While I wasn't completely drawn into this world, it was a solid enough twist on the gothic horror genre, and I enjoyed the experience of reading it. I will say that I didn't particularly connect with the main character Jane, so that certainly impeded my immersion in the novel, but the plot itself (once it fully got going at her new husband's forbidden home) kept me reading despite the lack of character engagement. (I will say that the choice to set this in an 'alternate reality' where the characters live in a country called Great Breltain was...odd, and a bit more reminiscent of middle grade than adult horror/fantasy, but it played such a minor role that I was able to mostly ignore it.)

What starts as something fairly innocent, a marriage proposal, becomes a creepy, then terrifying situation for the titular character in this gothic horror story.
Jane Shorefield makes a business/marriage proposal to the local town doctor of Larrenton, an alternate world town bearing a similarity to an English town.
Not wanting to move with her guardians to Camhurst, Jane aims to find a way to stay in Larrenton and continue to work as an accountant. She hits upon the idea of marriage to a respectable and respectful man, and chooses the town doctor, Augustine Lawrence. He's initially unwilling, but after the two spend a little time together saving a patient in his surgery, he thinks better of her, and agrees.
Everything seems ok, except for the wee detail that he will always spend his nights at his family's manor, Lindridge Hall, while she will spend the nights upstairs at the surgery. It seems acceptable (considering this is mostly a business proposal), and then, it doesn’t work out on their marriage night, and she's forced to spend the night at Lindridge. While initially comfortable, Jane starts experiencing weird things, and then creepy things, and she finds that Augustine has not been sufficiently forthcoming about the seriously weird and frightening things in his past, and that are manifesting at Lindridge Hall.

I loved the tone set by Caitlin Starling at the outset; Jane is self-sufficient, and knows her own mind, and sets her sights on Augustine, who really, doesn't stand a chance against her. When things start to go wrong between them, her anger and hurt are believable, even though she had conceived of their partnership as not requiring the trust of a marriage, and was beginning to see him as an actual husband. That Augustine also develops romantic feelings for her is great, but the more Jane finds out about Augustine's past, the more it becomes obvious that maybe a wee bit more research might have been necessary; an example of one of many secrets Augustine kept from her is a certain woman called Elodie....
Everything about the house becomes quickly frightening and inimical, with Jane not knowing what to trust or believe.
The novel's atmosphere becomes increasingly claustrophobic and dark, with one scene in particular feeling really scary to me.
Though the scene and tone setting at the beginning are relatively light (I say "light" since this story is set in a world recovering from war, with tensions present due to the presence of immigrants from the other side in the war, and Jane still suffering trauma from past shelling and gassing, and the loss of her parents) but the book quickly descends into something chilling, sometimes gory, and frightening. Then there was the really unexpected way the whole messy and increasingly horrifying situation resolved.
I was immediately reminded of “Crimson Peak” and “Rebecca” at the story’s outset, but was happy with how Caitlin Starling transformed these elements: lies’ effects upon relationships, scary old houses, magic and its really odd practices and effects on its practitioners, and secrets that come back to bite, into something different and compelling. I was entertained from start to finish.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Utterly captivating and creepy in all of the best ways! I was at the edge of my seat from start to finish. Jane was such a complex character and I loved the dark take on magic and the price it costs for those who pursue it. The scenery, the descriptions, and the evolution of Jane as a person was just perfect. I have never read a story that has made me question so much, yet still left me feeling fulfilled at the end. All I can say is bravo to the author for creating the absolute masterpiece that is The Death of Jane Lawrence. I highly recommend this spine-tingling book, it’s perfect for the fall season!

Jane Shoringfield knows what she wants and she's not a people-pleaser. She plans to marry and has everything all laid out...until her new husband has, just, a huge boatload of secrets, you guys.

Jane is smart and rational and meticulous and watching her pick her way through this truly eerie mystery was such a thrill. There's some grotesque stuff going on and it felt like the world kept getting bigger the further you got in the story.

There was a point where I didn't even know if what was currently happening was real or not, but in the best way. If you're looking for some creep-tastic historical horror with really human characters, I mean...it's this one. Read it. Read the book.

Well written gothic with lots of twists and turns. The author's choice to set this novel in a world that was almost, but not quite our own really added to the unsettled feeling that is such a crucial and delicious part of the experience of reading a really creepy and atmospheric novel. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

This was a mind fuck of a story and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what happened. However, it’s every bit of a gothic horror that will have you flipping through the pages to figure out the whys and motivations. Why would a doctor dabble in things not seen, why is Jane so strange. There’s plenty of questions and not enough answers but I did really enjoy this classic ghost story. I think my questions are just very intricate as to how it all works and what is what. So make sure you don’t think too much into it. It had plenty of chilling pop ups and weird, dramatic instances to set the right Halloween vibe.

I was so excited for this book! A math-loving female protagonist, a marriage of convenience, a crumbling old house in the English countryside...this all sounded like the perfect setup for a smart, spooky, gothic Jane Eyre meets Haunting of Hill House thriller. What I read, however, was a mess. Such a mess that I totally gave up at 75%. That's right, it got so bad that I couldn't even bring myself to finish the story. I hopped over to Goodreads and read some of the "spoiler" reviews, and let's just say I'm not kicking myself for not reading the last 25%. I enjoyed the novel until the magic elements were brought in. Now, I LOVE books with magic, but the magic performed in this story had me questioning if this would be another unreliable female protagonist trope. The timeline is jumpy with overlaps from past and present alongside people coming and going from the house. Also, this book leans much more into the horror genre than I expected--lots of blood and detailed, graphic description of multiple surgical procedures. I'm not going to just keep picking this one apart, but I could go on and on.

The Death of Jane Lawrence is the second novel by author Caitlin Starling, whose debut The Luminous Dead was an incredible piece of sci-fi horror. Starling followed up that novel with her queer weird horror fantasy novella, Yellow Jessamine, which I'm honestly a year later still not sure if I liked it or not - but it was certainly really interesting stuff. Both stories featured a major element of psychological horror as their genre elements resulted in their protagonists seeming to lose their grips on their own sanities, and were pretty damn great at portraying a freaky as hell atmosphere. So I was really curious to see how Starling would handle a more conventional genre of horror, Gothic Horror*, in this second novel.

*Not that Gothic Horror isn't also known for making its protagonists unsure if they're going crazy, mind you.

And Starling delivers with this novel, which takes what seems like a fairly basic gothic horror presence - woman marries man she barely knows, who has a creepy mansion she must never sleep in and inevitably does - and creates an atmosphere that left me enthralled and desperate to learn what happens next. As you might expect from Starling's work, this novel puts its heroine Jane through the ringer, making her question her sanity and what she is seeing at multiple points, and it uses its gothic horror setting in interesting ways that I was certainly not all expecting. Add in a protagonist who is a rational and usually non-romantic woman, who is introverted and prefers the cool rational working of numbers and mathematics, and you have a lead who is easy to like and care about as things go to hell. There's one twist that seemed pretty obvious, but other than that, if you like gothic horror or psychological horror, you will definitely enjoy this.

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Jane Shoringfield has come up with a practical plan - she will find a man she can marry for social reasons only, who will expect no intimacy of her, so the two of them can use the marriage to manage social expectations - and most importantly allow Jane independence to work with the numbers and bookkeeping she loves most. Her top target for this plan is the reclusive Doctor Augustine Lawrence, a brilliant surgeon who retreats to his own family manor between patients, and works mostly alone except for an assistant to fetch him when needed. Jane doesn't know anything really about Augustine's background, but when she proposes to him, of both marriage and to work as his accountant, he accepts - on one condition: She must never stay the night at Lindridge Hall, his family manor, but must always spend her nights at the Surgery without him. For Jane, the arrangement seems perfect.

Yet when Jane helps Augustine with a brutal surgery with strange and gruesome internal injury, and nearly breaks down because of her own coldness of what happened, Augustine comforts her.....and Jane and Augustine do begin to fall for one another. Which only makes Jane start to want to spend the night with him after all....and then, on the night of their wedding, her carriage breaks down, forcing her to spend the night after all at Lindridge Hall. There she discovers not the confident doctor she fell for, but a man unsure of his own realities - a man with secrets in his past and in this very house.

And when Augustine's college friends show up to visit to try and entice him back into games of magic, Jane learns there is far more to Augustine and Lindridge Hall than she realized, including a dark past of shame that will threaten to envelop her and break her. And when she is left alone in a house seemingly filled with the irrational, how long can Jane hold her grips on the calm rationality that has always guided her through life?
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If you are familiar with Gothic Horror, the basics of the plot of The Death of Jane Lawrence will feel very familiar. You have a young woman protagonist getting married to a man she hardly knows, who has secrets in his past, and a manor that she is not for some strange reason not supposed to stay in, which features things like a door with strange locks and old unkept rooms and hallways. You expect for certain things therefore to happen - that her husband Augustine will turn out to be some kind of villain or have done something horrible in the past; that the house will be haunted by some kind of spirits, and that the protagonist will have to uncover the truth and take desperate actions to survive.

The Death of Jane Lawrence, without spoiling too much, plays on those expectations, and in some ways fulfills them while in other ways subverts them. The first way it does that is with its heroine, Jane. Jane is not your typical gothic horror heroine, the woman who gets married to a man for romance and thus misses the hints that something lies underneath his mask. Jane is a young woman who was orphaned as a child by a war* and has lived her life in the care of non-related guardians, who will under society's rules make all decisions for her until she is married. They're not bad guardians mind you and are not oppressive or mean, but they're not her parents, and going with them back to the city where her parents died is not what Jane wants. Instead Jane, a woman who prefers the cold rationality of math, account books, and number theorems to that of people, wants simply to stay where she is, work with numbers on her own and to do so independently of anyone else.

*The story takes place in what seems to be a 19th century Great Britain-like country (Great Breltain) that has just finished a war with a Russia-like country. I have no idea why it isn't just set in our Great Britain, but well, it basically is.*

And so Jane's marriage isn't a love-match, and Jane proposes it specifically to not be a love match, even though she comes to love Augustine for his caring strength as a doctor, even when Jane shows herself to seemingly care little about a patient she helps Augustine operate on. And so when Jane is confronted with the mysteries of Lindridge Hall, and the possibilities of Augustine's secrets, she tries to stick to calm rational reasoning to guide her, and tries to make that her strength...even when confronted with magic that requires her to believe things that might not otherwise be rational. It makes Jane a fascinating character, as her actions aren't strictly guided by emotion, although there is plenty of that in her, as she is desperate to save the man she's fallen for, and to deal with both his and her own guilt.

The story also subverts the standard formula by not making Augustine a clear bad guy, and making him sympathetic very much even as his secrets are revealed. This is less a story about someone doing horrible things as much as a story about guilt and shame and living with those feelings....and the realization that such feelings cannot be allowed to eat one up....in this case, literally. Jane forces Augustine to try to realize that he is being overly prideful and egotistic by insisting his tragedies are his fault, that they are his own shame to bear....and yet Jane herself as the story goes on finds herself falling into the very same trap. And so Lindridge Hall begins to envelop her as well.

Most interestingly, the story subverts the formula by having the husband not be the one with power, with Jane becoming that person instead, as she finds herself delving more and more into the possibilities of the irrational, into the possibilities of magic. Jane may find herself in desperate straights as the novel goes on, and may find herself "haunted" by something I won't spoil, but this is due to her own choices and her own actions, and not because she got caught in any trap or got misled. It makes her a fascinating heroine and the story a fascinating gothic horror novel - and a scary one in many ways too. The novel isn't all unpredictable - one reveal in the final chapters is something I expected some variant of for a while as certain plot elements come into play - but it still surprises and ends in a fascinating even if somewhat horrifying (and yet maybe happy) way.

Very much recommended for Gothic Horror fans.

I genuinely don't know how we went from the incredible work that was The Luminous Dead to this. I wish I could get the time back that I spent on this one.

This book is literally about two of the most unremarkable and pedestrian characters who do NOTHING to warrant caring about what happens to either of them.

So incredibly frustrated.

I had read The Luminous Dead by Starling and liked it, so when I read the summary for this one, I was super excited. But, this one didn't really work for me. Jane is an interesting character, and a bit morally grey, you don't always like her, but she's brilliant and tries to work with an absolutely wild situation. She's a distant, logical character, someone who lets reason rule her actions, so it's interesting to see that character type in this setting. She's looking for a husband, one that is ok with keeping their marriage like a business transaction, and so she turns to Augustine Lawrence, the new doctor in town. He agrees on one condition, that Jane never enter his family's estate home at night, which she accepts. Of course, things happen and Jane ends up staying the night at the estate, and things get Spooky from there. I won't go into detail about the horror aspects, but I will warn any future readers that there is A LOT of gore and body horror throughout the book, and it is rather detailed. As things became more complex and circumstances more suspect, I found Jane's character to waffle between pretty relatable and completely incomprehensible. Her drive and strength to make it through the situation and achieve her goals are great, but her motivations left me wondering why she was trying so hard. I also found Augustine's character to be rather flat and unlikeable. This is a type of book where you can't expect an clear cut ending, but I found myself lost and not understanding how things came to an end. I think this book was just not for me, it was otherwise well written and inventive, anyone who is a fan of gothic stories and horror should give this a try.

Jane Shoringfield is a practical young woman with a head for numbers. She’s done the calculations and knows her path to security lies in finding a husband comfortable with a marriage of convenience, allowing her to continue an independent life and a career. Jane’s considered her options and decides her best option is the new and reclusive town doctor, Augustine Lawrence.
Augustine seems torn by her proposal but it doesn’t take long to reach an agreement: Augustine and Jane will be married on her terms — so long as she agrees never to spend the night at his nearby crumbling family manor, Lindridge Hall. Augustine will return to the manor each night while Jane will remain at the apartment above the office in town.
This agreement is immediately voided on their wedding night when a storm prevents Jane from returning to town.
What Jane finds is that her confident surgeon husband becomes a terrified and somehow haunted man within the walls of Lindridge Hall once darkness falls.

Oooh this was an incredible gothic horror novel just in time for spooky season! I definitely felt the Shirley Jackson/Daphne du Maurier vibes. My best description of The Death of Jane Lawrence is Rebecca meets The Haunting of Hill House crossed with Crimson Peak.
The magic aspect of the book didn’t seem fully explored - it felt more like an extra layer to cover all the spooky bases. The building sense of unease surrounding the crumbling manor and Augustine’s secrets make this a creepy spiral into madness!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The Death of Jane Lawrence is scheduled for release on October 5, 2021.

Look. This is not a book for a casual reader. This is not a book for someone who reads supermarket, airport, chick-lit, hot-pink cover type thrillers. This is gothic horror, magic realism at its ultimate best. This is the kind of book that need a reader who will take their time to read, and re-read page after page because...did that just happen? Did THAT JUST HAPPEN???????

Jane Lawrence - is like so many Jane's before her. Practical, plain, level-headed and smart. She's looking for a husband, a marriage that's convenient and quickly finds and arrangement that is suitable with the local doctor. It's more of a business arrangement. The doctor has certain conditions to the arrangement - she must always sleep in the office location while he will stay at the family home outside of town. Jane finds this suitable, until the wedding night when a storm strands her at the run-down manor.

Reviews will mention Rebecca, and The Haunting of Hill House, Crimson Peak and House of Leaves. And yes, all of those are good reference points. I think there's a good bit of Dracula, Bluebeard and Jane Eyre to throw in as well. But honestly - this is unlike anything I've ever read. The rituals are insane. The imagery on the back half of the book is so disturbing that I could only read this during the day to prevent nightmares.

I loved every single word.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

After losing her parents in the Great War and living as the ward of a kind family friend, Jane Shoringfield is above all, practical. She has done the calculations and decided that she must find a husband and enter into a marriage of convenience in order to maintain her independent lifestyle and continue working as a bookkeeper. She has made a list of the optimum traits she would prefer in a husband, cross referenced this list versus local eligible bachelors and has set her sights on surgeon Dr. Augustine Lawrence. She outlines to him all of the benefits she can bring to the table - free book keeping and office management. Even assistance in medical procedures. She's delighted when he accepts here proposal and the marriage moves forward swiftly. They even find that they enjoy one another's company. But Jane worries that Augustine is hiding something. He spends his nights at his crumbling family manor, Lindridge Hall. He expects for her to stay at the Surgery in town and to never, ever go to Lindridge Hall. What secrets could he be hiding?

This books starts off so promising. Set a dark mirror version of post-war England, the mood is gloomy and dark, an excellent backdrop for some chilling gothic horror. I was on the edge of my seat for the first half or so of the book, my curiosity piqued to learn what Augustine was hiding and what secrets lurked at Lindridge Hall. We get some hints that he may be dabbling in the occult, which is very promising. But then things unraveled for me somewhat after the halfway point. There were long sections that read like a fever dream - I wasn't sure what was happening or if it was imaginary, who was living and who was dead. I think some of that was by design - as the characters struggle to separate reality from nightmare, so do we, the reader. However, it just went too far for me. I was really confused, I struggled to keep up with some of the characters and setting and some of the lies that were told among them. By the end, I was bored and just wanted to be done. I really enjoyed the character of Jane, I loved her logical mind and her great interest in learning and logic. She was smart, brave a maybe a little bit unbalanced. But she just wasn't enough to keep me interested. I was disappointed that the great gothic setting of this book didn't have a stronger, more clear story line.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the gifted ebook.

Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed.

The premise of this novel reminded me of Crimson Peak and a little of Rebecca. This intriguing gothic novel is perfect for Halloween Season!

This was an interesting book but it was really only okay for 3/4th of the book. It fell flat in a lot of places and took to long to get to the meat of the story. The half answers and illusions sprinkled throughout didn't enhance the book so much as just make it slow and vastly more confusing than it needed to be.
What saved this book was Jane. She was the golden light at the end of the long dark tunnel. Her character felt to real and genuine that if it wasn't for the magic elements this book would have felt like a piece of history. I felt like Jane was right there walking me through her life. She not only brought this book light she was really its heart and soul. For a book that was really meant to be plot driver she made this book worth every second of reading.
If books was a kickass heroine are something you are into then this is the book for you. Jane feels like a real woman caught in the impossible situation that is this book. This book is worth the read for her alone.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and the publishers for allowing me the opportunity to read this e-arc.

The Death of Jane Lawrence is a book for readers who like their gothic fiction with unique and breathtaking twists. It’s a novel that plays with your mind a great deal and although this has turned some readers off, I relished in it. I think it’s best to go into the book with that knowledge but otherwise relatively blind in order to get the best experience out of the story.

The titular Jane is one of the most intriguing gothic heroines from the very start. Developing a far stronger interest in mathematics and bookkeeping than matters of the heart, she presents Dr. Augustine Lawrence with a no-nonsense argument for marrying her. Jane will maintain his billing and records while he need only be her husband in name as exchange. However, when circumstances force Jane into assisting Augustine with a surgical procedure, they bond in an unusual manner. Witnessing the level of craft and care they both exhibit in brining a patient back from near death, they fall for each other.

I also loved the examination of Victorian medicine and its brutality (this one’s a bit gory, folks). Despite the attention to detail, the author never makes these passages gratitious and instead deepened the creeping dread and atmosphere of the novel. Caitlin Starling also does a wonderful job portraying the gradual descent into madness of Jane (much like in her debut, The Luminous Dead). Much like her, I was constantly second guessing what I thought I knew and my intense desire to find out where the story would go kept me flipping the pages.

I only have a few minor complaints, which accounts for my four star rating. I dislike insta love and while I came to enjoy the dynamic between Jane and Augustine, I thought their romantic feelings were rushed initially. The middle section has awkward pacing and felt very long-winded to me. So much of it could have been condensed and I even considered quitting reading at one point. Thank goodness I didn’t though, because the last quarter was well worth it.

I highly encourage anyone looking for a dark and twisty gothic novel to pick this up when it’s released on October 5th. The Death of Jane Lawrence is wholly unique and a novel I’ve thought about often since finishing it. Thanks so much to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for review.

Jane Shoringfield is a very practical woman. In order to remain in such a lifestyle she sets her sights on Augustine Lawrence, a doctor who she will marry for convenience. Now Jane can be married and still work and keep her independence. Augustine agrees to the match as long as they keep separate residences at night. Jane will stay at the surgery in town and he will stay at his family's estate. However on their wedding night circumstances beyond their control cause Jane to stay at the estate. This opens up a whole world (and other world) of trouble.

I did not like this book. The beginning of the story is so repetitive. Jane wants to marry Augustine...he doesn't want to marry her...but yes, he does...and then she wants to marry him, but no, she doesn't. Very dry to read. Then after the marriage and the first night at the estate things take an eerie turn and I found myself interested. But that didn't last very long as the plot veers into the nonsensical for the remainder. I found the storyline extremely hard to follow and worse than that I found myself not caring if I understood it or not. I think this would play out much better on the screen.

I was given this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

Jane Shoringfield, an orphan of her country’s recent war, knows what she wants out of life: the freedom to live her on her own terms. She’s an amateur mathematician and needs the means to study whenever she wants. Enter: Augustine Lawrence. Jane came up with a list of potential husbands that would best allow her to achieve her goals, and he was at the top. He’s the town’s only doctor and he’s moderately well-off. He agrees to marry her under one condition: she must never spend the night at his family home in the country. Jane agrees because she’s not looking for a physical relationship (or a deep one at all, really) with him, but after a storm causes her to have to spend the night, she’s faced with the truth: the house is dangerous, and so is her husband.

Let’s start with the good. The way the publisher has compared this to Crimson Peak, Mexican Gothic, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is completely spot on! I think this book has some of the most accurate comps I’ve come across in a long time. The relationship dynamics and gory horror of Crimson Peak are there. The menacing house of Mexican Gothic is there. The magic of Strange & Norrell that pulls from philosophy, specifically metaphysics and epistemology, is there. These are the elements that really made this book a joy to read. The traditional vibes found in gothic horror were out in full force, and I loved it. I got legitimately scared while reading some of the ghost scenes! All of that being said, I will say that after a while, the philosophical elements got to be a bit much, and that’s saying a lot considering that I have a degree in philosophy. While reading I predicted that the average reader would be confused, and I was right. I’ve talked to friends who’ve read the arc, and they told me that all of the talk about intention and reality and knowledge made for an uncomfortable reading experience and left them with more questions than they started with.

In the beginning of the book, I loved Jane as a character. She was smart, independent, and was determined to realize her own dreams. But somewhere along the way all of that changed. While her experiences in the house were enough to make anyone come out of the situation changed, Jane’s changes were too abrupt. At first, Jane saw Augustine as a means to an end (although a rather handsome one!). She wasn’t really looking for a traditional husband. That was something that I loved about her. She was subverting the tired trope of a woman with no means only looking for a husband. As I said before, that doesn’t last long. They consummate the marriage, and Jane loses her mind! Of course, not literally, but it really seemed like it. All of a sudden, she was hellbent on saving this man that she’s only known for 2 weeks and has already decided is keeping things from her! It just wasn’t in line with the character that we met in the beginning, and it was jarring and hard to believe.

Overall, The Death of Jane Lawrence was an enjoyable read. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. The gothic horror vibes were immaculate and delivered real chills, but the plot was overloaded with personality inconsistencies and overly complicated magic

Jane Shorringfield is a young woman living with her guardians after her parents' deaths, when she realizes she can no longer be a burden and must find a man who will let her have a business arrangement as a marriage. She convinces Dr. Lawrence to agree to this idea by leveraging her accounting know how and explains that she can manage his practice while he is free to tends his patients, all while only asking for her freedom and independence. The marriage however, begins with an unlucky night spent at Dr. Lawrence's childhood home where he has asked her to never visit. The reason for his concern soon becomes clear as Jane realizes the house does not just contain them, but someone or something else entirely.

This was a good book, it contained a lot of abstract concepts that were neatly used and the ideas never felt half-baked or unrealistic. The writing was smooth and it was a longer book, which can sometimes lead to weird pacing issues but that wasn't the case here. I highly recommend!