A review by kitnotmarlowe
Moonshine by Jasmine Gower

adventurous funny mysterious 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? No

4.0

This book surprised me. First, while I don't let other people's reviews influence my reading, the 3.45* rating is significantly lower than I would gravitate toward. Moonshine is far better than its low rating suggests. Secondly, it's urban fantasy, a genre I find inherently silly (a personal issue), particularly when it's historical or historically inspired and especially when magic and fairies are involved. And yet, not only did I enjoy Moonshine, but it's the rare standalone novel I wish was part of a series. I think that a lot of this is due to the setting.

If the copy didn't specify that Soot City is fantasy Chicago, I don't think I would've guessed. Then again, I have never been to Chicago and cannot easily recognize its landscape. One of the reasons I avoid historical fantasy is that the history is either left unchanged, aside from a few gimmicks or is treated as nothing more than set dressing. Gower does something fascinating in Moonshine by creating a world that, while analogous to America, bears little resemblance to it. Ashland is a land of volcanoes that has only recently become habitable, a new country covered in ashfall rather than rain. Not only is this idea fun, but it also takes an interesting approach to the melting pot mythology of American culture without the genocide upon which the country was founded. (For the record, it appears that all bigotry in this universe is based on magic.)

While Ashland may be recognizable as the good ol' US of A, 

Gower avoids another of historical fantasy's laziest tropes: making every fantasy country a perfect analogue to the real world. This is fantasy America, this is fantasy Japan, and this is fantasy France, etc. Here, you can intuit things based on character appearances, but otherwise, the countries are geographically and culturally unrecognizable from our own.

 

Moving on from the worldbuilding, I felt that the pacing was perfect for the page count, the conflict was resolved in a way that I honestly did not see coming, and at one point, I laughed so hard that I worried my downstairs neighbours heard me through the vents. The character work is a little thin (especially with the men, who I had trouble differentiating between despite there only being about 3 total), but honestly, it's not a major complaint in the grand scheme of things.