This is miles better than Aaronovitch's last novella set in America and he did two things that really helped sell the setting: he set it in the 1920s and made the narrator British, so any errors can be chalked up to changing times and/or a non-American narrator.

And what a narrator! Augustus Berrycloth-Young sounds like he's stepped out of a Wodehouse story and just makes the entire book sparkle. I hope we get to see more of Gussie and his adventures.

Received via NetGalley.

As a fan of the Rivers of London series, I am always happy to see a new edition! The Masquerades of Spring is a short prequel in which Nightingale heads to Harlem during its swinging Renaissance heyday to track down the origin of an enchanted saxophone. He meets up with another Folly member who reads a little like Bertie Wooster (down to the hyper-competent butler). It's fun with some hidden depths. My one critique is that, much like the last entry to the series, the American setting read a little thin.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this before it’s published.

The Rivers of London series is one of my favorites and I like how these novellas round out the magical world. I’m always a fan of The Nightingale, and Augustus was a likable main character that got towed along on the adventure.

There was plenty of action and intrigue in this one to round out the little less than 200 pages. It makes the wait for the next Peter Grant book a little more palatable.

A wonderful short story taking place in the Harlem Renaissance with one of our favorite characters. It's basically a detective case involving the Nightingale and a Folly Expat named Gussie. Gussie is very comfortable in his scene and new life in NYC but then The Nightingale shows up at his door out of the blue looking for the origin of a mysterious enchanted saxophone. This leads them all predictably enough on a fascinating and history rich exploration of Harlem during it's Renaissance period with jazz heavily peppered within. As usual the story is richly set and has a main character who is well fleshed out and who the reader can sympathize with. I could do with him reining in the impulse to use the word bally all the time but it kind of makes sense for Gussie. All in all an excellent addition to the Rivers of London series.

Prequel novella to the Peter Grant series, set in 1920s New York. A young Thomas Nightingale is a major character. The narrator has a Bertie Wooster affect and voice, and a love for jazz and drag.

Slight and nonessential, but enjoyable enough.

A fun sweet read! Highly recommend.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for my ARC.

I love Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series! The novels, novellas, and graphic novels are all great, so no unbiased reveiw here. The Masquerades of Spring reads like a Bertie Wooster story. So much fun!

3.5. I love Jazz Age settings and I think this did a decent job of capturing that vibe. The writing was solid but I found my attention waning.

Fantasy Mystery

Review: There should have been a publisher description or a genre designation that this is gayer than Stephen Fry's fanny pack.

Besides the gay crushing that pounds you senseless from the backside, this was a good read as old Nightingale is there to save the story line. The supporting caste are artfully rendered while Gussie is a bit of a flighty pillock. As it is a novella, only three stars are available for the entire rating.

3/5

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first experience with the Rivers of London series. I had heard of it in the past and thought it sounded interesting, so when this popped up on NetGalley I figured I'd give it a try. Although it takes place within the same world of that series and involves one of the characters in his younger days, it's largely a standalone work. I had no problem understanding and enjoying this story despite never having read any of the other books in the series. The story quickly and succinctly gets you up to speed on the way magic works in this world via the narrator's explanations.

This was an interesting enough crime solving story with a dash of magic for flavor. I really enjoyed the setting of the jazz era of New York City in the 1920s. The story takes full advantage of time period and attempts to portray things as actually as possible, as far as setting goes. Unfortunately, the mystery itself, a stolen magical musical instrument, didn't do that much for me. It's solved fairly quickly and without too many wrong turns.

However, what earned this a definite 4 stars for me was the narrator, Augustus Berrycloth-Young, a delightful British dandy transplanted from merry old England to NYC and loving every minute of it. Here, he works as sort of a "Doctor Watson" to Nightingale's "Sherlock." He is the highlight of the book, and his voice and commentary throughout was simply delightful. Dragged against his will into his friend Thomas Nightingale's investigation, he spends the whole story giving the reader asides about his love of breakfast, his critiques of others' wardrobes, and his desire to be home in bed, at a jazz club, spending time with his partner, or virtually anywhere else other than helping Thomas with this investigation. Of course, despite all that, he rises to the challenge and assists his friend in saving the day. I chuckled many, many times at "Gussie's" extremely reluctant heroics. Evidently he's a character unique to this book, which is a shame, because he was my favorite part of the story. I can see how after multiple books, his voice could become too much to take. For this novella, though, I thought it was perfect. Not at all what I was expecting from a hard-bitten crime story, and I loved that.

In the end, this did make me more inclined to check out other books in this series. Even if you're not a big fantasy reader, if you like mystery/crime stories, I'd suggest you check this out. The magic is fairly minimal, and it reads more like a police/crime novel with a non-traditional narrator.

I'm a huge fan of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, so I was very excited to get an advanced copy of a novella I had no idea was forthcoming!

I greatly enjoyed this. It had everything I wanted in an Urban Fantasy novel except for one thing. Not enough Nightingale! (Just kidding!) The majority of the story is all about Nightingale visiting the United States, on the trail of a magical saxophone, as told through the eyes of one of his old classmates. The story is set in the 1930s, so it was very interesting reading about Nightingale in his prime, and his element, traveling to
North America.

One of the joys of the series is Nightingale's interactions with his magical students, but he is often a side character in those stories. Here he mostly takes center stage, and I say mostly, because the narrator is quite a delight too. Augustus Berrycloth-Young is gay, rich, drolly funny, knowing, and lots of fun to pal around NYC with, so I hope to read more of his adventures in the future.

I was expecting Aaronovitch to set one of his Rivers of London stories in America and I thought it would star Peter's FBI Agent associate, Kimberly Reynolds, (I'm still looking forward to that), but Augustus more than holds his own as a character, and there's some nice worldbuilding in this rather quick (too quick for me) read.

I started The Masquerades of Spring and quickly decided it was a pastiche of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories. It is, of course, but it is much more. The Jeeves character is a red herring and the Wooster figure is a wizard and friend of a youthful Thomas Nightingale, a regular in the Rivers of London stories. Aaronovitch uses his protagonist, an expatriate Englishman living in Prohibition-era Manhattan, to observe the injustices of the era, including the mistreatment of blacks and gays, the legacies of British imperialism, and the ever present bigotry present even in cosmopolitan New York. As the author does throughout the Rivers of London books, here he subverts familiar tropes and, even if the persistent humor of the book sometimes clashes with the ugly revelations, does it gracefully and entertainingly. I was delighted.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a free proof in exchange for an honest review.

The Masquerades of Spring is another entertaining addition to the Rivers of London series. As with the other novellas in the series, Peter Grant is nowhere to be found in this one … and is, in fact, still several decades from having been born considering the 1920s setting. Instead, we're introduced to Augustus (Gussie) Berrycloth-Young, an English wizard who finds himself living in New York City after running afoul of The Folly back home. When his old friend Thomas Nightingale arrives on his doorstep seeking help uncovering the origins of one very unique saxophone, a delightfully fun investigation into the magical underbelly of Harlem's jazz scene ensues.

Gussie is a fantastic character and I liked him immediately. He's a bit of a dandy, incredibly witty, and very, very British. He's honestly probably one of my favorite characters in the entire series, and his lively narration of events really makes this book. Nightingale is very much still himself, although quite a bit younger than when we met him last. Together they make a rather odd couple, but it absolutely works.

This novella is probably a bit light on magic and denizens of the demi-monde as compared to the full-length books, but never fear – there are still enchanted instruments and fae and even a werelight or two. The mystery is an entertaining one and is resolved satisfactorily. I really wish it had been longer – I would have happily read another 150 pages of Gussie and Nightingale's adventures in New York.

My only minor complaint is the same complaint that I have about all of the Rivers of London novels – I can never keep all of the side characters straight. This is likely just a me thing, but there's always one character who leads to another character who points to another character, and by the time I'm a few characters in I've completely forgotten who is who. It didn't take away much from my enjoyment of the story, but I did find myself having to backtrack a few times to put the names to the “faces.”

My overall rating: 4.25 stars, rounded down. I so hope that we'll be seeing more of Augustus Berrycloth-Young in future Rivers of London novels – he's absolutely delightful.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is September 30, 2024.

So this was a weird book, I mean that in a positive way. I wasn't sure what to expect from little novela but it was pretty interesting. I couldn't put the book down because I wanted to know what was going to happen.