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A review by laelyn
The Conductors by Nicole Glover
2.0
I admit I had a hard time with this book. The premise is so interesting and the story started off so well, and I loved the combination of a real historic event with fantasy elements. I've never read a fictional story set during the times of the Underground Railroad (or at least I can't remember one), Sadly, I didn't enjoy the world building and the magic system too much. The magic was never properly explained, so while we know that white people can use sorcery and black Americans, who are banned from using wands and sorcery, can use celestial magic. But how any of this actually works? I have no idea. There is also an overabundance of dialogue, and I know this is a weird thing to say because who doesn't love dialogue? But the dialogue in this book often consists of the characters repeating what we already know, telling someone else about what they, and we as the readers, have already learned. That is pretty boring and I caught myself skipping a few lines here and there.
The main character, Hetty, has so much potential and I really do like her. She's a protagonist I enjoyed following and I wanted her to succeed. The other characters, sadly, weren't fleshed out at all - I honestly had a hard time distinguishing between them. There was just no meat to them so I simply didn't care. The same goes for the romance between Hetty and her husband Benjy. While I really like the concept of two characters that once married for practical reasons and then develop romantic feelings later on, I just didn't feel the chemistry between them.
I really wish I liked this book more because there is so much potential here, but in the end, I had to force myself to finish the book because I wasn't excited about the murder mystery aspect of it either. This is a debut novel and it reads like one, but I'm sure that with more in-depth exploration of the world, the magic system and the characters this could turn into an interesting series.
Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books/Netgalley for the arc!
The main character, Hetty, has so much potential and I really do like her. She's a protagonist I enjoyed following and I wanted her to succeed. The other characters, sadly, weren't fleshed out at all - I honestly had a hard time distinguishing between them. There was just no meat to them so I simply didn't care. The same goes for the romance between Hetty and her husband Benjy. While I really like the concept of two characters that once married for practical reasons and then develop romantic feelings later on, I just didn't feel the chemistry between them.
I really wish I liked this book more because there is so much potential here, but in the end, I had to force myself to finish the book because I wasn't excited about the murder mystery aspect of it either. This is a debut novel and it reads like one, but I'm sure that with more in-depth exploration of the world, the magic system and the characters this could turn into an interesting series.
Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books/Netgalley for the arc!