MR Carey
Absinth Books, December 2022
Available as: HB, 85pp
Source: Purchased
ISBN: 9781786368713
MR Carey's novella takes us to the cosy (or, as it turns out, not so cosy) town of Hove Harbour in a world close to our own but with magic (albeit, magic that is in many places persecuted and hunted down).
It's a modern-ish world but at the same time the setting is rather enclosed. Here Fain runs a boarding house which she has inherited from her mother Cass - who, despite her death, hangs around to give advice. I enjoyed hearing about the peculiarities of the different lodgers, a rather spiky group of eccentrics who often rub one another up the wrong way but, once suspects, couldn't live without each other either.
Fain's life is taken up with cooking. cleaning and generally managing with little time for herself and still less for romance - until the enigmatic Mina Sellicks arrives, and gives Fain just what she needs...
It would be spoilery to go much further, but I will just say that as the boarding house itself is threatened and its reality begins to warp, Fain will have to delve back into her most painful recollections to defend herself. The fabled Stardome Lounge, which hasn't opened since her father ran off with a musician decades before, will open for one final night. There will be music, and moonlight... and an eldritch horror.
Basically a rattling good story that kept me guessing and provided the perfect ending, part fairytale, part romance, all cracking good story.
For more information about The Last Night at the Star Dome Lounge see the publisher's website here.
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