chantelleatkinswriter 's review for:

Gobbelino London & A Contagion of Zombies by Kim M. Watt

5.0

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I'm not normally one for reading fantasy or comedy, but every now and then I feel like a change and let's be honest, with the current state of the world, sometimes the best thing you can do is lose yourself in a light-hearted book. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the first book in the series, A Scourge of Pleasantries, but it was the characters that really did it for me. The story itself, like this one, is fast-paced, funny, full of twists and turns, magic, disaster and intrigue, but to make all of that work you need believable, likable characters, and the author has achieved this and then some. The series is narrated by a cat, Gobbelino, one half of a Private Investigator partnership. Scruffy and solemn Callum makes up the other half of the duo and I might be a bit in love with them both. I'm not sure why; maybe it's the set-up, a talking, magical cat and a loner solving mysteries together, maybe it's the witty dialogue between them, the hints at their past lives that make you want to know more, or the obvious love and respect they have for each other. Maybe it's all those things! As I already said, on the surface this is not the type of book I generally look out for, but I am so glad I gave this series a go. In this book the pair run into zombies and have to figure out how, why and who is behind it. They bundle from one scrape to another and with the help of an eclectic and fascinating collection of secondary characters, they manage to save the day. If you need to smile, to laugh, to feel good about people, to get invested in some characters you are really going to care about, then do give this series and this author a go. You won't regret it and the world will seem just a bit brighter afterwards too.