Member Reviews

This story shows two sisters olympia and chelsea saving the day. Even if they were the ones to welcome evil! You will see the grim side to all your favorite fairytales. It’s definitely more graphic than I expected. I would say 18+ to read it.

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Camping is supposed to be fun and relaxing, yet after meeting in the woods, strange things happen to a bunch a friends – and Beverly Brook’s sisters Chelsea and Olympia seem to be involved somehow.

Peter and Nightingale are busy, Beverly is watching over her toddlers, and Abigail talks to foxes. Again.

I am sad to say that I did not care much for this. The case is the same as we usually have, but Chelsea and Olympia as protagonist were either boring or annoying me, and I hope we get back to our regularly sheduled adventures now.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

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First time I read something from the Rivers of London series and the truth is that it was very entertaining although there were some things that I could not fully understand. I guess because this would be volume 10 and the characters and such were explained before.

The art style isn't my favorite, I'm not going to say it's bad because it's not bad at all, but personally it's not the kind of drawing or art I like to see.

I liked this that the classic stories come out of the books and appear in what is real life for them. That was quite original, entertaining! I felt it original and that it was far from what I usually read. Get out of my comfort zone! And I like that.

Thank you Titan Books, Ben Aaronovitch, Celeste Bronfman, Andrew Cartmel, and José María Beroy for the copy I read through Netgalley.

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"CSI meets Harry Potter in this graphic novel from Ben Aaronovitch - writer of the bestselling Rivers of London supernatural police procedural crime novel series, Andrew Cartmel author of The Vinyl Detective and Celeste Bronfman.

Illustrations from a mysterious book of fairy tales drawn in the late 1800s are coming to life in the 21st Century and causing havoc. The illustrations were originally painted by a Victorian artist called Jeter Day who disappeared one night in an enchanted forest when he was spirited away by tree nymphs never to be seen again...

Now, with the enchantment accidentally broken by Olympia and Chelsea, daughters of the river goddess Mama Thames, Jeter, twisted by his time spent with the nymphs, has returned to our world bitter and resentful. It is a world he neither recognises nor likes. All he wants is his life returned to him and woe betide any man who stands in his way.

With Peter and Nightingale busy on another case, it falls to sisters Olympia and Chelsea with the help of the Foxes to stop Jeter and save the day."

This book might be VERY important to what's coming to my blog this year...

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I really wanted to love this one But it just fell flat for me. the book says that you can read the books as standalone, but I would disagree. I couldn't help but feel I was missing out on important background information.

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This wasn't really what I was expecting from a Rivers of London graphic novel. The underlying magic/mythos didn't seem to follow existing schemes in the Rivers of London universe, specifically in the use of Germanic fairytales and magical tree faeries from another dimension that turns humans evil and isn't explained at all. I also thought the twins were bratty in an annoying way, not a fun way. It almost felt like a different series to me.

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First I have to say this is the 10th volume in a series of graphic novels and I hadn’t read the previous 9.
It’s stated that you can read them individually, but I found it would be better to read the other volumes as well. I did understand what was going on for the most part (except for some specific terms like “Folly” which seemed to be some kind of magic school?), but I think you’d be more familiar with the characters and the world, which would’ve made me more invested in the story.

I liked the premise and I liked the fairytale-part of this story, but the plot was quite simple in my opinion. Problems were easily fixed and I didn’t really care about any of the characters, except for the foxes.
The artstyle was quite nice.
It was also quite humorous. There were some jokes I laughed out loud with.

It did spark my interest to read the other volumes though, as the idea behind this world is quite intriguing.

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[Blurbs @goodreads]
Illustrations from a mysterious book of fairy tales drawn in the late 1800s are coming to life in the 21st Century and causing havoc. The illustrations were originally painted by a Victorian artist called Jeter Day who disappeared one night in an enchanted forest when he was spirited away by tree nymphs never to be seen again…

Compared to the other volumes in the series, this one is short abd straight to the point. The graphics are pretty cool and the plot is somewhat awesome too. I mean fairy tales coming into life caused by another fairy tale mania, how often does that happen?

FMCs caused a string of events that lead to them fixing it at the end. Couple of challenges along the way in righting what is wrong with the help of the villain's long distant grand daughter. I was surprised quite a bit with the twist at the end and I just wished the story was explored a little bit more to get a glimpse about the nymphs and how all the problems started.

All in all the graphics are cool, the story is okay but it was cut too short.

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This was a great novel I really enjoyed the storyline and the art work was beautiful. I feel I understood the novel without reading any the other novels before I am planning on going back to read them. I would recommend reading this, I would say you can read this without reading the others first but for better content I would read the first 9 first.

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This was so interesting; it had a great story and fantastic artwork. I felt like I understood the story well enough without reading the other series, although I feel the context would have made for a better reading experience. I liked the fairy tale aspect and mystery vibes of this graphic novel!

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A fun side book in the Rivers of London franchise. The main characters only had small parts here and it was fun to get to know some of the smaller characters that we’ve come across in the books. An enjoyable read.

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Okay where do I start? This book felt completely different from the novel and the main characters are these two sisters who discover and show a mulberry tree to this girl from a film crew and from the tree a door to magic and fairy retellings opens up. So, the film crew's various characters start living the retellings, the main hero becomes the frog prince, the heroine becomes snow white, etc. The sisters have to solve this and make things right again.

The artwork was okay really, but the plot felt unconnected. Every instance was kind of disconnected from each and other. But I did enjoy reading it, if you like fantasy and mystery together in a kind of casual yet unique manner, you would enjoy reading it. Specially if you like retellings becoming a major part of the book.

I received this book from Net Galley i n exchange for an honest review.

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Two main reasons why I picked this up: I love the Rivers of London series and I want to try more graphic novels. Deadly Ever After was a good start. It had a great story and the graphics were amazing. I’m usually not a short story kind of person but I felt satisfied at the end. Also, I felt it was a good way to read when not having the mental capacity to consume something heavy.

There are two things I would change though. First, I requested a copy of the novel from Netgalley and, while I’m very grateful to have received one, I believe graphic novels are probably better enjoyed in physical form. Second, I’m not far enough into the Rivers of London series to really appreciate the characters in the novel. I missed Peter.

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Thank you Netgalley and Titan Publishing for allowing me to read an advanced copy.

This was an interesting graphic novel with a twist on fairy tales coming to life. This is part of a shared universe with the authors other works and having not read them I was still able to enjoy and understand the events that place. That being said this felt rather predictable and expected so by the end I was nodding along.

Not a bad graphic novel by any means with likable lead characters and a predictable but decent plot.

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Illustrations from a mysterious book of fairy tales drawn in the late 1800s are coming to life in the 21st Century and causing havoc. The illustrations were originally painted by a Victorian artist called Jeter Day who disappeared one night in an enchanted forest when he was spirited away by tree nymphs never to be seen again…

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Rivers Of London: Deadly Ever After is the 10th Rivers of London graphic novel, adapted from the RoL series by Ben Aaronovitch. Released in comiXology/ebook format in Nov 2022, this paperback format from Titan is 112 pages and will be released 24th Jan 2023. 

This is a worthy addition to the canon. The graphic novel format is different than the longer book-form novels, but add an interesting background depth in the side stories. The writing in this volume is by Celeste Bronfman, and she has an appealing knack with the rapid fire sarcastic humour and intelligent, sometimes absurd, repartee. Fans of Aaronovitch will feel at home. The art, with pencils by José María Beroy is detailed and intricate and captures the fantasy element well. I can believe that these foxes can talk.  

For readers unfamiliar with the series, this is the 10th graphic novel based on the original urban fantasy Rivers of London books which are up to (*checking online*) 9 main books plus assorted novellas and shorter stories. This particular graphic novel is well scripted and readers coming into the read without prior exposure will not be lost, but will also not get the full background. 

Four stars. These graphic novels are satisfying intermezzos between the main series. 

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

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The artwork in this book is excellent, and the story of the twins trying to fix the problem that they caused works really well but I think it would have been better done as an actual novel, that way we could have gotten to know more about what happened to the people caught up in the story. I know that the writer had to come up with a reason why Peter and Nightingale couldn’t deal with the situation but the way it was done was just daft, in my humble opinion.

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I haven't read any of the Rivers of London graphic novels but have had some vague interest in them. So, when I saw this on Netgalley I thought fck it, let's request it. And then I actually got it! It does say you can read them on their own, so like a good girl I immediately downloaded and read it. And I enjoyed it just fine? I don't care too much for the main characters, which was a given based on my opinions of the goddesses in the main series. But there were foxes and fairy tales, so that made up for a lot of it. The art style was okay, nothing special but nothing horrible either. The plot was fun but a bit too simple for my liking and could have done with another chapter to slow things down a little bit and have the space to create some more intrigue. But it was a decent way to spend an hour waiting for my migraine meds to kick in, and I will look into picking up some of the previous graphic novels.

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I really wanted to love this one but it just fell flat for me. The premise has me really intrigued. I love anything with fairytales in it, that part I did like. The incorporation of the fairytales with the modern society was a fun twist. I also really enjoyed the artwork. But the storyline was somewhat confusing and dull for me.

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Suddenly the previous volume's fond checking in on as much of the increasingly sprawling cast as it could makes sense; Andrew Cartmel is no longer scripting the comics, having instead resumed his old title of script editor, so it feels like that may have been a victory lap. The writing duties have here been handed to Celeste Bronfman, who may have won awards, but as far as I'm concerned starts on the back foot through a) being LA-based, which seems as out of place on Rivers Of London as on Who and b) having to the best of my knowledge no association whatsoever with the golden age of aforementioned Who, which was very much what got me into Rivers in the first place. Still, her back-up gag strips have generally been OK...

Unfortunately, at greater length a definite choppiness and tendency towards pretty broad-brush characterisation start to show. There are little bits where the local references aren't landing - Love Island is surely a show watched as it happens, rather than one people (or indeed godlings) binge. And while the basic set-up of bystanders getting trapped into fairytales is fine, particularly for a story in which two of Bev's younger sisters reluctantly take the lead role, the treatment feels at once underpowered and overfamiliar. It'd be nice if we got Cartmel back, but I suspect his own Vinyl Detective books (which I still keep failing to get around to) might now be doing too well for that. If so, it looks like the Rivers comics will be downgraded from their previous status, not quite essential but still integral, to the semi-relevance one normally expects from tie-ins. Worst of all - we don't even get back-up strips anymore.

(Netgalley ARC)

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