Member Reviews

Cadwell Turnbull does it again! He is easily one of the freshest voices in SFF and this saga feels like a classic in the making!

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It was okay but not memorable it was lacking something that kept me interested I picked it up and put it down multiple times

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I love how this expands on the universe that Turnbull created while also raising the stakes for the characters, which is exactly what a sequel is supposed to do.

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Incredibly convoluted and slow-paced. There's a lot of characters, and their POVs do not stand out enough to be clear.

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These convergence saga books are such a mind trip! At times hard to keep track of because of all the moving parts, but this is truly a great series. These books make you think, and bring up a lot of points that you may otherwise not think about, extremist movements, and how far should the government's reach be, who gets to label whom?

The narrator did a great job with this audio-book, and I can't wait to get the last installment.

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This book definitely has some great qualities. So many diverse characters and bringing in the injustice enacted against them and those that support them was very true to real life issues.
Although the narration was good, I think I might have an easier time with a paper copy so I can go back and refresh my memory as there are a multitude to keep up with.
I received this ARCA for free. All thoughts are my own.

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An improvement over the first book, the world it takes place in is getting stranger and more interesting. Realistic, believable characters and impressive creativity when it comes to the various creatures.

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Following the events of the first book, this second installment in an incredibly original series was equally impactful, if more of a consolidation of previously introduced ideas rather than the introduction of new ones. It was exciting and chilling in equal measure, with some really fascinating philosophical discussions about the nature of humanity and the ethics of registration. Overall, whilst this is not a series that will appeal to everyone, I really enjoy it and will be waiting eagerly for the next book.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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We Are The Crisis by Cadwell Turnbull is a contemporary fantasy novel that explores the intersection of civil rights and preternatural forces. The book is the second installment of The Convergence Saga and follows the story of werewolves, witches, vampires, and other magical beings as they emerge from secrecy. The novel is thematically and structurally complex, covering multiple timelines, points of view, and eventually even universes. Turnbull uses his story to explore complex issues of prejudice, intersectionality, and personal identity, as well as the scars left by the darker parts of one’s past.

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Again, Turnbull delivers a story that both looks at bonds of family and the paranormal. He uses complex structures to engage his readers and keep them guessing. There is a undertone of darkness that permeates the atmosphere and as more is revealed, the reader faces the choice of realizing that there is always more to every origin and every story.

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Did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. The story jumps around way to much for me for an auto book that it was hard to keep up. You would start getting into Ridley and his troubles then within the same chapter without warning it would jump to Alex or Dragon. This would have been a better book it I would have read it via book so I could go back and see what the connection was to the different stories. Then at some points it was being told in first person instead of 3rd person. That confused me more than the jumping from person to person. So many question and nothing was answered.

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Thank you, partner @BiblioLifestyle, @blackstonepublishing, and the author for the gifted copy of WE ARE THE CRISIS by Cadwell Turnbull!⁠

WE ARE THE CRISIS is the second book in the author’s Convergence Saga following NO GODS, NO MONSTERS. The series is set in a world much like ours, but one that has taken an abrupt turn. The presence of monsters of various types comes to light in the population. The world must adapt to this new reality as those who have alternate forms must also come to term. Tensions continue to rise between humans and monsters with issues of civil rights and equality called into question.

I really enjoyed NO GODS, NO MONSTERS when I read it, so was thrilled to have a chance to continue the series. This book takes place a couple of years after the first book and it builds on everything that happened at that time. Monsters can no longer be kept under wrap and there is much more openness among the different groups of people in this story. While some seek peace, hate crimes are on the rise, something we certainly can recognize as relating to our own present day.

I think that the author does a fantastic job of telling a powerful story while drawing parallels to our own world. I will be looking forward to the next Convergence Saga read!

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Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing - Audiobooks for allowing me access to this arc in exchange for my honest birthday. Once again Turnbull knocked it out the park. This book had me on the edge of my sit the entire time.

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Pick
This is the second book in the Convergence Saga and it did not disappoint. In this portion of the saga, monsters are no longer in hiding and live among humans; some with success and some with struggles. There are both allies and enemies from humankind which is causing unrest in the community. The Monster Massacre is in the past, but members of Rebecca's wolf pack are mysteriously disappearing, and there is a band of rogue vigilante groups out to drive monsters into extinction. The social messages in this book are still extremely powerful, the divide widens as allies fight against the enemies and more violence, injustice, and conflict arises. I found it to have so many parallels between what's happening in the world today and the content is extremely timely. I enjoyed this listen the audio is spot on with excellent narration, thanks to #netgalley; although I hadn't listened to the first book in the series recently and had to go back to hear it again in order to better understand this sequel. If you loved the first book, you need to read this as well! #WeAreTheCrisis

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This is an exciting series about being a monster and having to know that you will have to fight for your rights. The characters are excellently crafted. They are diverse in who they are and their background, yet you understand each one.

As intriguing as this series is, I wish there were more answers to the conspiracy theories. I feel as if Cadwell Turnbull is holding back the world-building from us. I want to feel the world as much as the characters.

They used the same narrator from the last book, and he's excellent.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

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This book is a monster. The kind with tentacles that slither into the sort of places where even fools’ hindbrains stop them from rushing in and angels rightfully fear to tread.

There are also monsters in this book, because that’s the premise behind the entire Convergence Saga, which began with No Gods, No Monsters. Which is both a play on the old anarchist slogan, “No Gods, No Masters.” as well as part and parcel of the whole mind screw of the series so far.

Because there are certainly people acting monstrously on both sides of the human/monster divide.

That divide was made apparent in that first book, as the ‘things that go bump in the night’ walked out of the shadows and confronted a line of cops who got scared and/or trigger happy and killed them all. Even though that particular set of monsters, werewolves one and all, did nothing overtly threatening. They merely threatened the human belief that garden-variety humans were at the top of the food chain.

Which they were suddenly and obviously not.

We Are the Crisis continues the exploration of a universe where at least some of the creatures who have always walked among us have come out of the monster closet and in a bid to live their lives openly among us. (Also, it is very much a continuation that expects the reader to have already been introduced to the multiple threads of this story in No Gods, No Monsters. In other words, start there, not here.)

Some humans are afraid, and some of those who are afraid are acting out of their fear in the most monstrous way possible. But isn’t that exactly what humans do?

But it’s not just about this world, and that’s where the story picks up its tentacles and shakes them at the reader along with shaking the reader’s view of what is going on and where it’s going on at and who is pulling the strings and the levers.

Because this is a story of the multiverse, one where the monsters are emerging on multiple worlds, generally with catastrophic results, at least for themselves. Those worlds are converging – and so are those catastrophic results.

And that crisis? It’s spreading, from one to another, like a multiverse-wide case of the plague. One that everyone is going to catch – unless someone, some monster, finds a better way. Even though they’ll more than likely die trying.

Escape Rating B+: The story so far, with the separation of its many and various threads and its detachment from its characters, reads like a kind of fever dream. Or at least it feels that way when read by its marvelous narrator Dion Graham.

I’ve listened to both books in the Convergence Saga, and Graham’s voice always hypnotizes me. He gives a terrific performance the perfectly matches the laid-back nature of the storytelling, ashe voices the character who stands outside the story and observes all the crises as they occur – and relates those crises and how they got there to us.

His narration carried me through points and places where even when it was clear what was happening in the moment the way it all fit together was totally obscured, which is exactly the way the story was being told – amidst not one but multiple fogs of a war yet to come.

(Full confession, I would cheerfully listen to Dion Graham read the most boring book in existence and I’d still be utterly enthralled. However, at least so far, the Convergence Saga has been anything BUT boring. Confusing at points, but never, EVER dull.)

Part of what makes this story so compelling is its blend of commentary about the real present with the historic paranormal with the outright fantastic. The treatment of the monsters and the meteoric rise of a well-funded organization to put them down has entirely too many parallels to both history and the present for that to be coincidental, and it makes the treatment of the so-called monsters just that much more chilling because it is just that much more real.

At the same time, there’s a dawning revelation that is easy to overlook – particularly in audio because the references to it flash by so quickly – that although the same kind of thing is happening to all these people – it’s not happening in the same universe. That the woman who met – and disliked – the real Aleister Crowley isn’t part of the same history as the woman who was mentored by a vampire which isn’t the same universe as the man who detaches from his world to view all the others.

So that crisis, which at first feels like it’s happening very fast and all over, diffuses across multiple worlds and then draws itself back in again. Just in time for what looks to be a resounding cataclysm that will hopefully be resolved in the third book in this projected trilogy.

Readers, including this one, will certainly be on tenterhooks waiting for that final book, because this story – and this crisis – is far from over.

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Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this audio ARC.

I went in to this blind so I didn’t realize this was a 2nd book in a series. I did struggle a bit to keep up but it was a good book. I will need to grab book 1.

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I received the physical of the first book and this one and I will say that I loved them both, although they read more as graphic novels and I would love to see them as graphic novels.

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We Are the Crisis is the second book in the Convergence Saga by Cadwell Turnbull and takes place three years after No Gods No Monsters. The existence of monsters is no longer a secret and, although there are many humans who are allies and are willing to fight along with them for equal rights, there are also many who see them as a threat which much be at the very least contained or even obliterated. One of these groups is the Black Hand, a violent pro-human group that may be responsible for the disappearance of many monsters.

First, what I didn’t like. I will say right off that it would be very hard to jump into this book without having read the first book in the series. Even having read it, albeit a couple of years ago, I found it a bit hard to catch up. Add to that, there are some problems that seem inherent to a middle book in a series. It does not always seem as cohesive as the first as there are many storylines, the purpose of which are not always clear, so that much of the book seems just a set up for the next book, making the story occasionally confusing and a bit draggy in places.

What I did like. It is well-written and, even when I wasn’t sure of what was going on, it still kept me immersed in the story throughout. There are a lot of moving parts packed into the story that made it hard for me to put it down. I loved how Turnbull allowed his characters to grow and change as their circumstances changed and how he blends issues like race and class into the story. Overall, I wouldn’t say I liked this as much as the first book but that’s a pretty high bar to compare it to and it did what a really good second book should do ie. I can’t wait to read the third book to see how this all works out in the end.

I read the book while listening along with the audiobook version and I gotta say Dion Graham does an absolutely spot-on job as narrator. But whether you choose to read or listen or both, if you’ve read No Goods. No Monsters, you need this book. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?

I received an arc and audiobook from Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing in exchange for an honest review

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Ive been waiting for this sequel ever since the way the last book ended. I really like the way the authors style if writing. Using supernatural creatures and civil rights in a story is just genius and beautifully done.

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