Amberlough

<b>This was like watching a slow-motion train wreck, and I loved it.</b><br /><br /><i>Amberlough</i> follows a city set in a world paralleling 1920s counterculture as it slowly falls under the power of a fascist sect. But rather than focusing on the power plays of that fascist movement, this novel goes a lot more in-depth; it focuses on just three of the characters affected by the new regime, and how they react to the disappearances, the burgeoning fear.<br /><br />And I think this is the narrative choice that makes the whole book so haunting. As the novel builds up, we get the sense that there’s a lot more going on than what these three characters see, and indeed there is. But this small scope feels like a far more relavant portrayal of a society in crisis. You don’t always know your life is about to be wrecked until it is. By focusing only on a few characters, this story feels so much more <i>real</i>.<br /><br />It helps that these three characters are such lovable disasters.<br />✔Cyril – gay disaster. Tries to play everyone but really just succeeds in falling in love with someone he definitely should not fall in love with and is really mad about it. “congratulations you played yourself” -me<br />✔Aristide – literal icon, constantly kind of buzzed but plays it off as if he’s just living his life, we love him<br />✔Cordelia – absolute disaster and doesn’t even try to hide it. character development is learning to sort of care that she’s a disaster. So proud of her.<br /><br />What’s so hard is this whole book is like watching an oncoming disaster, and you don’t want it to happen. Sure, these characters are messy, and not doing so well in their personal relationships or their lives in general. But they’re living in a world that <i>is not as dangerous as it could be.</i> Cyril and Ari are fairly open about their relationship, despite some homophobia in the society; the Ospies change that.<br /><br />Given the current U.S. political climate, perhaps it’s important to remember how easily a society can fall.<br /><br />Anyway, I loved this, and I can’t wait to read and love the next two books. When are they coming out again?<br /><br /><b> <i>series reviews:</i> </b> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2366500556" rel="nofollow noopener">Amberlough</a> | <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2348707230" rel="nofollow noopener">Armistice</a> | <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2521932816" rel="nofollow noopener">Amnesty</a><br /><br /><a href="https://thebookishactress.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow noopener">Blog</a> | <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/52545435" rel="nofollow noopener">Goodreads</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/jespergayhey" rel="nofollow noopener">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thebookishactress/" rel="nofollow noopener">Instagram</a> | <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVIY_GxZIuclzsIw9CLSe3g" rel="nofollow noopener">Youtube</a>

1.5ish stars.<br /><br />I understand why authors choose to set their stories in alternate worlds with invented names and places. It makes their stories seem universal, like they could take place anywhere, at any time. However, this so obviously parallels the Weimar Republic that I couldn't think of it as being anything else. All of the confusing info dumps of cities and events could have been avoided by just using the word Nazi. I have a hard time with the branding of a book as fantasy when it takes place in a world that could just have easily been our own, without any other fantastical elements.<br /><br />Anyway, as far as the story itself, for a spy thriller with drug dealers and double agents, strippers and smugglers, it's kind of a snooze-fest. It's not thrilling, it's not mysterious, it's not romantic, it's not sexy. Aristide and Cordelia <i>do</i> make great characters. They're slick, audacious, and a little morally icky in the best way. Then there's Cyril. He's the worst. His only personality trait is that he sucks. I didn't believe for a second that he and Aristide had any chemistry or fondness for one another. <br /><br />Mary Robinette Kowal does the audiobook narration very well. Usually I struggle with her as a narrator, but she does a great job voicing Aristide and Cordelia in particular.<br /><br />With a much better plot, and a focus on Aristide and Cordelia alone, I'd read another book. Otherwise, I'll just stare at this fantastic cover art.<br /><br /><a href="https://mrphilipslibrary.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/amberlough-by-lara-elena-donnelly/" rel="nofollow noopener">Posted in Mr. Philip's Library</a>

I wasn’t sure I’d be into this at first (and I still got a bit lost with some of the political maneuvering at times) but the characters quickly pulled me in. That, and Mary Robinette Kowal’s audiobook performance is superb. The “noirpunk” gay spy cabaret story I didn’t know I needed.

Wow, what a read. I will have a whole video up on Monday (fingers crossed) but look for this release on Tuesday, the 7th! It is tense, sexy, complex, and definitely a super intriguing read.

Read for book club. <br /><br />An extremely impressive debut novel! Imagine if Ellen Kushner's 'Riverside' novels were set in an analogue of 1920's Germany?<br /><br />I do think that all fans of Kushner's 'Swordspoint' &amp;c. will love this book. It also does a great job of introducing its world and characters without unnecessarily driving home the parallels between the fantasy setting and that of the Weimar Republic and the impending rise of fascism. It's not a 1:1 correspondence; there are also elements of the Balkans, and wholly original elements of the world. All of it emerges organically from the story's progression. <br /><br />The story involves spies and double agents at a popular decadent nightclub; and the complexities and betrayals spawned by the intersection of inclination and obligation. I didn't find any of the characters to be sympathetic - but they were all interesting. <br /><br />I will, without a doubt, be reading the sequel - which I hear has already been submitted to the publisher! ;-)

<b>Stunning</b><br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1494814461i/22752887._SY540_.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>True story. I chose this book because the blurb sounded like MMF with espionage and what's better than that? It is not MMF, just so you know. I think <i>Amberlough</i> should be categorized as gay lit which typically connotes to me a lack of romance. It's true, <i>Amberlough</i> doesn't focus on a romantic plotline per se, but the relationship between Cyril and Aristide is one of the most heartbreakingly romantic and timeless ones I've ever read. They're rarely together but tethered regardless of time or distance.<br><br><i>Amberlough</i> definitively is a wonderful melange of an alternate universe with historical undertones and contemporary sociopolitical overtones. It's magnificently written-evocative, emotive and quieting bewitching. These three characters are beautifully crafted, complex and nuanced, as are the secondary cast all of whom play their roles impeccably. They are flawed, some deeply so, but they were so very affecting.<br><br><b>Aristide Makricosta was my favorite, though.</b><br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1494814461i/22752888._SY540_.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>Aristide is one of <i>those</i> characters that draws me in like a moth to a flame and it's not just because he's a drag queen. He's unscrupulous yet trustworthy, manipulative yet honest, aloof yet caring-a classic paradoxical character. He's got his fingers on the pulse of Amberlough and is whip smart. I think the only person he lets in even to a degree is Cyril.<br><br>Cyril Depaul is his lover and a spy. His past is somewhat murky but on a mission he was compromised, nearly killed. Understandably shaken he has been relegated to desk duty since. Nevertheless he's chosen to go undercover for another mission in Ospie held territory just prior to a momentous election and everything goes to shit. Literally. I empathized with Cyril. I didn't always agree with him, but his rationale is undeniably pure, or at least, pragmatic.<br><br>When he returns to Gedda Aristide sets him up with Cordelia Lehane. She's his beard to pass Ospie inspection, for all intents and purposes and unbeknownst to her. She is a firecracker and figures out quickly that Cyril isn't interested thus they become friends. She's streetwise, cunning and she'll do what she has to do to survive. Brash and maybe a little uncouth but she makes no apologies for who or what she is and I liked her chutzpah. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1495419911i/22814883._SY540_.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>This will likely shock no one but Amberlough, in my mind, became pre-WWII Paris-hedonistic and fabulous. Amberlough and, in particular The Bee, are lively, colorful, artistic and chockablock with Bohemians. But with that sort of freedom and vitality there's always a dark underbelly and a conservative faction ready to rally the disenchanted. The Ospies are eerily reminiscent of the Nazi rise to power just prior to occupying France for four long years in that they surround Gedda. The Ospies rule with an iron fist and have zero tolerance for anything or anyone they perceive as deviant. Some Amberlinians can see the handwriting on the wall while others are caught unawares, peaceably living their lives while something wicked this way comes. <br><br>Donnelly did a brilliant job contrasting the lush colors of Amberlough with the dreary, lifeless gray of the Ospies. The occupation divested France of it's rosy hue and its joie de vivre as is the Ospies' objective in Amberlough. They are myopic and their laws draconian, but through those long years of occupation the French Resistance held out hope for a better tomorrow, maintaining a covert offensive against the occupation and Amberlough seems to have a similar fortitude. Amberlough may have lost the battle but the war is far from over. <br><br><b>Words of caution: there is on page torture and violence.</b> It gets ugly as all wars do.<br><br>I snooped and it seems this will become a trilogy. I will be there. I will gird myself. I will remain optimistic. I will remember that it's always darkest before the dawn. I will hope Donnelly doesn't crush me again.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1495419911i/22814884._SX540_.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>For a book that started off slow it certainly left an impression . After finishing it I felt fragile and raw yet paradoxically hopeful and above all, heartbroken. I do not cry, but I cried. Ugly cried. There was just a little... nothing, a moment in a day. It truly was nothing I didn't know already anyway, but that drop of sand in the hourglass at the 75% mark was the beginning of the gutting process. So, yeah. Have tissues handy. It's so worth it, though. I wouldn't change a thing and I'm glad my own deviance brought this incredible book into my life.<br><br><a href="https://boymeetsboyreviews.blogspot.com/2017/05/review-amberlough-by-lara-elena-donnelly.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1384707178i/6936447.png" width="162" height="143" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><br><i>A review copy was provided.</i>

Fascism's come to glittering cosmopolitan Amberlough, and as the One State Party looms over the city of long good nights, all the dancers and smugglers and politicians face a choice: bargain to survive, or fight and die?<br /><br />Amberlough is a tryst between John le Carre's grey-coated spies and Cabaret's end-of-an-era seedy delights: the whole city's going to have one drink too many, because it doesn't want to go to sleep and face the jackboots tomorrow. Read this book if you love smugglers, strippers, spies and smoky bourbon in a city like Weimar Berlin, everyone desperately passionate and horribly hungover, all of them trying to keep their footing in a world that's changing too fast.<br /><br />Cyril dePaul is a spy who's not just compromised but well and fully leveraged, thanks: caught between his duty to his masters in Amberlough, his affair with glamorous smuggler Aristide, and other, darker allegiances. Cyril's a fascinating dude, because he's caught right where every one of us would be if we realized fascism was coming - trying to protect his people, trying to be better than he is, tortured by the fear that he's giving his soul away to save his comforts, certain that he'll be destroyed in an instant if he makes one error. Cyril's lover Aristide's coworker at the Bumble Bee Cabaret - and maybe the key to Cyril's salvation - is Cordelia Lehane, a born-to-nothing dancer and drugrunner who wants more than she's got and knows how to use people to get it. As the cold creeps in, Aristide, Cyril, and Cordelia have to turn to - and against - each other to survive in the new regime.<br /><br />Amberlough is a lush, lovely crawl through the high society parties, dockside dens and smoky headquarters of a city as real as yours - Donnelly's prose is (to steal from the jacket copy) ravishing. I never knew there were so many perfectly specific words for luxury! And under the glitz there's a steel bar of terror, a lever pushing everyone to the edge - because some people see Amberlough's effusive corrupt decadent liveliness as rot, and they won't stop cutting until the city and the nation are theirs.<br /><br />Sit at the dark end of the bar, tip the tuxedoed woman who mixes your cocktail, and wait for your contact to pass you a brown envelope with the names of the friends you're going to betray tomorrow. Consider: which people on that list can you afford to save? And what's it going to cost you?<br /><br />Read this book, look up, and think about what you'd do if you were Cyril or Cordelia. Pray you don't have to find out.

An interesting study in ambiguous characters of the nightclub scene in an alternate world similar to 1930s Europe as the Nazis come to power.<br /><br />Cyril DePaul is an intelligence operative working for the Amberlough government. One of his roles is to investigate smuggling, which is a bit unfortunate because his lover, Aristide Makricosta, has a side job as a local kingpin in the smuggling racket. Aristide's other job is as a stripper and performer at the Busy Bee nightclub where he's a local celebrity. Also at the Busy Bee is Cordelia Lehane, a stripper and drug-dealer who is sleeping with the owner of the Bee as well as the Bee's comedian. <br /><br />The One State Party (referred to as the Ospies) have just risen to power in a neighboring country/state and clearly hope to come to power in Amberlough as well. The Ospies are ultra-conservative and their rise in Amberlough would make Aristide and Cyrl's relationship a problem and put Cordelia and the Busy Bees whole operation out of business. What follows is a careful study of what you do to survive, what you'll do to defend the things you love and ambiguity at all levels.<br /><br />The prose is beautiful and the characters very interesting, but I really don't understand why this book exists. To be honest, I think it's because the actual real world features that this book draws on so heavily didn't all quite line up properly the way the author wanted to tell the story. The Ospies for instance, are so clearly Nazis that actually calling them Nazis wouldn't have felt out of place. They even have a symbol which is reminiscent of a swastika. The nightclub scene could be 30s Paris, although the language is New York or Chicago. There's even an analogue to Jewish people for the Ospies to hate. So it's a world that isn't our world, but is exactly like our world with no fantastic elements. <br /><br />It kind of feels like the author had a story in mind for a hypothetical German 1930s nightclub epic but on researching couldn't find anything that matched the story she had in mind, so just decided to rename everything.<br /><br />I can appreciate that it might be a good book, and it <i>is</i> an interesting story, but it really wasn't for me.

If I'm being honest, this is more of a 3.5 for me, not having all that much to do as a Fantasy except with changed names and places hiding the fact this may as well be Casablanca. What? Nazis, spy work, sharp, sometimes witty, dialogue? Yep. <br /><br />I also enjoyed (and sometimes didn't) the deep immersion in the acting scene. For me, it was best when it was scathing quips and a bit boring when it seemed to drag the slow burn of this plot to rather nowhere places.<br /><br />The fact is, this novel sinks or swims on your enjoyment of the characters. The gradual dissolution of people's lives here in Amberlough, whether straight or gay, rich or poor, will only mean something if you're deeply attached. The actual plot direction doesn't pick up until nearly the end when the losses stack up too high.<br /><br />As I was reading this, I was somewhat reminded of <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/68485.Swordspoint__Riverside___1_" title="Swordspoint (Riverside, #1) by Ellen Kushner" rel="noopener">Swordspoint</a>. Any fans of that novel will definitely enjoy this. :)

On the face of it, I should love this novel: spies, cabaret, a setting that is an alternative take on the Weimar Republic... What's not to love, right?<br /><br />However, the book just isn't working for me. I've tried to read this several times, but just get lost in the endless names and descriptions that seem to lead nowhere.<br /><br />This morning, I spent a good hour and a half trying one last time if there was a way to get into the story, but all I am left with is a hankering for some original1920s/30s literature with its roots firmly placed in the Weimar Republic.<br /><br />I'm not rating the book. I have a clear suspicion that it is not the book's fault that I prefer something closer to a feeling of authenticity than a pastiche any day.