A novella with a fascinating conundrum at its heart: Do we ever really know what it is that others are experiencing? Can even the most earnest desire to understand someone who isn't yourself to fully get you? Now, make the head you're occupying for this story one organized differently from you. And make it impossible for those around the head to emit the usual clouds of lies we all fog up the welkin with.

Oh boy. This will be good.

Luckily it was good indeed, though very deliberate in its action. The point is that we're in a world that isn't consensus reality because of a wiring difference. Not expecting a fast-paced series of events will make this a better reading experience. Going with the lovely, lush prose will help your enjoyment build as well.

What matters all occurs in The Between. It is, and isn't, a semi-mythical rock group; it is, and isn't, a place in a theater called the McLuhan (!) that Verity (!!) reaches with the help of Santiago (!!!), whose difference is more materially oriented than Verity's. (Shadows aren't just shadows in his care.)

Each of these, um, <I>aptly</i> yclept entities is carefully, almost lovingly, drawn. The action isn't very exciting for the adventure seeker. This is more ayahuasca journey than meth motormouth mainline. Go with Verity, be in her head; it's not like most people's and it's such a fascinating experience to be outside the outlier for a change. I think the world Verity finds is as true and as factual as any world is. I'm also old enough to believe that consensus reality isn't, so there's that point of commonality between me and Verity. Mostly, though, go on the journey because learning how Othering works when it's your own interior processes that cause it.

What stakes the story posits are, in a word, apocalyptic. The missing fifth star I wanted to give the story lies in that mismatch of affect and effect. When the Fate of the World is on the line (with examples of what can and will happen if Verity fails) I expect to have that make things move right along, please. They don't...they can't, given the processing speeds of the main character.

But the events Verity has become integral to haven't made the single slightest sense of hurry in her. And they shouldn't. Because one thing that Verity is, like her namesake, is inexorable. Everything is put right, right <I>enough</i>, and there are no existential threats to Verity or the world that she has so much difficulty navigating. At her gift, the world goes on; life keeps happening; and there is no one but Verity who has all the pieces of how and why.

She's not talking.

In Veritas is a cross genre magical realism urban fantasy by C.J. Lavigne. Released 1st May 2020 by NeWest Press, it's 352 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is an exquisitely well written dark fantasy which doesn't immediately capitulate to the reader. The vast (vaaaaast) majority of books I've read lately (and I've read most of the "buzz" books in the F&SF and mystery genres for the last umpty-zillion years) have been easy to read, very accessible, passive books. You can read them, the plot is spelled out for you, and they are what they are. This book is emphatically not that. There are multiple levels to the narrative. The layers have layers. Additionally, the main character Verity has synesthesia so she smells and tastes colours and experiences senses differently than most people and the way the author describes these interactions adds another layer of obfuscation to the story.

The characters themselves are wildly variant and not easily characterizable as hero or villain, ally or enemy. It adds an uneasy tension to the whole book and I don't think I really relaxed at all during the reading. There are a few graphic body-horror scenes (not gratuitous) which were integral. The denouement of the whole was worth the difficult journey.

This is an -astonishingly- gifted author. The book is extremely well written but not easy to read and I can certainly understand that many readers won't want to make the effort. This work doesn't really lend itself to direct comparisons, I'm not sure I've ever read anything quite like it. If forced to pluck out some names, I would say that Tanith Lee and Jane Rosenberg LaForge wouldn't be completely wrong (especially LaForge).

Five stars, even though there will be a lot of DNFs and it took me so long to read that I had to go back and reread the whole start to finish before I managed to get the whole thing.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I read this to see if I should include it in my subscription box, but it was not what I was looking for.

I'm in two minds about this book: I loved the plot but I found the style of writing too distant from my taste.
All in all it was an engrossing and entertaining read, recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

No one has to tell Verity that the world is a strange place. For her, the world has always been strange. What the protagonist of C.J. Lavigne’s trippy contemporary fantasy novel, In Veritas, doesn’t know is that there are others who are out of step with reality. Likewise, Verity doesn’t know that she’s about to be asked to be a hero to those who don’t fit into our mundane world.

Verity Richards has always experienced a particularly extreme version of synesthesia, one that delayed her ability to talk to others and eventually saw her committed to a mental health facility. As the book opens, Verity has just found a street magician who appears to actually be doing magic. The dog at his side is transformed into a snake before disappearing. The audience claps and throws money. Verity, however, recognizes that the dog and the snake are the same creature. It’s magic that’s disguised as a trick. It’s also the first hint to Verity that the way she experiences the world is not wrong. In fact, Verity’s synesthesia is the perfect way to experience the world the magician introduces her to. This new world features a sickly angel, a vampire that feeds on sanity, and a woman-like creature that stabs Verity as soon as they see each other.

One might think that the stabbing would send Verity running from the world of the Between. One would have a lot more common sense than Verity. That said, I can completely understand why Verity stays. The Between and its inhabitants don’t think Verity is strange or that her synesthesia needs to be medicated away. In Veritas, after the surprises of the beginning, slows down. It lingers over the plot and the backstory of how all of these people ended up where they are. Eventually, Verity learns of a handful of conflicting plots to either save or destroy the Between people.

I wish that Verity had been more of an active protagonist. She strikes me as more stubborn than anything else. Sure, she wants to learn but she doesn’t really ask questions or investigate things. Verity just seems to let the information come to her, which left me with a lot of questions. The ending of In Veritas caught me by surprise when things suddenly got violent and the stakes got raised sky-high. While the ending answered my questions of how and what, I want to know why all of that happened and why the ending had to happen the way it did. Readers may enjoy the originality of In Veritas, but I suspect that people who pick it up will also be left with questions about what the hell they had just read.

As the book began, I was thinking it might just be too dark and depressing. It isnt! I was hooked and had to drag myself away from my kindle to go to bed, several times.

I only experience a fraction of the synesthesia the protagonist does, but this book is great. This will definitely remain one of my top books of the year, even though it's only March.

The writing style may seem unusual to some, but it was an exhilarating, intense experience for me. This is a beautiful and sad magical realism tale of people waking up to ancient abilities. And yet the way it is written makes it seem so natural, like everything in this book, or at least some of it, could be happening for real. It's not one of those novels where everything is fixed easily. Save this for later if you are in the mood for a light read. This is the only time I can remember really enjoying a novel that was written in the present tense.

I may seem a bit biased because I live in the city this book takes place in. It was fun to read about places I have walked many times. Another thing is that I don't read horror novels. But this book was so great that the few explicit scenes drew me into the story, and they are important so that we can understand the characters motivations. They don't seem gratuitous at all. I'm glad I didn't quit early on, because that ending was worth it!

I unfortunately had to dnf this because the writing style just wasn't working for me. It's an intriguing setup, but I found it to be a little overly descriptive, almost flowery, for my tastes. I have no doubt that others will like it though!

This is a hard book for me to rate, because there were things I liked and I think that overall plot of a story was really imaginative. It is kind of magical realism story and I always have hard time with this kind of novels. Why? First of all, the prose. It is very specific and I think some people will be put off by it, as I was a little. It is kind of flovery but in places that it doesn't need to be. And because of that a pacing of the story is too slow, at least at first few chapters. For example, we have our main character who goes somewhere to meet someone, but before she gets at the place I forgot where she was going because she passes those and that and something else. It improves a little at times, and I think that people who like that kind of lyric language will love this. I personally like faster novels.

But it doesn't mean that it isn't worth trying. Though at first I had no idea what I am reading about and I was totally lost with who Verity is, why she has a new job every day and why she can taste things that she sees, it was a mystery that I wanted to explore and it kept me going. It is definitely original story, so I'd recommend it for people who long for something new in fantasy genre.