The Year of the Knife by G.D. Penman

The Year of the Knife by G.D. Penman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book received from both Netgalley and Meerkat Press for an honest review

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Lesbian Fiction, Alt History.
I've read roughly 656 works that are lesbian fiction. 810 mysteries; 89 alt-histories; 667 fantasy; and 128 urban fantasy works. Why do I mention this? Because of those 656 lesbian fiction works I've read, the vast majority are contemporary romances, and when the books are fantasy (108 of those), they tend to be paranormal romances. You know how many tend to be urban fantasies? So few I have to do an off the top of my head guess . . . and come up with about five (depending on definitions of urban fantasy/paranormal fantasy), this book, two Alexis Hall books, and two Brey Willows books (actually, I also put Jae's Shape-shifter series on the urban fantasy shelf, though I'm not sure it really fits there - see, definitions are hard).

Alt history? As noted, I've read 89 works in that genre. How many of them were Lesbian fiction? Two. This book here, and one by Gail Carriger (the character who is in a lesbian romance in 'Romancing the Inventor' does turn up in other Carriger books, but as a background character ). And I'd actually forgotten to put that other one on the alt history shelf.

The point of all of this rambling is just that this book, from my own experience, is something of an odd ball genre wise. Though, admittedly, just because I've read 656 lesbian fiction works doesn't mean I've read them all (of course), so, for all I know, alt-history and urban fantasy might be huge in lesbian fiction.

Setting: New Amsterdam (for the most part, though brief 'pop-ins' elsewhere, like Nashville).
Not sure why it's 'New Amsterdam', since the city is in British control, and it got renamed in 'our' time line to New York in 1664 when the British got control of the place.

story: Isobella 'Sully' Sullivan (and don't call her by her first name or she'll act all shocked you actually know it) is an Irish immigrant to 21st century New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam, in turn, is in the American Colonies, and a part of the British Empire. Sully is a Senior Agent with the IBI (think FBI, but with magic users, and agents dressing in whatever they want to dress in - so don't think FBI, since FBI agents out of a suit would probably be instantly fired) - the IBI being the Imperial Bureau of Investigation. Wait, I think Sully's title is Superior Agent? Well, whatever it is, Sully is a high level agent for the IBI.

Sully has been given a case to investigate suspicious deaths - deaths where it appears someone has taken over people, and had those people commit brutal and fatal crimes. The book then proceeds to tell an interesting story. Until about 75% to 85% (or was it 91%?) when the last part of the book became an information dump.

As alternate history, it's not clear what the 'pivot point' would be (since that's important in alternate history stories - pinpointing when a timeline diverged from our own), and there are certain odd things tossed in there that do not really make sense - see New Amsterdam's name (or, you know, above where I mentioned that New Amsterdam instantly became New York when taken over by the British in 1664). Sure, there's that information dump at the end of the book that 'helps' pinpoint the 'pivot point' but things were already different at that point in time.

As a mystery . . . well, if you are reading the book because you like mysteries, and only for that reason, you might not specifically like this book. There is a mystery, and it is interesting, and Sully does investigate it but . . . things kind of unravel in non-mystery book like ways.

As a fantasy it is good. As an urban fantasy, ditto. As a romance . . . well, there is a romance, but there's a reason I haven't even mentioned it yet - it's an urban fantasy type romance - as in, the main character vaguely feels some attraction to one of the characters in the story, they are something of a couple, and . . . stuff, but there's no real romance between the two - it's just there as a sub-plot (there were hints that a real capital R romance might break out, but no, this is just a romance sub-plot, not a Romance book).

Despite what some of what I've written might suggest, I did rather enjoy this book, and if not for the information dump at the end, I'd probably have rated this a high 4.5 or so stars. Instead I rate it a solid . . . hmm . . . 3.88 stars.

Rating: 3.88

October 26 2017



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