Restoration (Verity Fassbinder, 3)Angela Slatter
Jo Fletcher Books, 13 July 2018
Trade PB, 387pp
I'm grateful to Jo Fletcher books for a copy of Resoration to read and review, and for inviting me to take part in the blogtour.
This, the third book featuring Verity Fassbinder, kind-of police person to the Weyrd (monsters and legendary creatures) in preset day Brisbane, is, I think, something of a culmination of the arc that began in Vigil and continued with Corpsefire. The events of the earlier books have led to this, with Fassbinder resigning her role working for the Weyrd Council and taking up instead with the self-proclaimed Guardian of the Southern Gate to the Underworld (who is just as pleasant as the name sounds).
This wasn't done willing, basically Verity gave up her position in order to safeguard her family (her partner David, daughter Maisie and mother Olivia - who till recently she had thought dead). A condition of the deal was that Verity has no contact with the family. A second is that she has no contact with the Weyrd. A third is that she has a new minder, Joyce - the fox woman who absolutely, 100% hates Verity's guts.
So, basically, just a pice of cake for Ms Fassbinder, right?
Well, perhaps. Or perhaps not. As the chase begins - an complicated quest for a Grail and a Tyrant, complicated further by a series of women' deaths apparently from spontaneous combustion - Verity feels allegiances shifting and old certainties crumbling. Ligeia, Queen of the Sirens and a Goddess, is in decline. Verity's friends the Norns are afflicted by new and troubling powers. And Verity herself discovers more than she's comfortable with about her family's origins and their role as Jager, as hunters. (But what is Verity if not a Hunter?) Soon she has several Quests on at once, begins to doubt who she can trust and desperately needs allies - so it's not a good time for a backfiring rite, plus her resignation, to have alienated her from most of the Weyrd...
But if we've learned one thing about Verity Fassbinder, it's that she Never. Gives. Up. I absolutely adored the way Verity comes back, again and again, not only fighting against physical attacks (of which there are plenty) but also delving into things she's continually warned against, and going where she has no business to be - all to protect those she loves (or just feels responsible for) whatever the cost to herself. She is no respecter of persons (whether Weyrd or Normal) and tends to say just what she thinks, as she thinks it, and perhaps to regret that a moment later.
Did I see signs of her being a bit more diplomatic once or twice here?
No, not really, I'm glad to say.
The book is pretty much action all the way - whether physical or verbal - and you just know that when Verity gets herself dressed up for a special occasion - "Black tailored dress, black leather boots with enough heel to give my legs a nice line... charcoal mid-length coat, unobtrusive handbag, brushed hair pulled into a bun..." - that outfit isn't going to stay smart for long.
It is, though, action with purpose, even a morality. Verity doesn't lay about her gratuitously (at one point she's even at pains to save the life of an old enemy) but she is often called on to stand up for herself and her friends. And she does that. (You'd think word would go round, actually, and her enemies would be a bit more, well, careful? The book would be less fun though). There are some nasty schemes going on in this book, one of them almost a metaphor for men who drain the life from women (no, it's not vampirism, I'd say it was actually worse than that) and another which would boggle the mind of a theologian but which does make a curious sense in the end. They have to be stopped, and Verity is the woman to do it - or die trying.
If you've read and enjoyed the previous books you will love this one, I can promise. It's easily the most intense of the three, there is just what you'd expect to see here but the writing is if anything slightly daughter than in the previous books and it nicely wraps up the story so far (you'll want to go back and reread the others in the light of certain revelations).
Restoration also (he says, hopefully) leaves enough hints and loose ends that I can see the possibility of more.
Please, please may there be more!
And finally - that cover! I guess if you're going to write about fallen angels consumed by flames (not a spoiler - read the intro on the very first page) then you may as well flaunt them on the cover.
Not attention grabbing AT ALL, oh no...
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