For this blog tour, we’re looking at a strong magical realism/ romance/ mystery combo that leaves off a discussion that could have taken this book from solid to transcendental. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Library Of Fates by Margot Harrison.
First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com / BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / PageBound.co / TheStoryGraph.com) and YouTube:
Strong Magical Realism/ Romance/ Mystery Combo. This book had a lot of things for a lot of readers, but curiously, it only had a single line or two about a real world version of itself. But more on that in a moment.
The mysteries here are solid. There’s a dual timeline going on, mostly set in the world just before the collapse in 2020, with the “current” timeline being set in late 2019 and the “then” timeline being back in the 1990s. When the two different mysteries converge… things get quite interesting indeed, setting up one hell of a climax that will take your breath away. As in, if you go into that section just before bed… just plan to stay up a bit later than normal. Once you get there in particular, you’re not going to want to put this book down.
The romance plays out across both timelines as well, with some interesting complications due to the events of the mystery sides of the tale, and is reasonably paced throughout. Nothing overly spicy here, perhaps somewhere between a warm glass of milk and a jalapeno. Maybe somewhere around a Banana or Poblano pepper? Enough that the warm glass of milk crowd may get a little antsy, but also so little that the crowd that barely thinks a habanero is anything at all may not even think there is any spice to be had here at all. I mean, these are college students brought together in an unusual and magical circumstance. Yes, things are going to happen.
But the one thing that hangs over this entire book is the one thing that Harrison only devotes a line or two to – the fact that the very thing that is supposed to be magical about this book, tech in 2025 can already damn near do – and likely will be fully capable of within the next five years or so. While it may not be an *exact* analogue to the magical bit of this book – in that it won’t be a singular book for everyone – AI is largely already to the point that for many readers, particularly those who only read a few books a year or even a few books a decade, AI can already give them a book tailored specifically to their own interests that is largely compelling enough for those exact types of readers. And yes, this is going to be a problem for authors going forward. What happens when the tech gets good enough to satisfy even those of us who read hundreds of books per year? Harrison could have used even her magical version here to perhaps explore this possibility more in a “pre-AI” magical world, but instead uses this part of the magic as more of a macguffin or even an end game set piece than really exploring this idea in any real depth. Which, to this reader, is perhaps a lost opportunity to take a solid mystery/ romance and have it get that much deeper and more timeless.
Still, for what this story actually is and what it actually does, it actually does – *ahem* – all things – *ahem* – quite well within its world, and this is absolutely a book that a lot of different types of readers will be able to enjoy quite a bit.
Very much recommended.
After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Library Of Fates by Margot Harrison”
