Two sisters, Rose and Cecily, are polar opposites. After some time away, Cecily returns to NYC and reunites with Rose, only to mysteriously disappear once again. Rose discovers she has joined a cult like cabaret group, Avalon, and sets out to rescue her sister. What she finds is like nothing she has ever experienced. I wanted to get swept away in the magic of Avalon, but I had difficulty buying into the idea and the main characters themselves. I did appreciate the internal pull to live an authentic/artistic life versus a more pragmatic one that society expects us to live. If you are looking for some magical realism with an urban fairytale vibe, you may enjoy this one!

Thank you to Simon Books for my copy of Here in Avalon. Early reviews on this book did little to prepare me for this story. The blurb calls it enchanting, and that should be taken literally. I was sucked into the story from the first chapter. The writing style is so beautiful that it’s magical in itself.

The story focuses mainly on two sisters, Rose and Cecilia, who have a tumultuous childhood, essentially raising themselves in the city, surrounded by people who seem like fairly tale characters, with a negligent at best mother, but they always have each other. That all changes when Cecilia foregoes her Juilliard acceptance and companionship with Rose to live a nomadic life, bouncing from dream to dream or lover to lover, in search of the “grail.” This leaves Rose stuck at home to deal with their mother who is in declining health and eventually passes away.

Rose almost overcorrects in her pursuit for a “normal” life, abandoning her art and anything she deems frivolous for a high-paying career as IT developer. She achieved all the typical adult benchmarks for success- a sensible job, a committed relationship, a permanent residence- all the things Cecilia avoids. She continues to flit around, only coming back to their childhood home when things go sideways.

After a failed marriage attempt, Cecilia returns home to Rose. After a convincing attempt to establish some normalcy in her life, Cecilia vanishes while Rose is planning her wedding. Initially, Rose is convinced that it’s just Cecilia being Cecilia, but she realized that she’s tied up with the Avalon, what appears on surface like either a cult or something magical. Rose becomes obsessed with finding her sister, focusing only on immersing herself in the Avalon, and turning her back on fiancé, friends, and even her job.

I was entranced by this story. I love when things that seem magical turn into reality, and I also appreciate that it’s a true love story in an unexpected way. It made question of what I would be willing to give up for my family. This was a definitive five star read for me. I loved this book.

Here in Avalon | a book review somewhere on the fence

“an endless teenage cast party: song, dancing, merriment, beauty, community”

Though I’m torn on where I land with this read, that feeling described by the author above, permeates throughout.

Here in Avalon is a NYC fairytale about two very different sisters who get seduced by a cabaret cult. Though no ✨actual✨ magic happens on the page, the execution of the performance of magic feels very real indeed. (For both the reader and for the characters.)

From my experience, the first few chapter were hard to get into. I didn’t want to hear about Rose’s uninspired life through overwritten prose, but then it became ✨interesting✨

And then the book had me in a chokehold (I finished this read in one sitting!) But just like the start, as soon as I finished it, I felt deeply unsatisfied. So, where does that leave us?

The longer I sit with ‘Avalon - the harder I look at it - the more it starts to crumble. And yet, the middle parts *were* enchanting; I couldn’t stop reading. The plotting was smooth, the prose had some absolutely beautiful turns of phrase, and yet (and yet) I still feel like something essential was missing. I enjoyed it thoroughly and wanted to share that magic with others, but left wondering what it all means. What was the point?

I do think some interesting questions were explored: what does it mean to live a satisfying life, is an escape from our real life worth it, who is “worthy” of art?

So though I am not sure how to feel overall, I k now I too would be seduced by The Avalon - because I would want it to be real. Because I need to believe magic exists, that beauty and art exist, and that there is more than the mundane realities of life.

A large part of me is glad that Tara Isabella Burton was not writing novels back when I was a teenager, because I would have made her books my entire life aesthetic.

Her three novels to date -- <a href="https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/23/social-creature-by-tara-isabella-burton/">Social Creature</a>, <a href="https://www.criminalelement.com/book-review-the-world-cannot-give-by-tara-isabella-burton/">The World Cannot Give</a>, and now Here In Avalon -- revolve around women who are voraciously hungry for large lives lived on their own terms but who feel trapped, and so lash out emotionally, heedless of whomever around them gets hurt. These women are never the main character: that honor goes to the other woman who is, in turn, most trapped in their orbits, loving them and envying them and supporting them and perhaps ultimately destroying them. Usually these central women belong to an in-group that the main characters are curious about before falling headlong into. There is also usually creepiness and crime and most of all a regret for all that was lost in the final pages.

For all that, none of Ms Burton's books feel same-y. For example, I love Janice Hallett, but was a little baffled at the use of the exact same moralistic framing device in the last three books of hers I've read (not including The Twyford Code, which I plan to get to reading and reviewing here #soon.) Ms Burton might use similar base archetypes but all her characters are so unique in their circumstances -- even when the books call back to each other -- that her stories always feel like they're exploring new facets of her focus subjects. If there are, arguably, only two stories in all the history of the world, then hers continue the time-honored tradition of telling us new, heart-searching things about ourselves while working from a very particular base framework.

Her latest novel Here In Avalon is a tale of two sisters whose Bohemian childhood in New York City forced them to grow up to be two very different people. Older Cecilia is the quintessential romantic, impractical and a slave to her sensibilities. A talented musician who yearns to complete her opera based on the King Arthur cycle, she carroms from one love affair to the next, traveling the world in search of bliss but heading home, dejected, to the sisters' rent-controlled NYC apartment whenever the grand amour eludes her once again.

Younger Rose, on the other hand, abandoned her artistic dreams to learn how to code and design self-improvement apps. Now she works for a tech company and is engaged to a man whom she thinks is good and sensible, little realizing how she herself has romanticized Caleb as normal when really he's a condescending know-it-all. God, I hated him. I once dated a guy like him but had the sense to say no when he wanted to get married. Anyway. Rose's life philosophy is best encapsulated by this quotation:

<blockquote>[P]robably there was no such thing as true love, in New York or Maine or England or anywhere else, and the best that you could hope for was a minute or two of forgetting, and then a lifetime of remembering that there had been a time when you forgot, and then one day you stopped remembering and forgetting altogether.</blockquote>

Rose, as you can tell, believes in playing it safe, and being "normal", and stifling passion in exchange for a comfortable existence, materially and emotionally.

Cecilia, ofc, is not like this, tho even she seems to have straightened up and begun to fly right after she returns home from her latest adventure: a brief marriage after an even briefer courtship. But she's still troubled, and when her husband Paul comes chasing after her, decides to run away once more. Rose is exasperated by all these shenanigans, but when her sister remains missing amidst rumors of a cult snatching people away on the East River, she can't help but worry that this disappearance is less voluntary than the others.

As Rose and Paul attempt to track down Cecilia, they learn of Avalon, a floating, magical cabaret that only appears to those seeking it. Is it really a seductive cult that kidnaps people for its own malevolent purposes? Or is it something entirely otherworldly?

By the end of this tale, Rose will have become, if not quite a romantic like Cecilia, at least someone open to the possibility of magic, someone who has not decided that everything is cut and dried and quantifiable:

<blockquote>Maybe she would spend the rest of her life running after the holy grail; maybe she, too would come home at defeated intervals, with hollow cheeks and hollow eyes and unwashed luggage, too stupid or too stubborn to admit that it didn't exist at all.
<br>
Or maybe she would find it.</blockquote>

Yes, HiA is something of a modern spin on Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, but written in the kind of rapturous, breathless language that would have made that rector's daughter squirm. Even so, Austen would have understood and likely enjoyed this spiritual successor to Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote, the kind of old-fashioned Romance that's so hard to find nowadays outside of the fantasy genre. This book is being marketed as a modern fairy tale, and while that isn't quite correct, it's not entirely wrong either. It is, I believe, the hardest to categorize of Ms Burton's oeuvre, and quite possibly my favorite so far. She has so much to say about love and desire and belief (and also, at one crucial point, about money!) that it's hard not to want to embrace her works in the same way that Cecilia embraces a life bigger than herself. If you've ever felt the same way, yet keep choosing wonder and romance in the face of the perils of failure, you'll understand.

Here In Avalon by Tara Isabella Burton was published January 2 2024 by Simon & Schuster and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781982170097">Bookshop!</a>

I’ll start by saying that this book was absolutely nothing like I expected it to be, I was expecting sensationalism and DRAMA and cults, all of which this book is not. Although I wasn't expecting this book to be this book, I absolutely loved reading it.

Here in Avalon was a somewhat slow, whimsical, meander, and a bit of a character study. Its lyrical prose reminded me a bit of Diane Setterfield’s Once Upon a River (not just bc both books have boats). I thought it was incredibly well-done! I loved the writing style and the way the novel felt almost like an oral history or folklore at times. This is the type of book that is best enjoyed slowly, savored is perhaps the right word,

As with the author’s other works, I don’t think that this is a book I would recommend to everyone. But I definitely do recommend it, especially for readers who don’t mind a bit of a melodic meander for the sake of telling a story.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for providing me with a complimentary finished copy and e-arc of this novel.

This book was so very okay. I had expected more of a creepy weird cult vibe, but this is more of an exploration of the human condition kind of story. Cecilia is a mess of a person. This much we are told over and over again. While her sister Rose is living the “perfect” life: good job, fiancé, friends. I didn’t particularly care for any of the characters, but especially not Rose’s friend Lydia’s boyfriend. He was just so gross and irritating and I was hoping he would croak. At first I liked Rose enough to willingly follow her tale of trying to find her sister, but something happens probably around like 55% maybe 60% where I was like “you’ve gotta be joking me” and alas there was no joke. I did enjoy the last little section of the book, maybe the last 10% the most because it was pretty dramatic. I just feel like we didn’t get much of any kind of resolution and I don’t know how their lives would work after this experience, which I feel like is kind of important when doing something more of a human experience type story than a this is a horrible cult story. Overall, I think this was an interesting book and I would recommend the audiobook. It definitely helped get me through the first like 20% where it was a lot of slow set up.

I enjoyed reading Here In Avalon, but was a bit underwhelmed by Avalon itself. The buildup to Avalon made it seem fantastical and suggested there may be elements of magical realism. But when Avalon was finally explored, I wasn’t convinced of its alluring nature, and I couldn’t understand what about a cabaret on the water would make someone want to run away from their life. The relationship between the sisters seemed inconsistent as well. Wanting to follow your adult sister on her great adventure seemed unrealistic. The second half of the novel was fast paced, but sometimes it was too fast, and I wish things had been explored more in depth.

I looooove Tara Isabella Burton, initially discovering her with The World Cannot Give, a book I devoured, and then went in search of all her previous writing. And so I was very excited for Here in Avalon. The story is a bit more out there than Burton's other novels, but so fun? The crystalline prose remains, and I enjoyed her characters so much. Will continue to read Burton forever.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!

Maybe it’s a mood thing.

I went into this book expecting fantasy, which it is decidedly not. Also, I anticipated a darker tone to the content, given the “dangerous cult” we’re contemplating. Perhaps those false expectations altered my enjoyment. I’m not sure.

Pacing is quite slow, especially through the first half.

The entire vibe feels philosophical and contemplative. I’m normally fine with that, but I have to be fully invested in the characters, which I wasn’t here. They felt too much at polar extremes, rather than actual people I could envision in life.

I understand and respect the message the author was going for here, but for me, the execution fell a little short. I did enjoy this one, but I didn’t love it.

*Thanks to Simon and Schuster, and the Simon Books Buddy program for my free copy.*

Rose and her older sister Cecilia had a neglect-filled childhood in NYC. Rose became an orderly and structured adult, while Cecilia remain perpetually impulsive, naive, and soft-hearted. When Cecilia returns to NYC after fleeing a whirlwind marriage, Rose hopes her sister will finally build a stable life for herself. Instead, she becomes involved with a mysterious cabaret group, eventually disappearing with them. After learning of other disappearances related to the group, Rose sets out to find the group and learn what really happened to Cecilia.
I liked how the 2 sisters who came from the same circumstances were molded into very different people. I also loved the description of the cabaret. I found myself wanting more about the cabaret members than caring about Rose and Cecilia so the abrupt ending was somewhat disappointing.

Not a spoiler but some nitpicky stuff that bothered me. <spoiler>Needs a few corrections before final version is published IMO. Please google when certain flowers bloom in the NYC area because I can tell you that daffodils don't bloom in late summer and roses don't bloom at the same time as hyacinths and daffodils (this time it was early spring). And you don't need to prune primroses because they are low and leafy. These are just weird little inaccuracies that pulled me out of the magic of the story. If you don't know (or give a) shit about plants it won't bother you. </spoiler>

Thank you SimonBooksBuddies / Simon and Schuster / Netgalley, #partner, for the advanced copy of Here in Avalon in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first book I’ve read by Tara Isabella Burton and it certainly will not be the last. While this is not my typical type of read, I was drawn to the summary and was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying this one!

I am forever drawn to books with cult vibes, and I totally got that with this book. While a bit out of my comfort zone with the whimsical and magical realism elements, I did love that it also had some elements of suspense and mystery, too. And let’s not forget the NYC setting and the story of the two sisters. They have such a complex relationship, and this was what really kept me invested in the story. When Rose goes missing and Cecilia started tracking her down, I was all in. Having to solve clues that were left for her really kept this reader on the edge of her seat and the way The Avalon called to Rose and then to Cecilia was just too much to walk away from.

I loved the themes that were woven into this story, such as sisterhood, identity and self-exploration, and I also loved the note that the author includes at the beginning of the book. She states that this is ” her love letter to cults.” As if I wasn’t already intrigued by the book, that would have sold me right there!

This was an enjoyable contemporary fairytale. I loved the author’s writing style in this book and found it to be very captivating. I loved the main characters Cecelia and Rose and enjoyed following them throughout this book. There was so much to this book and it was very well done. If you are looking for a magical realism read, you may want to check this one out.

(Actual: 3.75⭐, rounded up) I went into this book blind and, I'll be honest, I was definitely a bit surprised to discover there was no fantasy or magical realism to be found here lol. Color me shocked! That being said, while this book isn't one that necessarily falls under my usual wheelhouse of genres, I enjoyed it all the same. It's a bit slow to start, but I implore you to power through because it really does pick up significantly in the back half! The MC was a tad bit too much of a ~manic pixie dream girl~ at times imo, but the gorgeous writing throughout was enough to make me dismiss most of my pettier gripes. I'd recommend this book for those who enjoy beautiful prose, urban fantasy reads, and the Found Family trope!

I enjoyed this book.
It was an interesting take on the fairytale.
The writing was smooth and flowed well.
And I am such a sucker for a book about sisters!

It was very unique and very atmospheric!

Two characters living life. There is conflict that weighs down the story. Avalon could have been a more focused setting instead of an after thought. While the book was organized into parts, the writing was not compelling.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I really love Tara Isabella Burton and consider Social Creature to be one of my favorite novels so I found this to be… disappointing and baffling, to be quite honest. Burton is a wonderful writer but the plot is just astonishingly pointless and confusing here. It’s like if you took Rouge by Mona Awad but made it not as good?

Here in Avalon by Tara Isabella Burton

Published: January 2, 2024
Simon & Schuster
Genre: Coming of Age Fiction
Pages: 316
KKECReads Rating:
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

TARA ISABELLA BURTON is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. Winner of the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for Travel Writing, she completed her doctorate in 19th-century French literature and theology at the University of Oxford and is a prodigious travel writer, short story writer, and essayist for National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist's 1843 and more. She currently works for Vox as their Religion Correspondent, lives in New York, and divides her time between the Upper East Side and Tbilisi, Georgia. She is also at work on a nonfiction book on cults. Her first novel, Social Creature, is forthcoming from Doubleday in June.

Everything about this novel is beautiful. I loved the sister dynamic and how genuine it felt. The charm and charisma in this book will captivate your heart and hold it hostage.

This read like an ethereal fairytale but had a realism that keeps your head above the water. The prose is almost seductive in how it captivates.

The exploration into relationship dynamics was brilliant—the careful way everything was curated and balanced. The nuance was excellent. The emotional residue I feel after finishing this book is challenging to put into words. But I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

I wanted to love this story from the start because I love stories with sisters, however, this story took a little bit to get into for me. Rose and Cecilia were both unique characters who I found myself wanting the best for throughout the story. The world of the cabaret was unique and captivating. I was also surprised by the mystery that came to be as I continued to read. I really enjoyed the imagery as the cabaret was described and the world of their current day New York City. There were also some King Arthur themes brought into this story which was unique! Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advanced copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

Here In Avalon is one of the most intriguing books I’ve read in years. Two sisters, raised BY New York City streets, museums, art, and neighbors in a rent controlled apartment end up in two very different adult lifestyles. Rose rejected her bohemian upbringing, seeking stability in a good job as an app developer, engaged to a CEO of a wellness company. Contrastingly, Cecilia, has spent decades drifting in and out of the city as a traveling musician as far away as Europe; rarely committing to relationships, jobs, or residences. When Cecilia blows back into NYC one year, Rose is hopefully maybe she is ready to settle down and stay until her behavior gets increasingly erratic until she disappears. Rose believes she has been groomed and taken by a highly secretive underground cabaret trope called, Avalon. Risking her own career and engagement, Rose joins Cecelia’s estranged husband on a quest to also be invited to the Avalon. Once she solves their riddles and acquires an invitation, Rose finds herself swept into a seemingly magical world offering a new life. Is Avalon truly a revolutionary utopian commune; offering a life full of art, magic, and shared livelihood? Or is it just another cult praying on the lonely to find themselves entrapped in their hidden/secretive world?

All I can say is: WOW! The writing was so alluring, evocative, and propulsive. I turned page after page, wanting to learn more about the Avalon, solve Cecelia's disappearance, and explore whether real-world fairy tales exist! I loved the thematic emphasis on sisterhood, identity, and self-exploration. Prepared to be swept away by this novel; perfect for book clubs and readers of all types.

Thank you to SimonBook and the Simon Books Buddy program for my copy in exchange for my thoughts.

It took me six days to actually finish my first book of the year (just because I was really busy) and y’all, it could not have started off with a bigger bang!!!!

Can I— can I just live in this book??? Pretty, pretty please? I want to live at the Avalon. I want to perform in a cabaret and help lost souls. What a dream.

What a wonderful, beautiful, GLORIOUS idea this is. Because deep down, I think we’re all a little lost. And the world is hardest for the dreamers. And even though I know the message this book is trying to convey, I just love the idea of this world so damn much.

So this book is MAGICAL. If I hadn’t been quite so busy, I probably would’ve devoured this whole book in one sitting. It’s a glorious, magical adventure. One that I’m already so sad is over.

But it’s also a story about who we are as people and how many choices and mistakes make up a life. Sometimes we make the wrong choices. But sometimes we also find something truly magical. And this story does such a beautiful job of conveying that.

So. I loved this. If I had finished this in 2023, it would have easily made my top 10. (It’s already my favorite book of 2024, haha) I can’t even put into words how much I loved this story.

I could not recommend this more highly! I’m not a huge fan of fantasy but this is *exactly* the kind of fantasy I love to read. If you’re looking to visit a wonderful, magical cabaret, please pick this up!

Thank you to Simon Books, Book Club Favorites & NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review!