A review by tomlloyd
The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard

5.0

A subtle, breath-of-fresh-air novel capable of being elegant and nasty in the same breath. The pervading sense of decay and threat is a looming presence as we step a little further out of the Houses and onto the streets/in the river of Paris. Its very different to most fantasies I read and all the better for that, with none of the markers that would make me avoid an angel-urban fantasy novels. Having read book 1 I found this all just clicked much more easily into place in my brain, though there were the occasional details (such as size/population of House, circumstances of god or state of the rest of the world) that I couldn't recall whether I'd learned them in book 1, but none of that detracted from my enjoyment. Binding Thorns was far too well written for that to be a problem.