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Title: Mortal Follies
Author: Alexis Hall
Pages: 400
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: 6th June 2023
Blurb from Goodreads:
A young noblewoman must join forces with a rumoured witch to
conquer an ancient curse in this devilishly funny and heartwarming
sapphic Regency romantasy from TikTok titan and bestselling author of
Boyfriend Material Alexis Hall.
It is the year 1814
and Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into the highest society
of Bath hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously
enough, with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an
evening at the ball of the season, a scandal she only narrowly
manages to escape.
However, as the curse progresses to
more fatal proportions, she realises she must seek out urgent
assistance, even if that means mixing with the most undesirable
company-and there are few less desirable allies than the brooding
Lady Georgiana Landrake-who may or may not have murdered her own
father and brothers to inherit their fortune.
If one is to
believe the gossip, she might be some kind of malign
enchantress.
Then again, a malign enchantress might be exactly
what Miss Mitchelmore needs.
Goodreads | Storygraph | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Bookshop
My Review:
*I received an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley*
Maelys Mitchelmore is a young lady enjoying her time in Bath society when strange things begin to happen to her. Maelys learns that someone has put a curse on her, and she must work with her friends to undo the curse before it is too late.
Maelys finds unexpected, and somewhat reluctant, help from Lady Georgiana Landrake, a young woman people avoid due to the strange deaths of Lady Georgiana's brothers and father, that rumour has it she caused.
Can Maelys undo the curse?
The premise for this book intrigued me, as I liked the mix of the historical setting with magic and a sapphic romance thrown in (this is not a spoiler as the book is promoted as a sapphic romantasy). However, I ended up being disappointed.
Maelys was an okay protagonist. I liked her for the most part, but I didn't feel that I really got to know her and she felt very flat to me.
I didn't like Lady Georgiana very much. I understand that she acted the way she did because of things that had happened to her in the past, but that didn't absolve her for me, even with the things Georgiana did to help Maelys.
Miss Bickle was probably my favourite character, although she did feel a bit like the comic relief at times.
The romance felt forced to me, and I couldn't feel the connection between the characters.
The story is told from the perspective of a hobgoblin, which was unique. However, this did make it hard to connect with the characters and with what was happening as it felt like I was on the outside, and clearly being told what was happening, instead of experiencing events with the characters.
The plot was mixed - I enjoyed it to begin with, but then I found myself losing interest. The pacing was a big problem for me, because something happened around halfway through that I was expecting to happen towards the end. Unfortunately, not much seemed to happen after that, and I did find myself skim reading a little to try and get to the end, as I was bored and not invested in the plot or characters at all.
I was disappointed that I didn't enjoy this more.
Overall, this was a mixed read.
