fantasy set in variations of our own world, and I really like what Vail has done with the development of her setting here. This was the best part of the book for me. The pantheon seems pretty clearly based on Greek and Roman gods, but with some interesting twists (I loved the idea of the Threemothers, for instance). Partially because of similarities to our world, it was pretty easy to grasp how things worked and what the rules were, generally. I felt the author was successful in creating a cohesive system of gods, humans, and other entities, and then examining the conflicts that might arise out of that system as it changed over time. I enjoyed the way those conflicts were used to support the main plot of the story.
Where I had more trouble was the plot itself. While I had fun racing around with Iris and Andy to try to solve the mystery, I found the actual solution predictable and disappointing. This was somewhat ameliorated because of other aspects of the resolution that I enjoyed - the way this case related back to the bigger picture of human-god relations, in particular - but at the moment of the big reveal I was seriously considering giving the book only 2 stars. Additionally, I found the romance boring. Iris and Andy are fairly shallow characters, although they both do have potential, but a romance between them seemed a bit out of character and not especially supported by anything in-text beyond the fact that it might be expected of this type of story/relationship.
The writing was, on the whole, engaging and easy to read. However, there was some annoyingly exposition-heavy dialogue in the middle that I would have preferred to skipped - the information could have been introduced much more gracefully.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book.
I generally like secondary-world urban fantasy better than urban fantasy set in variations of our own world, and I really like what Vail has done with the development of her setting here. This was the best part of the book for me. The pantheon seems pretty clearly based on Greek and Roman gods, but with some interesting twists (I loved the idea of the Threemothers, for instance). Partially because of similarities to our world, it was pretty easy to grasp how things worked and what the rules were, generally. I felt the author was successful in creating a cohesive system of gods, humans, and other entities, and then examining the conflicts that might arise out of that system as it changed over time. I enjoyed the way those conflicts were used to support the main plot of the story.
Where I had more trouble was the plot itself. While I had fun racing around with Iris and Andy to try to solve the mystery, I found the actual solution predictable and disappointing. This was somewhat ameliorated because of other aspects of the resolution that I enjoyed - the way this case related back to the bigger picture of human-god relations, in particular - but at the moment of the big reveal I was seriously considering giving the book only 2 stars. Additionally, I found the romance boring. Iris and Andy are fairly shallow characters, although they both do have potential, but a romance between them seemed a bit out of character and not especially supported by anything in-text beyond the fact that it might be expected of this type of story/relationship.
The writing was, on the whole, engaging and easy to read. However, there was some annoyingly exposition-heavy dialogue in the middle that I would have preferred to skipped - the information could have been introduced much more gracefully.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book.