The Auguries

I'd anticipated this novel for quite some time, as I've been following the author's discussions on Twitter. I'd also long been a fan of his work, and now I can state that THE AUGURIES, his newest novel is the best yet. (Though I shall continue to rave over his THE WAITING ROOM.) THE AUGURIES is a champion combination of contemporary London with the sixteenth-century England ruled by a capricious and willful monarch, Henry the Eighth. Mr. Cottam brilliantly showcases both today's culture and the suspicious, gullible, but highly religious society of the 1500's, in England and also in Spain, the Alps, Germany, and the Netherlands. He renders both cultures extremely comprehensible as he utilizes strongly-delineated characters to elicit truths about each era. Then he turns the contemporary portrait upside down and effectively destroys it in an incredibly Apocalyptic, totally implacable, inexplicable and impossible, series of events which defy the laws of physics and Nature, but which nonetheless continue to occur.

If you like your Apocalypse served hot and your historical revenge served cold; if you glory in feats of magic and science and historical research; if you love your characters drawn right down to the bone, with an author's X-ray vision of their truths; then you need to read THE AUGURIES. F. G. Cottam demonstrates mastery indeed.

"Thrilling" and "fast-paced" are adjectives that get bandied about often in book reviews, but this book is a master class in both of those features. Cottam tackles subjects of enormous scope (apocalypse, ancient occult) and two separate timelines and weaves a fascinating novel from both. I can't imagine the restraint it took to keep this book as lean and economical as it is. The result is an incredibly engrossing stay-up-late-to-finish tale of human sickness with my favorite sort of ending.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2735203971

Rollicking along with a huge sense of scope and boundless imagination, I had an awful lot of grisly fun with this.

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
Whew, that was some read! I just finished it and I'm still breathing hard...
This story is about The End of Times, the Auguries that precede it and the Almanac of Forbidden Wisdom in the hands of a 14-year old precocious girl, Dawn. Supremely intelligent, without a moral compass, she manages to wreak havoc on her family, the City of London and later the rest of the world. Professor Juliet Harrington, Father Gould and Paul Beck are in a race to find the Almanac, but not before passenger boats sink, planes fall out of the air; floods, hurricanes and fires decimate the citizens and London is left ruined and empty.
There were times I couldn't help but smile, then times where I felt uneasy...somehow it felt a little like turning on the morning news and sighing as the news is yet again of mass shootings, deadly severe weather and world politics.
It's a terrific read, with chapters set in the present as well as the 1500's. I enjoyed the chapters mentioning King Henry the 8th, he really came to life for me. F.G. Cottam is fast becoming one of my favorite authors and I highly recommend this book.

I received and advance copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Auguries reminded me a bit of another Cottam book, The Lazarus Prophecy. The same interesting mixture of church/world history and modern horror. In fact, I have read several of Cottam’s other works and they all have a strong element of history and folklore that is really a plus for me. His novels provide quite a bit of suspense and strong historical elements as well as thriller style pacing which is a compelling mix. I find the horror elements not to be of the “in your face” variety but more along the lines of images and concepts that disturbing on a deeper level than something nasty trying to break into your house.

The Auguries is about witches and dark magic and a spell book finding its way into the wrong hands. Rather than some unrealistic wizard/super villain, the evil in The Auguries is very familiar, which grounds the story in a believable element. The Almanac of Forbidden Wisdom was written with the hope that it would fall into the hands of an amateur who would be unable to forsee the damage that these spells would do. The magic is harsh and simple yet the repercussions drastic and escalating to the apocalyptic.

As a writer, Cottam’s skills are well developed. The characters representing the church and state are presented in a sympathetic light as heroes, which isn’t often the case. It was a relief for me to read a book that wasn’t full of typical clichés where the government characters are power mad and the clergy are evil. Here they felt like real people. Even the villain had sympathetic elements and was completely believable.

Apart from all of that, it is a damn good story. Like Lazarus, Auguries is horrific historical “what if” that injects legends, actual characters and events into a supernatural story. It is quite compelling. Several times I felt the desire to research whether The Almanac of Forbidden Wisdom actually exists. I decided not to. I would rather not know.

4 solid stars.

I have been enjoying F.G. Cottam’s various supernatural/paranormal books for some time now and was happy to have the opportunity to read his latest as an ARC. Here he has done something a little different, moving beyond the dread of evil and its limited occurrence to whole scale evil of apocalyptic dimensions. And it all begins with a book, not an ordinary book, but a book created some 500 years ago by the most powerful occult practitioners of Europe. And now it has fallen into the hands of a 14 year old English girl, very bright, socially inept, identified by others as on the spectrum. All in all, not someone you want controlling your, and humanity’s, future.

The story introduces us to Juliet Harrington, an academic who has been investigating the possible existence of this book as part of her work. Her skeptical boss changes face once government representatives seek her out for assistance. Even those in power realize that the odd events happening are not natural, are more magical and require a different approach if they are to survive.

Rather than give you lots of details on the flurry of horrors that afflict London, I will just say that they combine natural and unnatural disasters, scourges, and that they reflect a teenage mind scheming as a teen would but with so much more power. Probably the only fault I found with the book was the stress on her being “on the spectrum.” I don’t think that would account for Dawn’s behavior. I think there must have been a touch of sociopath in her makeup as well. Being on the spectrum, to me, means lack of social skills or ability to relate to others normally, not a propensity toward apocalyptic behavior. As one of the characters in The Auguries speculated early on, a worst case scenario might be an ornery teenager coming into possession of the book. Well sometimes a simple fear may be the truth.

This is a fast paced read, that moves across Europe, and through diaries into the past, answering some questions before raising more. In its own matter of fact way, the story is almost light at times because of Dawn’s character, or lack of same.

Recommended for those who enjoy paranormal books with a touch of horror. Cottam is someone you should be reading.

A copy of this book was provided by Severn House publishers through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is my first book by this author and, on the back of what I read, definitely won't be my last. It gripped me from the very first page, held me captive throughout, and left me satisfied at its conclusion.
We start with some strange goings on at a funeral. Then cut to history prof Juliet Harrington talking about a book. The Almanac of Forbidden Wisdom which is a powerful spell book compiled by some big names in the occult. But this book is only legend, a legend that also states that using the magic contained within comes at a cost, that cost being the Auguries. More strange things occur and Juliet starts to believe that not only does the book actually exist, but someone is using it. As the disasters escalate further, it becomes a race against time to track down the book and its current guardian and put a stop to things before they go too far.
I really wasn't sure what I was getting myself into when I started reading this book but I had one heck of a ride reading it. I was fascinated by the history surrounding the book and how it came to be. The real reason behind the book's existence, the people who collaborated on it and what happened to them thereafter. How the author weaved fact into his fiction seamlessly. And how the book fell into the hands of a 14 year old girl who was a bit strange even before she found what she had. How she was swiftly drawn into the book's thrall and how she played with what she had, inadvertently triggering the End Times. Gripping stuff indeed!
Juliet is ably assisted in her endeavours by translator (and so much more as we eventually find out) Paul Beck. These two characters complemented each other very well and add an extra dimension to the book. The rest of the characters were equally well drawn and played their parts very well. Yes, some of the things that happened were a bit bonkers but, as anyone who knows me, know that I do love a bit of bonkers and some of the things that happened along the way were definitely of that ilk - and also contained some quite funny moments to boot!
All in all, a cracking read that I thoroughly enjoyed. Another author to add to my watch list and another back catalogue to add to my every growing tbr. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.