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WORK TITLE: Amberlough
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://laradonnelly.com/
CITY: Harlem
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017001396
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017001396
HEADING: Donnelly, Lara Elena, 1990-
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046 __ |f 1990-03-07 |2 edtf
053 _0 |a PS3604.O56326
100 1_ |a Donnelly, Lara Elena, |d 1990-
370 __ |f Ohio |f Louisville (Ky.)
670 __ |a Amberlough, 2017: |b ECIP t.p. (Lara Elena Donnelly) data view (LARA ELENA DONNELLY is a graduate of the Alpha and Clarion writing workshops. Her fiction won the Dell Magazine Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy; she has been published in Icarus, Strange Horizons, Grim Corps, and Mythic Delirium. Donnelly has worked as professional fire performer, belly dancer, and is knowledgeable in aerial acrobatics and burlesque. Amberlough is her debut novel)
670 __ |a Amazon.com website, viewed Jan. 10, 2017: |b (LARA ELENA DONNELLY is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, as well as the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers, where she now volunteers as on-site staff and publicity coordinator. In her meager spare time she cooks, draws, sings, and swing dances. After an idyllic, small-town Ohio childhood, spent time in Louisville, Kentucky. She currently resides in Harlem, in a tower named after Ella Fitzgerald)
670 __ |a Email from publisher (TOR/St. Martins), Jan. 10, 2017: |b (Lara Elena Donnelly’s date of birth is March 7, 1990)
PERSONAL
Born March 7, 1990.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Volunteer staff member and publicity coordinator, Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers. Also worked as fire performer, barista, limousine coordinator, legal assistant to a personal injury attorney, and belly dancer.
AVOCATIONS:Cooking, drawing, singing, and swing dancing.
AWARDS:Dell Magazine Award for undergraduate excellence in science fiction and fantasy.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Grim Corps, Icarus, Mythic Delirium, and Strange Horizons.
SIDELIGHTS
Lara Elena Donnelly’s debut novel is Amberlough, a spy-themed fantasy thriller “set in a world with all the glamor and terror of 1930s Berlin,” explained the author in a contribution to the website Terrible Minds. Donnelly’s world has invited comparisons to turn-of-the-century Paris and 1920s Berlin, and her novel has been celebrated as introducing a major new voice in fantasy fiction. “At its heart, Amberlough is a pessimistic historical fantasy,” wrote Matt Mitrovich in Amazing Stories. “The culture and politics of the country strongly resemble that of Wiemar Germany, while Amberlough City reminds me of a mix between Paris and New York.”
Amberlough is set in a world where four states are slowly succumbing to fascism, represented by a group known as the OSP, or the Ospies. “The economy is faltering, the government is riddled with corruption, the shadow of fascism is creeping across the political landscape, and the populace is partying hard enough to ignore their precarious situation,” Donnelly wrote in Terrible Minds. “Secret agent Cyril DePaul has betrayed his country to protect his lover, black market kingpin Aristide Makricosta, but when he gets in over his head he turns to street-smart stripper and drug dealer Cordelia Lehane for help.” The trio, said Kristi Chadwick in Library Journal, “risk being taken down by the corrupt police, the crooked government, or their own actions.” “As the OSP gains power—thanks to Cyril’s own machinations—Cyril, Aristide, and Cordelia each fight to save those they care about,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “and, ultimately, to survive themselves.”
Critics celebrated the release of Donnelly’s first novel. “Amberlough is by far one of the top debuts of the year, and will likely make my Best of 2017 list,” stated Kevin Wei in Fantasy Literature. “If you enjoy good prose and well-developed characters or are a fan of well-written romance, I’d strongly recommend you pick up Amberlough. … Combining the espionage thrills of le Carré with the allure of an alternate vintage era, Amberlough will thoroughly seduce and enthrall you.” “Because Donnelly doesn’t compromise her vision—she plays hardball, forcing her characters to face the consequences of their actions and decisions, and working them through with a relentless logic—it allows Amberlough to function as a vivid and powerful warning,” stated a Fantasy Faction reviewer. “Amberlough’s vivid setting and fully realised characters get under the reader’s skin, and force them to ask uncomfortable questions about our own present and our own moral complicity. It is this that makes Amberlough such a timely and necessary novel.” “Amberlough isn’t a cheerful book, but it has an amazing voice,” opined Liz Bourke in Locus Online. “Its spy-thriller twists and ever-growing tension combine to provide an extraordinarily entertaining ride.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Amazing Stories, February 21, 2017, Matt Mitrovich, review of Amberlough.
Booklist, January 1, 2017, Anna Mickelsen, review of Amberlough, p. 52.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2016, review of Amberlough.
Library Journal, February 15, 2017, Kristi Chadwick, “Science Fiction/Fantasy,” p. 66.
Publishers Weekly, December 12, 2016, review of Amberlough, p. 129.
ONLINE
Fantasy Faction, http://fantasy-faction.com/ (May 2, 2017), review of Amberlough.
Fantasy Literature, http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ (February 23, 2017), Kevin Wei, review of Amberlough.
Historical Novel Society, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ (May 1, 2017), Holly Faur, review of Amberlough.
Lara Donnelly Website, http://laradonnelly.com (October 18, 2017), author profile.
Locus Online, http://www.locusmag.com/ (March 30, 2017), Liz Bourke, review of Amberlough.
Macmillan, https://us.macmillan.com/ (October 18, 2017), book excerpt.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ (October 18, 2017), Holly Faur, review of Amberlough.
Terrible Minds, http://terribleminds.com/ (February 9, 2017), “Lara Elena Donnelly: Five Things I Learned Writing Amberlough.”
About Lara
Lara Elena Donnelly is based in Harlem, a place she reached by way of Yellow Springs, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky. Before reaching her current state of existence–working in finance from home, in her pajamas, and writing fiction in her off-time–she was variously a barista, a limousine coordinator, and legal assistant to a personal injury attorney. She has also belly danced and breathed fire for tips.
She is a graduate of the Alpha and Clarion workshops. Her work has appeared several places in print and online—swing by the bibliography page for links.
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EXCERPT
CHAPTER
ONE
At the beginning of the workweek, most of Amberlough’s salaryfolk crawled reluctantly from their bed—or someone else’s—and let the trolleys tow them, hungover...
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From author Lara Elena Donnelly, a debut spy thriller as a gay double-agent schemes to protect his smuggler lover during the rise of a fascist government coup.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lara Elena Donnelly
LARA ELENA DONNELLY is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, as well as the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers, where she now volunteers as on-site staff and publicity coordinator. In her meager spare time she cooks, draws, sings, and swing dances. After an idyllic, small-town Ohio childhood, spent time in Louisville, Kentucky. She currently resides in Harlem, in a tower named after Ella Fitzgerald. Amberlough is her debut novel.
LARA ELENA DONNELLY: FIVE THINGS I LEARNED WRITING AMBERLOUGH
Amberlough is a vintage-glam spy thriller, set in a world with all the glamor and terror of 1930s Berlin. The economy is faltering, the government is riddled with corruption, the shadow of fascism is creeping across the political landscape, and the populace is partying hard enough to ignore their precarious situation.
Secret agent Cyril DePaul has betrayed his country to protect his lover, black market kingpin Aristide Makricosta, but when he gets in over his head he turns to street-smart stripper and drug dealer Cordelia Lehane for help. As the twinkling lights of nightclub marquees yield to the rising flames of a fascist revolution, these three will struggle to survive using whatever means — and people — necessary. Including each other.
* * *
I learned a lot writing Amberlough. These five things are just the things that changed me the most. Some changed the way I approach writing. Some changed the way I evaluate relationships, the way I consume media, the way I see the world. Some of these things feel eerily, unfortunately timely.
1) THE SECOND BOOK IS HARDER
This is technically cheating, because it’s something I learned as I moved on to my next project after Amberlough. I remember Amberlough coming out in a giant surge of joy and inspiration and furious typing. That is not what happened. What happened is I struggled and moaned and gave up a few times and then came back, and tweaked, and reordered, and killed off some characters, brought some back to life, and ascribed different actions to different people.
I was really, really beating myself up, wondering why the next project wasn’t as easy, why it wasn’t coming out as effortlessly. The truth is: human brains are bad at remembering pain and unpleasant experiences with clarity. My brain wrapped the difficult process of novel writing in a clever disguise. Well, brain, I have news for you: it just makes the second novel harder.
2) QUESTION YOUR UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
Amberlough is an anachronistic novel — I based a lot of the culture on late 1920s and early 1930s Europe. Which meant I kept defaulting to familiar norms. Female secretary, male boss, white people everywhere, etc. for no particular reason. But I knew I wanted the book to be about the forcible streamlining and homogenization of a messy, diverse place. And I couldn’t do that if I didn’t start with messy diversity.
Creating a diverse fantasy world full of fair representation is a worthy pursuit, but it’s also an excellent narrative tool. Diversity instantly creates tension. For instance: Cyril, one Amberlough’s main characters, is an affluent white man from a politically-powerful, old-money family. His boss Ada Culpepper is the daughter of two black immigrants—asylum seekers from a nation essentially destroyed by Cyril’s family. Though the race and gender politics in Amberlough are different than those in our world, and even though Cyril and Ada’s differences don’t contribute directly to the plot, they don’t see the world quite the same way, and this colors every interaction between them.
Similarly, Cyril’s beard Cordelia is an orphan from one of Amberlough City’s worst slums, who works as a burlesque dancer and drug dealer. She and Cyril become close friends, but there are certain things they will never, ever understand about each other. Those things create excellent opportunities for character development. For instance, when Cyril is telling Cordelia how he became a spy:
“When I was younger,” he said, ignoring her, “it seemed so exciting. Everything was a game, and ruthlessness had a kind of . . . romantic appeal.” Then, he looked up, and his eyes widened, flashing like mercury. “I’m sorry. You’re from the Mew. I wasn’t thinking.”
She licked her teeth, tasting good tobacco and clean gin. “Nah. I ain’t pinned. We’re all idiots when we’re kids. Only difference is, I stopped being a kid a lot sooner than you.”
The shame was plain on his face, and satisfying.
3) ESPIONAGE ISN’T GLAMOROUS
Ian Fleming did a great job convincing us all that spies are sexy, and Amberlough follows in those scandalous footsteps. Very seldom do spies act like James Bond. Far more often they are like le Carré’s Smiley, or even less assuming. They’re usually just normal people, gathering information that might be useful handlers who hope it’s relevant. Intelligence is built on a foundation of thousands of separate, simple reports that make one complex picture.
One of the sexiest things about espionage is that important secrets are traded among people who generally have access to them by virtue of their position in life. This means ambassadors and their families (or their lovers); old money, society journalists, high stakes gamblers; well-known authors, actors, and other famous people who travel around the world in wealthy and elevated circles.
These aren’t generally the same people who are trained in Krav Maga or sharp-shooting. More often, they’re in the camp of people reporting on seemingly banal overheard conversations that, in the context of a larger operation, can become vitally important. During World War II, for example, one man was selected as an agent for Operation Doublecross simply because he bore a startling resemblance to General MacArthur. He had no training in tradecraft whatsoever.
4) WE’LL ROOT FOR ANYBODY IF THEY’RE COMPELLING
When I sent a draft of this book to my mom, she called when she was done and asked me where I’d learned to write such awful characters. And, more than that: how had I made them so likeable?
The people in this book are not good or nice. They are scheming, manipulative, devious, selfish, secretive, meddling, violent, and destructive. They commit horrible crimes and destroy other people’s lives to save their own. But my beta readers loved them. I loved them. I reveled in coming up with new ways for them to connive and conspire. It’s amazing how invested you can become in someone’s awfulness, if you’re sympathetic to their motivation. Amazing, and a little scary.
5) INJUSTICE HAS NO SIGNPOST
Reading history, it’s easy to point to a juncture and say, “That’s where things went wrong. I would notice something as crazy as a rigged election, or a fascist coup, or the dismantling of democracy.” But not if it looks like business as usual. And usually, it does.
For instance, I did a lot of research about rigged elections, though much of this information didn’t end up in the book. Mostly because, like spy work, the details are a little boring.
Rigging an election is as simple as workers at certain polling places saying, “Did you bring your ID?” Or people “losing” ballot boxes. Or candidates telling bald-faced lies, saying they’ve won when they haven’t, and steamrolling any objection. Or, I don’t know, making a stink about some emails at a critical point one week before people head to the polls.
As I read my research material (sent to me by a friend who consults on electoral conflicts) I remember wondering, “That’s it? Why didn’t people…do something?” If rigged elections were decided by one momentous handshake in a dark, smoky room, I could understand—no one would see the problem to stop it. But these weren’t cloak and dagger operations. These were the end result of many banal injustices, piling up in the open.
There is no moment of “This Far and No Further.” These things happen by slow increments, a current growing swifter each moment as the river approaches the falls. Change is wrought by small actions, multiplying and metastasizing into something huge.
* * *
The all-singing, all-dancing Lara Elena Donnelly is a graduate of the Alpha and Clarion writers’ workshops. Her work has appeared in venues including Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Nightmare, and Mythic Delirium. Her debut novel, vintage-glam spy thriller Amberlough, drops on February 7, 2017 from Tor Books. A veteran of small town Ohio and the Derby City, Lara now lives in Manhattan. You can also find her online at @larazontally or laradonnelly.com.
Print Marked Items
Science fiction/fantasy
Megan M. McArdle and Kristi Chadwick
Library Journal.
142.3 (Feb. 15, 2017): p66. From Literature Resource Center.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
IN FANTASY, there is usually magic in the world, but authors take various approaches to establish how pervasive the
wizardry is and who knows about it. In epic fantasy, paranormal power might be a regular part of the characters' daily
lives such as found in Lois McMaster Bujold's world of the Five Gods, revisited this month in Penric and the Shaman.
Other stories pivot on secret supernatural knowledge, including those influenced by the ever-popular mythos created by
H.P. Lovecraft, two examples of which we get with Caitlin R. Kiernan's Agents of Dreamland and Ruthanna Emrys's
Winter Tide.
Urban fantasy is more likely to have the magic shared with only a few, like the Tufa of Alex Bledsoe's Gather Her
Round: A Novel of the Tufa, or the agents of the Arcadia Project in Mishell Baker's Phantom Pains. And the moment
when hidden powers are made public is the focus of Kim Harrison's The Turn, the prequel to her "Hollows" series.
Underground or out in the open, alchemy is part of what makes fantasy a wonderful winter escape.--MM
CHECK THESE OUT
* Baker, Mishell. Phantom Pains. Saga: S. & S. (Arcadia Project, Bk. 2). Mar. 2017. 416p. ISBN 9781481480178.
$29.99; pap. ISBN 9781481451925. $15.99; ebk. ISBN 9781481451932. FANTASY
Four months ago, Millie Roper, a brain-damaged double amputee with borderline personality disorder, left the Arcadia
Project, which oversees relations between Hollywood and the fairy world, after her partner Teo was killed by a fey
countess. Now working for Valmont Studios, she is brought back to the scene of the crime by her former boss, Caryl,
where she is confronted by Teo's ghost. Even more shocking to Millie is Caryl's insistence that ghosts don't exist.
Although reluctant to deal with the Project again, she agrees to recount her experience to agents at the national
headquarters. But during her visit, an agent is murdered and Caryl is implicated in the crime. Millie knows that Caryl is
innocent, but the Project expects swift--and severe-justice to be served. Millie must not only save Caryl from an awful
fate but also discover the culprit behind a plot to destroy both worlds. VERDICT This follow-up to Borderline keeps
the emotional punches from Baker's resilient protagonist coming. Millie's disabilities are not hindrances; they enhance
her thoughts and actions. Readers invested in the first book won't be disappointed.--KC
Bledsoe, Alex. Gather Her Round: A Novel of the Tufa. Tor. Mar. 2017. 320p. ISBN 9780765383341. $27.99; ebk.
ISBN 9781466891555. FANTASY
Kera Rogers, a young woman of the mysterious Tufa, disappears while hiking the woods of Cloud County. It appears
she was attacked by an unusually large wild boar, but things are never simple when they involve the Tufa, descendants
of otherworldly fae beings. Kera's boyfriend Duncan mourns her death, but he is also consumed by jealousy when he
discovers she had another lover. While local hunters look for the boar, Duncan seeks revenge. VERDICT The latest
entry (after Chapel of Ease) in this marvelous series combines human drama with just a touch of otherworldly magic.
The split nature of the Tufa community is further explored, but Bledsoe never reduces the two sides to basic good vs.
evil, as he allows his characters to make their own choices.--MM
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Penric and the Shaman. Subterranean. Feb. 2017. 216p. ISBN 9781596068155. $25. ebk.
available. FANTASY
Lord Penric has joined the Bastard's Order, studying and marking time as a sorcerer in the court of the PrincessArchdivine.
Locator Oswyl arrives, looking for a wizard to find the shaman Inglis, who is accused of killing his best
friend. Released from his service to the princess and accompanied by his demon, Desdemona, Penric travels with
Oswyl into the mountains where he is forced to use his still-burgeoning powers when they are confronted with
unexpected magic and spirits in capturing Inglis. VERDICT Set in the world of "The Five Gods" (The Curse if
Challion; Paladin of Souls; The Hallowed Hunt), Bujold's novella takes series fans back to a well-known realm in an
exciting new adventure. The varied voices, especially between Pen and Desdemona, add a fun slant to a serious tale.--
KC
Danker, Sean. Free Space. Ace: Berkley. (Admiral, Bk. 2). May 2017.320p. ISBN 9780451475800. pap. $16; ebk.
ISBN 9780698197268. SF
Having impersonated a prince, fended off numerous assassination attempts, and prevented a war, the Admiral is ready
for a weekend away with Tessa Salmagard, an Evagardian lady. Although dinner goes off without a hitch, pirates
boarding their shuttle and kidnapping him as slave labor to be traded as another commodity was not part of the plan.
But the Admiral has been underestimated before, and his date is an Imperial Service--trained soldier. Yet he soon
realizes that the situation may be much more complicated. While Salmagard races to catch up with him, time is running
out for the Admiral. VERDICT The sequel to Admiral brings back Danker's intriguing characters in a deep dive into
intergalactic politics and power. Another strong entry in military sf.--KC
Emrys, Ruthanna. Winter Tide. Tor.com. (Innsmouth Legacy, Bk. 1). Apr. 2017. 368p. ISBN 9780765390905. $25.99;
ebk. ISBN 9780765390912. FANTASY
The raid that destroyed the community of Innsmouth in the late 1920s leaves Aphra Marsh and her brother Caleb the
last of their people on dry land; the rest had died after being forced into desert internment camps during World War II.
The Marshes are descendents of the Deep Ones, a branch of humanity who left land to dwell in the oceans. They had
also worshipped the Elders, such as Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath, and Aphra is trying to keep up her magical and
spiritual studies despite having no ancestors to help her. In 1949, she leaves the home she has made in San Francisco to
go to Miskatonic University at the request of an FBI agent who believes the Russians have learned some of the secrets
of her people and will use them in the looming Cold War. VERDICT While this debut is sure to be of interest to fans of
H.P. Lovecraft, even those unfamiliar with the mythos should enjoy the combination of Cold War paranoia and horror.
The pacing is slow, but the characters are winning, especially Aphra as she battles alienation from her own culture.--
MM
Harrison, Kim. The Turn: The Hollows Begins with Death. Gallery. (Hollows). Feb. 2017. 448p. ISBN
9781501108716. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9781501108846. FANTASY
Those familiar with Harrison's "Hollows" series know that the supernatural community came out of the proverbial
closet owing to a worldwide pandemic that killed millions of humans. The story of how that crisis kicked off in the
1960s is told here. Ambitious elf geneticist Trisk, who is trying to get respect from her male counterparts, takes a
position in a human-run lab, hiding her true nature as she develops a virus that she hopes will one day save her people.
Her plans go awry when longtime rival Trent "Kal" Kalamack shows up at her lab, intending to discredit her work. Fans
will clamor for this prequel and will enjoy the cameos from some series regulars, including demon Aliagarept. They
should be prepared for some sluggish pacing, however, and a heroine who makes some frustratingly bad choices.
VERDICT Even with these drawbacks, it will leave longtime readers with an immediate desire to reread the main
series.--MM
Kiernan, Caitlin R. Agents of Dreamland. Tor.com. Mar. 2017. 128p. ISBN 9780765394323. pap. $11.99; ebk. ISBN
9780765394316. HORROR
Two rival intelligence agents meet in a diner in Winslow, AZ, to exchange information. One of the agents, known only
as the Signalman, is haunted by horrors witnessed at the compound of a cult that was awaiting the arrival of elder gods
from a Lovecraftian realm. Gathering acolytes by the shores of the Salton Sea, the cult leader targeted those like young
Chloe from Los Angeles, promising them a new world. VERDICT There is no writer more skilled at conveying
horrifying images in gorgeous language than Kiernan (The Drowning Girl). Here she combines remote locations,
mysterious secret agents (one of whom seems unbounded by the laws of time), zombie fungus, tarot card prophecies,
and satellites at the edges of our solar system into one compact novella.--MM
* Lawrence, Mark. Red Sister. Ace: Berkley. (Book of the Ancestor, Bk. 1). Apr. 2017.480p. ISBN 9781101988855.
$27; ebk. ISBN 9781101988862. FANTASY
Nine-year-old Nona Grey, accused of murder, is headed for the gallows when she is purchased by the abbess of Sweet
Mercy and taken into a convent that raises young women to become trained killers. For ten years, girls are taught the
ways of sword and shadow, and for many, the old blood of the ancestors eventually rises to the surface in the form of
magical gifts that enhance their fighting skills. When Nona arrives, she finds a new future, a new family, and some new
enemies. But her brief previous history in the world attracts the attention of powerful families, dangerous foes, and even
the emperor himself. As external politics and internal conflicts within the church seep into the convent's isolated world,
Nona will be forced to confront and embrace the darkness inside her, and no one will ever be the same. VERDICT In
this stunning, action-filled series launch, Lawrence ("Broken Empire" trilogy) establishes a fantastic world in which
religion and politics are dark and sharp as swords, with magic and might held in the hands of wonderful and dangerous
women. Impatient George R.R. Martin's fans will find this a pleasing alternative until the next installment in his "A
Song of Ice and Fire" saga arrives.--KC
McDonald, Ian. Luna: Wolf Moon. Tor. (Luna, Bk. 2). Apr. 2017.400p. ISBN 9780765375537. $27.99; ebk. ISBN
9781466847644. SF
After the downfall of the Corta family at the end of Luna: New Moon, the balance of power on the moon is in flux.
While the Mackenzies engineered the defeat of their rivals in order to take over the lucrative helium trade, internal
rivalries keep them in chaos. The other powerful families will seek to take advantage of the power vacuum, but don't
count the Cortas out just yet. Lucas Corta attempts a return to Earth to recruit allies there, while the younger generation,
including Robson and Lucasinho, struggle to survive without being used as pawns. VERDICT This novel should
probably not be attempted without reading the first book, as McDonald has established a complex political climate. The
power blocks--the Aussie Mackenzies, Brazilian Cortas, or Chinese Suns--have kept certain aspects of their Earth roots,
and readers will encounter a variety of foreign language slang, which is aided by the included glossary.--MM
McGuire, Seanan. Magic for Nothing: An Incryptid Novel. DAW. (InCryptid, 8k. 6). Mar. 2017.368p. ISBN
9780756410391. pap. $7.99; ebk. ISBN 9780698183544. FANTASY
Antimony Price, the youngest of her family of cryptozoologists, is still figuring out her life as she tries to contain her
new, secret incendiary power. After her older sister, Verity, basically declares war against their enemy, St. George of the
Covenant, on live television, Annie is asked by the family to travel to London and infiltrate the Covenant. She must find
out if the organization is taking Verity's declaration seriously and planning to respond in kind. This is a life-or-death
mission; if the Covenant discovers who Annie is, if they realize that she wants to protect most of the Cryptids, if they
uncover her secret, they will certainly kill her--or worse. Because there is always a "worse." VERDICT The sixth series
outing (after Chaos Choreography) returns fans to the supernatural world of monsters, monster hunters, and Price
family issues. McGuire continues to keep the high energy and excitement in her frenetic action-filled stories, with loads
of humor and intriguing characters.--KC
* Neuvel, Sylvain. Waking Gods. Del Rey: Ballantine. (Themis Files, Bk. 2). Apr. 2017.336p. ISBN 9781101886724.
$28; ebk. ISBN 9781101886731. SF
The team that assembled the giant alien robot known as Themis in 2015's Sleeping Giants never really got answers
about who left the machine behind and why. They face a terrifying escalation of the mystery in this sequel as a new
robot lands in London. The new machine, even bigger than the colossal Themis, unleashes a violent attack on the city.
Worse, there are more robots landing at every major population center on the globe. The Themis team might be the only
hope for humanity's survival. Rose, the original discoverer of the first piece of Themis, has an especially intriguing arc,
questioning her very existence. VERDICT Darker than the first book, this entry maintains the effective format of a
compiled history of interviews, news items, and official journal entries. This series' thoughtful yet action-packed nature
would make for a great film, and in fact, the rights were sold to Sony Pictures before the first volume came out. [See
Prepub Alert, 10/31/16.]--MM
Reynolds, Alastair. Revenger. Orbit: Hachette. Mar. 2017. 432p. ISBN 9780316555562. pap. $14.99; ebk. ISBN
9780316555630. SF
Sisters Adrana and Arafura Ness run away from a safe life, hoping to earn money to help their father. They've been
tested and found to have the rare ability to pick up the ghostly signals put out by alien skulls, so they are hired as bone
readers for the ship Monetta's Mourn. A good reader can not only pick up what is being sent to their ship but also
eavesdrop on other ships' messages. Captains like Rackamore of the Monetta use that hijacked information to help them
plan heists on the treasures locked away around the galaxy. But when their ship tangles with Bosa Sennan, the notorious
pirate, Adrana and Arafura are separated and Fura vows revenge. VERDICT Reynolds (Slow Bullets) has sketched in a
galaxy littered with the relics of former civilizations (human and alien), with plenty left to the reader's imagination, and
room for a sequel. The space slang (air is "lungstuff") sometimes seems hokey, but the author marries pirate adventures
with a coming-of-age story in a way that should give it great crossover appeal for teens.--MM
Wolf, Deborah A. The Dragon's Legacy. Titan. (Dragon's Legacy, Bk. 1). Apr. 2017. 320p. ISBN 9781785651076.
$24.99; ebk. ISBN 9781785651090. FANTASY
The people of the Zeera, surrounded by fierce predators, with sparse resources and the few children bom to them, are
proud of their resilience; they train young women like Sulema to be Ja'Akari--warrior protectors of their desert home.
Sulema's celebration of her elevation to Ja'Akari is interrupted by visitors from the Dragon King in Atualon. The king's
men have been looking for her and her mother for years, as Sulema is the king's daughter and she is needed. This debut
packs a lot of worldbuilding into a series opener, introducing Sulema and the people of the Zeera as well as the court of
the Dragon King, a rival empire in neighboring Sindan. VERDICT Many elements typical of epic fantasy appear--
hidden heirs, sleeping dragons, spider cults--but Wolf does a good job of laying out her game board of rival powers and
setting the tone for what is sure to be an interesting new series.--MM
Wright, Suzanne. Blaze. Piatkus. (Dark in You, Bk. 2). Apr. 2017. 354p. ISBN 9780349413174. pap. $13.99; ebk. ISBN
9780349413181. FANTASY
Harper Wallis should be happy: she has the man of her dreams, a business she loves, and close friends. Of course, her
friends are hellcats and imps, her man Knox is a possessive demon--just like her--and she is now co-Prime of a
powerful demon lair in Las Vegas. But when one of Knox's fellow demons goes rogue, kidnapping Harper's mom and
threatening Knox's life, Harper must save him, although Knox is determined to protect her. Adding to their troubles is
an upcoming celebration with a not-so-fun party planner and the realization that their partnership means the balance of
power has shifted. Harper has her hands full just trying to get along--and stay alive. VERDICT Wright's follow-up to
Burn is another action-filled romp of an urban fantasy with no shortage of humor or sex.--KC
COLLECTIONS & ANTHOLOGIES
Balaskovits, A.A. Magic for Unlucky Girls. Santa Fe Writer's Project. Apr. 2017. 226p. ISBN 9781939650665. pap.
$14.95; ebk. ISBN 9781939650689. FANTASY
A new bride is faced with her husband's mysterious locked door. Twin infants finally wake their mother from a century
of sleep. One woman finds that her prince adores her perfect hair, but abhors any other flaws. These 14 stories spins
new twists on familiar fairy-tale tropes with heroines who take control of their situations. The darkness that could
destroy them is vanquished through brains, beauty, and the light of their own souls. VERDICT Winner of the 2015
Santa Fe Literary Awards Program, Balaskovits's anthology breathes fresh life into classic fairy tales. Readers who
enjoy short fiction with a fantastical bent should pick up this award-winning book.--KC
Probert, John Llewellyn. The Lovecraft Squad: All Hallows Horror. Pegasus. Mar. 2017. 384p. ed. by Stephen Jones.
ISBN 9781681773339. $25.95; ebk. ISBN 9781681773872. HORROR
Created by acclaimed horror editor Jones, this first entry in a new trilogy takes H.P. Lovecraft's Elder Gods, most
notably Cthulhu, and makes them prominent figures in Dante Alighieri's poetic depiction of Hell and Purgatory from
The Divine Comedy. The story follows parapsychologists Bob Chambers and Karen Shepworth as they unravel the
mystery surrounding bones and scrolls uncovered outside the ancient All Hallows Church in Blackheath, London.
Locked in the church as part of an investigative team, they soon find themselves immersed in a world of unspeakable
horror and eldritch entities who wish to throw the world into darkness and create hell on Earth. VERDICT Smartly
combining Lovecraftian and classical mythologies, Probert (The House That Death Built) does an excellent job of
creating a suspenseful and often horrific atmosphere without indulging in gratuitous gore or violence. Still, some more
explicit depictions of hellish scenes make this title best suited for older teens and adults. Fans of Lovecraft and horror
should enjoy.--Matt Schirano, Univ. of Bridgeport Lib., CT
DEBUT OF THE MONTH
* Donnelly, Lara Elena. Amberlough. Tor. Feb. 2017.400p. ISBN 9780765383815. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466893412.
FANTASY
The Federated States of Gedda is a loosely connected group of four nation-states, but the tide is turning politically. The
socially conservative One State Party, also known as the Ospies, is creeping its way into power. In a still-resistant
Amberlough City (think Weimar Republic Berlin), Cyril DePaul works as a spy. But when he is outed during a mission
against the Ospies, he either must collaborate with them or face execution. His decision to construct an elaborate
deception endangers Aristide Makricossta, Cyril's outspoken lover and the flamboyant emcee of the Bumble Bee
Cabaret, who is also a successful smuggler. Thrown into the mix is Cordelia Lehane, a dancer at the Bumble Bee and
Ari's runner. The three risk being taken down by the corrupt police, the crooked government, or their own actions.
VERDICT Donnelly's striking debut brings a complex world of politics, espionage, and cabaret life to full vision. The
emotional journeys of the characters as they struggle to survive in a society under siege by dark forces will strike a
chord with readers as they race to the story's conclusion--KC
"QUOTABLE "For a moment, it seems to him like something is trailing behind her, as if the coming night has tangled
itself about her shoulders, has snagged in her short black hair and won't let go."--Caitlin R. Kiernan, Agents of
Dreamland
SERIES LINEUP
Beaulieu, Bradley P. With Blood upon the Sand. DAW. (Song of Shattered Sands, Bk. 2). Feb. 2017. 672p. ISBN
9780756409746. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780698152397. FANTASY
In this follow-up to Twelve Kings in Shamkhai, Blood Maiden Ceda serves the Kings, training to be a warrior while
dealing with the truth she has learned about the enslaved asirim.--MM
Schwab, V.E. A Conjuring of Light. Tor. (Shades of Magic, Bk. 3). Feb. 2017. 624p. ISBN 9780765387462. $25.99;
ebk. ISBN 9780765387486. FANTASY
Fans of the series that began with A Darker Shade of Magic and continued with A Gathering of Shadows will be eager
to read this concluding volume. Still unknown are details on how this excellent story of four magical Londons will wrap
up, but count this columnist in!--MM
Wallace, Matt. Idle Ingredients. Tor.com. (Sin du Jour, Bk. 4). Feb. 2017. 192p. ISBN 9780765390035. pap. $15.99;
ebk. ISBN 9780765390028. FANTASY
The team at Sin du Jour, a catering service that works with the supernatural community, is back after Pride's Spell. This
time out, the men are taken down by a threat from within.--MM
Wendig, Chuck, Empire's End. Del Rey: Ballantine. (Star Wars: Aftermath, Bk. 3). Feb. 2017. 432p. ISBN
9781101966969. $28.99; ebk. ISBN 9781101966976. SF
Wendig kicked off a new era in Star Wars novels with Aftermath, followed by Aftermath: Life Debt. Now he concludes
this trilogy, set after the events of the film Revenge of the Jedi.--MM
Megan M. McArdle is a Collection Specialist at the Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped. Kristi Chadwick is Advisor for the Massachusetts Library System. In addition to being a 2013
LJ Reviewer of the Year and 2014 Mover & Shaker, she was also a finalist judge for the 2015 LJ SELF-e Award in
Fantasy
Caption: Sequel stars: stories of ghosts, robot invasions
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
McArdle, Megan M., and Kristi Chadwick. "Science fiction/fantasy." Library Journal, 15 Feb. 2017, p. 66+. Literature
Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=LitRC&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481649051&it=r&asid=e6ab91b37c64f4d3285dac36c97560be.
Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A481649051
Amberlough
Amberlough
Anna Mickelsen
Booklist.
113.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2017): p52. From Literature Resource Center.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Amberlough. By Lara Elena Donnelly. Feb. 2017.400p. Tor, $36.99 (9780765383815); e-book (9781466893412).
In the freewheeling and decadent city of Amberlough, Bumble Bee Cabaret emcee Aristide Makricosta and spy Cyril
DePaul have formed a romantic attachment--despite the fact that Cyril works for Amberlough's government while the
more flamboyant Aristide thrives as an underworld crime lord. When Cyril is caught on a mission by agents of the
ultraconservative One State Party, he chooses to repudiate Aristide and turn double agent to save them both. Cyril
works to bring down Amberlough from within with the help of Cordelia Lehane, a dancer at the cabaret and one of
Aristide's associates. But the totalitarian regime that Cyril has ushered in may end up shattering everything that makes
Amberlough unique. With rich description and morally gray characters, Donnelly has created a debut novel steeped in
1920s atmosphere and intrigue. For fans of Cabaret, espionage, alternate history, genre blends, and narratives that bear
an uncomfortable resemblance to current events.--Anna Mickelsen
Mickelsen, Anna
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Mickelsen, Anna. "Amberlough." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 52+. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=LitRC&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479078023&it=r&asid=2c3367dd899e79fa8ff68f41573bfea3.
Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479078023
Amberlough
Amberlough
Publishers Weekly.
263.51 (Dec. 12, 2016): p129. From Literature Resource Center.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Amberlough
Lara Elena Donnelly. Tor, $25.99 (400p)
ISBN 978-0-7653-8381-5
Donnelly blends romance and tragedy, evoking gilded-age glamour and the thrill of a spy adventure, in this impressive
debut. In an imagined multinational setting that owes much to pre-WWII Europe but has its own complicated politics,
Cyril DePaul is a young man of privilege who's gotten in over his head as an agent for the Amberlough government.
Cordelia Lehane is content to scrape out a living any way she can, whether by fabulous stage performances or black
market dealings. Cyril is comfortable as a dilettante until a mission goes badly, putting his lover, burlesque performer
Aristide Makricosta, at risk under a rising conservative regime that aims to consolidate the four diverse nation-states of
Gedda into "one tightly controlled entity." Aristide recruits Cordelia's help without knowing the mortal danger Cyril has
accepted in his effort to protect them both. Donnelly's masterly creation is richly imagined and moves at an unchecked
pace, painting a layer of sumptuous indulgence over a society of corruption, vice, and oppression. The romance
between Cyril and Aristide is presented matter-of-factly; the flaws, roughness, and sincerity are organic to the
relationship rather than being the tropes of gay narratives. Cordelia is a singular character, beholden to nobody and far
more capable than the supposedly stronger people who are enchanted by her beauty and hope to command her elusive
loyalty. When goodness and virtue cannot endure, the characters are drawn inexorably to their limits in a conclusion
that is as heartbreaking as it is satisfying. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Amberlough." Publishers Weekly, 12 Dec. 2016, p. 129. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=LitRC&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475225065&it=r&asid=356a49750765c7feed8089c6e0a30c48.
Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475225065
Donnelly, Lara Elena: AMBERLOUGH
Donnelly, Lara Elena: AMBERLOUGH
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 1, 2016): From Literature Resource Center.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Donnelly, Lara Elena AMBERLOUGH Tor (Adult Fiction) $25.99 2, 7 ISBN: 978-0-7653-8381-5
A tightly woven and diverse cast of spies, criminals, cabaret bohemians, and lovers struggles to save what matters to
each of them against a tide of rising fascism and violence in Donnelly's debut novel, set in a vaguely 1920s
milieu.Amberlough City is a place both tolerant and decadent, where the police commissioner herself might watch a
transgressive striptease at the city's most fashionable cabaret and where an intelligence officer might relax from
classified telegrams via an affair with a flamboyant Casanova. One such officer is Cyril DePaul, who's sworn off
fieldwork after a near-death experience left him terrified of torture and doubting his abilities. His Casanova is Aristide
Makricosta: a man with as many contingency plans as lovers, the darling of Amberlough as a popular cabaret
emcee...and also a smuggler and black marketeer. But when Cyril's reluctant return to fieldwork goes wrong, he is
blackmailed (on somewhat shaky narrative logic) into becoming a double agent for the conservative, fascist One State
Party that threatens Amberlough's freedoms. As Cyril and Aristide execute a wary dance of lies and good intentions
around each other, a cabaret dancer named Cordelia Lehane becomes involved--first to provide Cyril with a cover, but
soon she's running drugs and secret messages for Aristide's underground contacts. As the OSP gains power--thanks to
Cyril's own machinations--Cyril, Aristide, and Cordelia each fight to save those they care about and, ultimately, to
survive themselves. Cyril wrestles with his cowardice, guilt, and the true depth of his feelings for Aristide as
Amberlough is changed forever. A sense of inevitable loss and futility permeates this rich drama. The fascists may
never be defeated but only escaped--if the characters are willing to abandon the people they love. That dilemma will
haunt them, as it haunts the reader.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Donnelly, Lara Elena: AMBERLOUGH." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. Literature Resource Center,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=LitRC&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902054&it=r&asid=193fe830b2ddafd7bc228316e0db5f62.
Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471902054
Amberlough: A rich, well-written romance and instant classic
Readers’ average rating:
Amberlough by Lara Elena DonnellyAmberlough by Lara Elena DonnellyAmberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly
While Lara Elena Donnelly’s debut novel Amberlough (2017) isn’t quite the Fleming-esque spy thriller it purports to be, Amberlough certainly doesn’t disappoint. Set in Amberlough City, a decadent, Industrial-era locale reminiscent of Paris in the early 1900s, Amberlough tells the story of Cyril DePaul and his lover Aristide Makricosta, who also happens to be the city’s greatest crime lord. Cyril, a former field operative in Amberlough’s Federal Office of Central Intelligence Services who landed a cushy desk job after an assignment went awry, is supposed to be keeping tabs on Aristide by seducing him but instead finds himself truly falling for Aristide instead. At the same time, a fascist movement is coming to power in Amberlough’s vibrant democracy, so life in the city is becoming more and more dangerous for Cyril and Aristide every day as the crackdown begins on non-heterosexual relationships, the criminal underground, and anything marked deviant.
Fascism and the espionage that tries to defeat it are major sources of tension throughout Amberlough, and it’s fascinating to see how Cyril and Aristide cope with the situation in their own ways. Lara Donelly has done an excellent job crafting characters with depth and complexity, who each have their own quirks and mannerisms. However, even when you think you are beginning to understand Cyril’s or Aristide’s personalities, Donnelly is able to incorporate some surprising plot points (such as the ending of Amberlough) that provide action and tension while simultaneously revealing more about the protagonists. In this sense, Amberlough is a character-driven work: the plot leans heavily on Cyril and Aristide’s romance, and the lengths that they would go to for each other. Donnelly’s decision to focus on characters ends up working very well, as the pacing and plot development in Amberlough all exceed expectation.
Another of Amberlough’s major selling points is Donnelly’s exquisite prose, which is almost on par with Rothfuss or Kay. From the first page on, Donnelly draws you in slowly, tempting you with fantastic, decadent imagery:
At the beginning of the workweek, most of Amberlough’s salaryfolk crawled reluctantly from their bed — or someone else’s — and let the trolleys tow them, hungover and half asleep, to the office. Amberlough City, eponymous capital of the larger state, was not home to many early risers.
In a second-story flat on the fashionable part of Baldwin Street — close enough to the river that the scent of money still perfumed the air, and close enough to the wharves for good street food and radical conversation — Cyril DePaul pulled himself from beneath a heavy duvet of moiré silk. The smell of coffee was strong outside his nest of blankets. An early spring storm freckled the bedroom windows with rain.
At many points in Amberlough, I even found myself re-reading the paragraph I’d just finished because Donnelly weaves delicious details into her writing seamlessly, and the flow her prose is perfect. Often, it was only after I had finished a sentence or two that I could appreciate her style to its fullest — so re-reading portions of the text wasn’t a distracting chore but rather a delight because the diction, the metaphors, and the rhythm work so well together.
One concern for me, though, is the lack of worldbuilding in Amberlough. Donnelly drops a number of hints about the existence of a complex world in Amberlough, but most of the cultures and governments aside from Amberlough’s are sketched in only the roughest of outlines. This is a major reason that I say Amberlough is not a spy novel but rather a romance masquerading as a spy novel; even the espionage fieldwork that’s conducted in Donnelly’s debut isn’t fleshed out enough to where I would like it to be. I suspect that a lot of the reason for this literary choice is that we’ll be seeing a lot more of Amberlough’s world in the sequel(s) — for example, I have a strong suspicion Cyril’s sister and the northern lands might make strong appearances in the near future. While this is understandable, I still would have liked to see a bit more emphasis on the worldbuilding and the histories both of nations and of characters in this title.
Amberlough is by far one of the top debuts of the year, and will likely make my Best of 2017 list. If you enjoy good prose and well-developed characters or are a fan of well-written romance, I’d strongly recommend you pick up Amberlough. However, I’m not sure I would recommend Donnelly to anyone who is searching for a hardcore spy novel. In any case, Amberlough has the potential to become an instant cult classic.
Published February 17, 2017. From author Lara Elena Donnelly, a debut spy thriller as a gay double-agent schemes to protect his smuggler lover during the rise of a fascist government coup. Trust no one with anything – especially in Amberlough City. Covert agent Cyril DePaul thinks he’s good at keeping secrets, especially from Aristide Makricosta. They suit each other: Aristide turns a blind eye to Cyril’s clandestine affairs, and Cyril keeps his lover’s moonlighting job as a smuggler under wraps. Cyril participates on a mission that leads to disastrous results, leaving smoke from various political fires smoldering throughout the city. Shielding Aristide from the expected fallout isn’t easy, though, for he refuses to let anything – not the crooked city police or the mounting rage from radical conservatives – dictate his life. Enter streetwise Cordelia Lehane, a top dancer at the Bumble Bee Cabaret and Aristide’s runner, who could be the key to Cyril’s plans—if she can be trusted. As the twinkling lights of nightclub marquees yield to the rising flames of a fascist revolution, these three will struggle to survive using whatever means — and people — necessary. Including each other. Combining the espionage thrills of le Carré with the allure of an alternate vintage era, Amberlough will thoroughly seduce and enthrall you.
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February 23rd, 2017. Kevin Wei´s rating: 4.5 | Lara Elena Donnelly | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
KEVIN WEI, with us since December 2014, is an undergrad at Columbia University. Secretly, Kevin has always believed in dragons. Not the Smaug kind of dragon, only the friendly ones that invite you in for tea. This might just be because Funke’s Dragon Rider was the story that mercilessly hauled him into the depths of the SFF genre at the ripe old age of 5. His literary tastes range from epic fantasy to military fantasy to New Weird, although sometimes he does enjoy a good space opera here and there, and some of his favorite authors include Patrick Rothfuss, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Django Wexler, and Joe Abercrombie. To Kevin, a good book requires not only a good character set and storyline, but also beautiful prose — he is extremely discriminating as it pertains to this last bit. Outside of his bibliophilic life, Kevin loves economics, philosophy, policy debate, classical music, and political science. You can find him at: www.kevinwei.me
Book Review: Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly
Matt Mitrovich February 21, 2017 Alternate History, Review 0
SearchHome › Alternate History › Book Review: Amberlough by Lara Elena Do...
You know what has become cliche recently with book reviews? Saying you should read a book because of the current political climate. I’m not sure if reviewers are going out of their way to find these books or whether publishers feel this is what sells now, but I’ve seen way too many reviews recommend a book just for that reason. Having committed this sin myself in the past, I promise to try and recommend a book for reasons besides politics. That said, Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly is a perfect novel to read for these divisive political times…damn it.
Amberlough is set in Amberlough City in the state of Amberlough (obviously the founders of Amberlough weren’t a creative bunch) one of the four states that make up the federation known as Gedda. Our three point of view characters are Cyril DePaul, a wealthy socialite and spy, his lover Aristide Makricosta, a smuggler and cabaret singer, and Cordelia Lehane, a dancer at the same cabaret Aristide works at and drug seller. From these three characters’ perspectives we watch as the One State Party, or Ospies, come to power in Gedda turning the liberal federation into a one-party, conservative state that comes down hard on anyone who doesn’t fit their dream for a perfect society.
At its heart, Amberlough is a pessimistic historical fantasy. Although Gedda looks like no place on our Earth, the culture and politics of the country strongly resemble that of Wiemar Germany, while Amberlough City reminds me of a mix between Paris and New York. Meanwhile, the Ospies, if you couldn’t guess already, are the book’s Nazis and their rise to power sort of parallels what happened in 1930s Germany, except without the defeat in a world war or a horrible economic depression…which makes you wonder how this group became so popular in the first place. Granted there are references to a religious movement motivating people to vote for the Ospies, a strong economic desire to encourage people to buy Gedda products and allegations of massive voter fraud, so perhaps that is a sufficient enough explanation for their rise to power.
Quick comment on geography: one of the other states of Gedda, Tatie, has an ongoing border conflict with neighboring Tzieta, which parallels Germany’s dispute with Poland over Danzig and the Polish Corridor. Throughout the book Tatie is described as being landlocked, but on the map that comes with the book, Tatie clearly has access to the sea. So either I missed something about Tatie’s coast being miles of unscaleable cliffs or there was definitely a miscommunication between author and illustrator.
Now on to what I liked about Amberlough. It is well-written with original slang and believable dialogue among characters. The world-building is also great. Gedda comes off as a unique nation-state that is still recognizable thanks to the examples Donnelly pulls from our own history. I especially liked how none of the characters are the walking talking cliches you usually find in dystopias. Cyril, Aristide and Cordelia oppose the Opsies, but they can also be cowardly, they can cheat on their significant others, they can bribe cops, sell drugs, etc. Supporters of the Opsies aren’t just cookie-cutter racist Nazis either. One of the first Opsies we are introduced to just wants to clean up the corrupt police…and there is nothing wrong with a goal like that on its face.
Granted the Opsies want to do some horrible things when they come to power, like expel a Gypsy-esque ethnic group, force women out of the work force and persecute homosexuals, but I think Donnelly did a good job highlighting the gray morality of the WWII era. Yeah the Nazis and the other Axis powers were terrible…but so was Stalin’s Soviet Union and they were America’s ally in the war. Let’s not also forget some of the questionable things America did during the war, like the Japanese internment camps, and Britain didn’t exactly have a perfect track record when it came to treating the native populations of its colonies with respect and dignity. It just goes to show you that when it comes to war and politics, no one is completely squeaky clean, and I am glad Donnelly recognized this.
So with all of that said, what didn’t I like about Amberlough? Well the book is definitely a slow burn with things not picking up until the last third. It relies heavily on dialogue rather than action, so if you like fight scenes or epic battles, this is probably not the book for you, but if you are into spy thrillers then I can recommend it. Of course, if I had to be brutally honest, I do find myself a part of the former group. I am a more action-oriented reader who enjoys a little escapism and thus I found the melancholy tones of the book to be kind of a downer. I still think it’s a good book and I am happy I read it. Lovers of interwar European history (or people who are very interested in current events) can get a lot of enjoyment out of Amberlough, it just wasn’t for me.
Nevertheless, if you want reminder of a forgotten era of history overshadowed by the horrors that came afterward, give Amberlough a try.
AMBERLOUGH BY LARA ELENA DONNELLY
TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2017
Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly
4.5
BOOK NAME: Amberlough
AUTHOR: Lara Elena Donnelly
PUBLISHER(S): Tor Books
FORMATT: Hardcover / Paperback / Audiobook / Ebook
GENRE(S): Spy Thriller / Historical Fantasy
RELEASE DATE: February 7, 2017
“At the beginning of the workweek, most of Amberlough’s salary-folk crawled reluctantly from their bed – or someone else’s – and let the trolleys tow them, hungover and half asleep, to the office. Amberlough City, eponymous capital of the larger state, was not home to many early risers.”
Amberlough (2017) by Lara Elena Donnelly is a lyrical and haunting fantasy novel. Centred around the Weimar-era Berlin decadence of the cabaret scene in the fantastical city of Amberlough, the novel is a celebration of sexual liberation, and an elegiac portrait of the fall of liberty to fascism. Drawing more from the Cold War intrigue of John Le Carre’s spy novels and the decadent glamour under threat in Bob Fosse’s film of Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret (1972) than from Tolkien or Martin, Donnelly has written an original and unique fantasy whose warnings about the horrors of living under fascism could not be more timely.
Amberlough by Lara Elena DonnellyAmberlough City is the capital of Amberlough, one of the five states of Gedda. While its people enjoy the sexual freedom of its decadent night life, the rest of Gedda is beginning to fall under the sway of Caleb Acherby’s One State Party in Nuesklend, the Ospies, who want to unify Gedda at the cost of its thriving diversity. Cyril DePaul is a secret agent working for the Federal Office of Central Intelligence Services. Retired from the field after a mission gone south nearly costs him his life, Cyril is called back for one last mission, to go to Nuesklend and infiltrate the Ospies. Cyril’s lover, Aristide Makricosta, MCs at the Bumble Bee Cabaret. He also runs a major smuggling ring. As the Ospies strengthen their hold over Gedda, Cyril goes from trying to protect Aristide from the fallout to desperately needing his lover’s help. Aristide enlists Cordelia Lehane, one of the dancers at the Bumble Bee Cabaret and one of Aristide’s runners, to hide Cyril’s sexuality while he is with the Ospies and to act as a go-between. As the political situation in Gedda worsens, these three people are driven to more and more extremes as they each in their different ways struggle to survive the impending onslaught of fascism.
Donnelly portrays a vibrant, diverse community falling under the heel of fascism with heartbreaking plausibility. Fascism spreads through Amberlough like a rot, until the streets of the city are no longer filled with the revels of the sexually liberated populace but are prowled by gangs of jackbooted thugs. Amberlough’s 1930’s-era chic, with its trolleys, its cafes and its burlesque clubs, is eroded into boarded up, graffiti strewn decay. This transformation has clear echoes of Weimar Republic era Germany falling under the sway of the Nazis. Donnelly’s characters all come to realise that their lifestyles will no longer be tolerated by the state they live under, and the parallels with real life history give their struggles a sense of urgency and vitality; our historical understanding of the worse horrors Gedda likely has ahead of it give the story added poignancy.
Amberlough by Lara Elena DonnellyDonnelly’s characters find themselves labelled as undesirables under the new Ospie regime for a range of reasons that reflects their different backgrounds and life history. Both Cyril and Aristide’s homosexuality make them targets of state sanctioned and private violence. However Cyril comes from a wealthy family; the DePauls being descended from a respected Amberlough General. Compared to Aristide, an immigrant visibly marked out as such by his darker skin, Cyril comes from a position of comfortable privilege which allows him to pass among the Nuesklend elite in the first place. Cordelia is from a working class background, and supplements her meagre income from the Bumble Bee Cabaret by running drugs and turning tricks. She has been forced into a life of petty crime through desperation and a lack of other options. Her criminal activities and her association with the Bumble Bee Cabaret, which the Ospies see as a symbol of Amberlough’s moral decadence, pit her against the Ospies and their desire for increased social control.
Cyril, Aristide and Cordelia’s different perspectives and personalities allows them to bounce of each other pleasingly; in particular Cyril and Cordelia develop an amusing odd couple relationship. However Donnelly puts this to effective dramatic and thematic use. All three characters are to one extent or another using each other. Cyril’s privilege is contrasted against Aristide and Cordelia’s more streetwise nature. His initial desire to protect them from the fallout of the Ospie takeover is stymied by his own cowardice, and ironically both Cordelia and Aristide wind up being better at looking after themselves and him than the other way round.
Amberlough by Lara Elena DonnellyDonnelly’s characters are complex, and all wind up being compromised to some extent; one cannot act within the strictures of a fascist society and keep one’s hands clean. Amberlough asks if it is even possible for a person to live ethically in a morally corrupt society. Cyril bargains his safety and the safety of his lover against that of the whole of Gedda, and thus winds up assisting the Ospie rise to power. Aristide, because of his connections in the criminal underworld, is far more effectively able to help himself and those close to him evade capture and escape from Amberlough before it’s too late. However he is also looking out for himself and his friends, and has no desire or hope of fighting the Ospie regime. His best option is to escape and rebuild, his resilience of character that allowed him to escape his previous life as a sheep farmer to become a club MC and a drug kingpin give him the strength to do this. Cyril’s conflicts with his own selfishness and his understanding of the horrific consequences of his actions lead him to dither and wind up causing more harm, even as he flirts with atonement. Cordelia witnesses her friends in the Bumble Bee Cabaret murdered and driven to suicide. She winds up driven to terrorism to fight the Ospie regime, exploiting Aristide’s contacts to gather munitions.
Throughout Amberlough reminds us powerfully that the wages of fascism are paranoia, violence and death. Donnelly made a conscious choice to write Amberlough as Fantasy. One could justifiably ask if it would be possible to tell the same story set in 1930’s Weimar Republic Germany and achieve the same effect. What Donnelly gains by writing Amberlough as Fantasy is that she is able to evoke that era without tying the novel to a closed historical narrative where the audience knows how it plays out. This allows her to highlight the relevance of her story to our own unfinished present, where we see the worrying rise of the far right across the Western world. Because Donnelly doesn’t compromise her vision – she plays hardball, forcing her characters to face the consequences of their actions and decisions, and working them through with a relentless logic – it allows Amberlough to function as a vivid and powerful warning. Amberlough‘s vivid setting and fully realised characters get under the reader’s skin, and force them to ask uncomfortable questions about our own present and our own moral complicity. It is this that makes Amberlough such a timely and necessary novel.
Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly
Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)
Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating
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Tags: Amberlough, Cabaret, Lara Elena Donnelly, LGBT, Spies, thriller, Tor, Vintage-Glam
Posted in Reviews
Jonathan Thornton
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Thornton Jonathan Thornton is from Scotland but grew up in Kenya, and now lives in Liverpool. He has a lifelong love of Fantasy and Science Fiction, kicked off by reading The Lord Of The Rings and Dune at an impressionable age. Nowadays his favourite writers are Michael Moorcock, John Crowley, Gene Wolfe, Patricia McKillip and Ursula Le Guin. He has a day job working with mosquitoes. He blogs about books at http://goldenapplesofthewest.blogspot.co.uk/ and is on Twitter at @JonathanThornt2, and one day wants to finish writing his own stories.
Liz Bourke reviews Lara Elena Donnelly
— posted Thursday 30 March 2017 @ 3:57 pm PDT
Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnelly (Tor 978-0765383815, $25.99, 400pp, hc) February 2017.
Lara Elena Donnelly’s debut Amberlough and Kameron Hurley’s latest science fiction novel The Stars Are Legion are vastly dissimilar, but they share one thing in common: they’re both, in their own separate ways, stories about love, secrets, and fear.
Amberlough is a fantasy novel that in some respects reminds me of Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. Like Swordspoint, it takes place in a secondary world in which magic is non-existent (or low-key to the point of non-existence), and, like Swordspoint, it sets itself in a city – the titular Amberlough – that is as much a character as any of the novel’s individuals.
Amberlough is a city of cabaret and corruption, glittering and cosmopolitan and permissive. It evokes the feel of post-WWI Paris, or Weimar Berlin in that great doomed flourishing of art and culture and nightlife before the curtains came down with the Reichstag fire. With automobiles and telegraphs and office workers, this is a familiar city, for all that its gender norms don’t look at all like what you might expect from comparison to any historical analogues of which it might remind you. It’s queer by default, in ways both subtle and obvious – there is, for example, a recognised form of marriage that includes more than two parties.
Amberlough is also one part (one quarter) of a federal nation, Gedda, and in the rest of the nation, the repressive, authoritarian One State Party – xenophobic, chauvinistic, homophobic, and populist – is rapidly gaining ground. Amberlough is terrifyingly topical, and no, in case you’re wondering, it doesn’t end with the One State Party, the Ospies, in any kind of retreat.
Cyril DePaul is a spy and a civil servant, and Amberlough’s tragic centre. Tragic, that is, in the older sense: he’s betrayed by his own flaws. (In terms of personality, he rather reminds me of Lord Peter Wimsey without anything like a moral core.) Eventually, Cyril becomes the tool by which the Ospies undermine Amberlough’s ability to resist a fascist coup, but the reader first encounters him in bed with his lover, Aristide Makricosta. Aristide is a really unsuitable lover for a spy. He’s master of ceremonies at the Bumble Bee Cabaret, a flamboyant figure who just so happens to be a major player in Amberlough’s underground economy, a smuggler of drugs and refugees and stolen objects, a mover-and-fixer with a wicked sense of humour. Both Cyril and Aristide know about each other’s lives, but neither of them can give the other up – although, naturally, they’re not prepared to outright admit to anything so banal as love.
It’s fear for Aristide, as well as Cyril’s personal self-interest and physical cowardice, that leads Cyril into becoming a double agent for the Ospies after an undercover mission goes wrong. As much as anything else, Amberlough’s a novel about how human weaknesses and human selfishness lead people to work for goals that are going to hurt them.
There’s a third major character in Amberlough, Cordelia Lehane. Dancer at the Bumble Bee Cabaret, drug dealer, and determined survivor, she’s eventually caught up orbits of both Cyril and Aristide. As the iron fist of the fascist state closed around Amberlough’s throat, I found I ended up liking Cordelia best of the three: out of all of them, it turns out that Cordelia is the first to find – and hold – a line that she won’t cross.
Fear and love together turn Cyril into a traitor, love and hope mean Aristide keeps holding a torch for him, and love and vengeance turn Cordelia into the kind of woman who decides to blow up whole buildings.
Amberlough isn’t a cheerful book, but it has an amazing voice. Its spy-thriller twists and ever-growing tension combine to provide an extraordinarily entertaining ride. And I have to say: if this is her debut? I can’t wait to see what Donnelly does next.
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Amberlough
BY LARA ELENA DONNELLY
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In this alternate history which is reminiscent of the 1920s, the glamorous city of Amberlough is home to underground agent Cyril DePaul and his lover, Aristide, club owner and cabaret dancer, along with a political tangle that threatens them all if the “Ospies” win election. Cyril is determined to keep Aristide (and his smuggling) from the eyes of the law, but when a mission goes awry, Cyril turns to an unlikely ally—Cordelia Lehane, dancer at the Bumble Bee Cabaret. The three band together for survival in a city that’s quickly falling to fascism, but in Amberlough, no one is to be trusted.
Donnelly sets the stage with bright lights, flashy dancing, and quirky slang, but more than the glitz and the show, this is a book full of political intrigue and corruption. The characters are delightfully gray in their ambitions and morals, so they certainly keep you guessing as their stories unfold. The dialogue is sharp and beautiful, though at times weighed down by slang without a reference as to what it might mean. A good portion of the plot moves forward solely with dialogue, so I had a hard time connecting with the city itself and wished we saw a bit more outside of the Bumble Bee Club. Gedda, the country in which Amberlough rests, is large, and the geography is a bit confusing at first, as are the politics, but once settled in, names and places become familiar as we follow Cyril into the fantastical yet darkened world of Amberlough. Overall, a rich debut with an incredible cast of characters.
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Details
PUBLISHER
Tor
PUBLISHED
2017
GENRE
Alternate History
PERIOD
Jazz Age
CENTURY
20th Century
PRICE
(US) $25.99
ISBN
(US) 9780765383815
FORMAT
Hardback
PAGES
400
Review
APPEARED IN
HNR Issue 80 (May 2017)
REVIEWED BY
Holly Faur