A review by okevamae
The Grimoire of Grave Fates by Hanna Alkaf, Margaret Owen

3.0

The concept of this book is a unique idea I haven’t seen before: an anthology of interconnected short stories, each by a different author, coming together to tell a murder mystery in a fantasy setting (a magical school, no less.) How could I not pick this one up? The stories are not only told in a standard narrative format – there are also text conversations, interrogation transcripts, and artifacts that flesh out the story. All of the students have different magical talents, and it’s interesting to see so many different magic systems in one book. As always with anthologies, some stories were better than others, but I didn’t feel like there were any really bad ones in this bunch. The one thing that bothered me was the inconsistency of some aspects of the worldbuilding, but I guess that can be expected with multiple authors writing in the same fictional setting, if the rules of the world are not well established. Overall, it was a good (if imperfect) execution of a really unique idea.

Representation: Stories by POC and LGBTQ+ authors about POC and LGBTQ+ characters, disabled characters, characters with mental illness

TW: racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic character, bullying of children by teachers

I received an advance copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.