Tag: Alchemical Journeys

Melanie and Harry are the couple I didn’t know I needed and that’s saying something because my usual response to anything even approaching lovey dovey is “Bleurgh!” Because Melanie and Harry love one another in a world Seanan created, their love isn’t bleurgh. At all. It is everything!

She’s his fairy tale. The only one he’s ever wanted.

In this, the second book of the Alchemical Journeys series, Seanan expands the world of Roger and Dodger, Hunger Games style.

Melanie, the “overmedicated cheerleader”, and Harry, the quarterback, are the love of each other’s lives but they’ve always known Melanie’s heart condition came with a deadly countdown. But what if there was a way they could be together beyond high school? At a cost, of course.

Some of my favourite characters from Middlegame make an appearance here and I love them more than ever. You really should read Middlegame first for much needed background and because it’s one of my favourite reads of all time.

This book also gave me some new favourites. There’s Diana, who doesn’t get a lot of page time but she truly leaves her mark. There’s Aven, who … wants. There’s Jack, who hasn’t had enough training for this but is going to do her best to make up for lost time.

“All right, this is where things get weird.”

Seanan always introduces me to characters that stay with me long after the last page. I finished this book six weeks ago and I’ve spent more time than I should probably admit thinking about Melanie and Harry. I’ve also spent a lot of time trying (and failing) to come up with the perfect words to describe my love for their story.

Seanan always gives me so many sentences to highlight. Sometimes they’re about the characters or their circumstances but, more often than not, what I’m highlighting are things that make all the sense in the world but make me pause and wonder why I never thought of it like that before. Seanan just gets people, in all of our beauty, struggles and depravity.

People who think a pretty girl is prettier when she doesn’t know it are people looking to take advantage of a pretty girl who doesn’t understand the danger she’s in

Sentences like that just stop me in my tracks.

I didn’t think I’d ever find a series to rival Wayward Children but here we are. I’m sure that Seanan isn’t capable of writing a bad book.

Favourite no context quote:

“It’s all about the symbolism from here on out, buddy,” she says. “Symbolism and murder.”

Once Upon a Blurb

The king of winter and the queen of summer are dead. The fight for their crowns begins!

Melanie has a destiny, though it isn’t the one everyone assumes it to be. She’s delicate; she’s fragile; she’s dying. Now, truly, is the winter of her soul.

Harry doesn’t want to believe in destiny, because that means accepting the loss of the one person who gives his life meaning, who brings summer to his world.

So, when a new road is laid out in front of them — a road that will lead through untold dangers toward a possible lifetime together — walking down it seems to be the only option.

But others are following behind, with violence in their hearts.

It looks like Destiny has a plan for them, after all…. 

“One must maintain a little bit of summer even in the middle of winter.” — Thoreau

The moral of this review? Trust Seanan.

This has been one of my most anticipated reads for five years. I preordered it in hardcover and Kindle. I was practically foaming at the mouth waiting for it to be published. And then I didn’t read it. For five years.

Why? First, I was intimidated by the names. How was I ever going to tell Roger and Dodger apart? Duh, easily.

I almost got over that when the first reviews started coming in and they were all so eloquent and thoughtful. I got tripped up by them, wondering if I was even smart enough to fully grasp the layers of this book.

Then Seasonal Fears arrived and I couldn’t read that without having already read this one. Then the publication date of Tidal Creatures drew near and I couldn’t stand the thought of another Seanan book being out in the wild without me.

So, trust Seanan. It will result in much less angst and much more OMG, this book is amazing!

It starts at the end, and there’s just so much blood.

I wasn’t looking for perfection because that doesn’t exist. Outside of this book. Perfection doesn’t exist outside of this book. If a 5 star read is something I’m going to get to the end of and immediately want to reread while simultaneously bashing you over the head with it until you inevitably fall in love with it too, this was that and more. The stars are so full that there’s blood gushing out of them and they’re still getting filled as they overflow.

I can’t even begin to describe this book to you. It’s just perfect!

I loved Roger and Dodger. Individually. Together. I kept wavering between yearning for a connection with someone who understands me to my very core like they have and the thought of that kind of intimacy making me want to run in the opposite direction.

Erin is one of the best characters I’ve ever met and I need an entire book dedicated to her.

This is one of my all time favourite reads. I’m convinced I could read it ten times and get something new from it each read. I cannot wait to revisit it! This time, without the unnecessary angst.

Once Upon a Blurb

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. 

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.