Gallant

There's a lot to like about Gallant, especially if you enjoyed her Darker Shade of Magic trilogy. Similar strengths include:
Imperfect but like-able and cheer-for-able protagonists
Tremendous shaping of the atmosphere of her world; the setting feels like a character itself
Really good scope. Gallant doesn't try to be about the whole world/universe in a way that makes the problem feel more abstract than serious (cough cough Marvel). Even though the villain has larger aspirations, the focus is on digging in deeply to one house and its rhythms. This pays off a lot by getting to know the few characters really well and in a few different layers, and the layers we learn about the house pay off in the plot in a non-gimmicky way. Also, in the age of everything being part of a cinematic universe, it was wonderfully refreshing to find an author who had a good idea, told a story about it in a reasonable number of pages, and let it be. It's self-contained because that's all it needs to be

It feels more like a fairy tale than anything, but I really like the tone. You'd think it's bleak and gothic/horror on paper, but it actually feels quite warm and sentimental in unexpected ways, especially the very end. Touching and sweet


Cons: the main character has a million questions, and the biggest ones never really get answered. Maybe that's by design to keep the reader guessing at the mystery of it all (and to make it more of a fairy tale than a hard fantasy, which is fine), but I have the same basic “so, what the heck is going on?” questions as Olivia did and I'd like to overhear someone give her the rundown