The first book of the series was amazing and this would have been too, if it didn't stumble into some social issues C.Priest was unable to handle properly. If you like lovecraftian horror and/or stories of Lizzie Borden you're probably going to enjoy this.

We all know what a raging racist H.P.L. was. I think it's smart writing when authors write cultists as racists and white angry men. It makes narrative sense and it serves as a subtle critique of Lovecraft's racism and prejudices. So, I find it very fitting and clever that C.Priest did the same. Unfortunately I read this book after [b: Lovecraft Country|25109947|Lovecraft Country|Matt Ruff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1426040983s/25109947.jpg|44803674].

Lovecraft Country is a horror lovecraftian masterpiece of a novel, that also deals with racism in America during the Jim Crow era. It is written from the point of view of various black people as they face white, racist, cultists and eldrich horrors. Part of the horror is the racism itself and the atmosphere is constantly tense and uncomfortable. Racism isn't just a gimmick, or a single paint-stroke to add realism and flavor to the plot. It's an integral part of the setting, of the action, the story and the characters. And there lies the difference with Chapelwood.

In Chapelwood all the narrators are white and all people of color are victims, killed and chased. The novel does not dive into why people are so hateful, neither does it analyze social dynamics nor power structures. The community is so poorly structured by the author that all non-white people seem to only exist to die or help the white protagonists. It doesn't feel real or well thought out and unfortunately it reads like a juvenile white-savior fantasy that I did not expect from this author.

It's not like I expected some eloquent diatribe of racism in the small towns of America. But I expected the setting to feel real, like the one of the wonderful previous book. This hasty worldbuilding ruined the suspension of disbelief to the point I could see more of C. Priest's misgivings and ended up half-enjoying, half-criticizing each page.

Like.
Does she HAVE to mention inspector Wolf's weight in EVERY.SINGLE.CHAPTER.HE.IS.MENTIONED? We get it, he's fat, oh so fat, fatily fat fatily fating. There isn't a single chapter where she does not say something about his weight. Even when it's from his own point of view. Mind you, it's not always negative, sometimes it's even cute and benevolent. But it's ALWAYS there. How he craves food, what size his clothes are, whether he can run or climb stairs, that he can't stand warm weather. In every chapter. I imagined Priest writing this excitedly fantasizing how she can illustrate the man's fatness.

At first I was happy to see a fat character that's smart, kind and competent, since there aren't that many portrayed in a positive light. But it soon turned sour. After a while I started wondering whether this constant mention of his size wasn't just the ramblings of a thin person but the attempt of a lesser writer trying to make the character feel unique. She imagined a sort of Hercule Poirot, but in a lovecraftian universe. And when that thought struck me, I couldn't unsee it. Did this character have any other characteristics other than being fat, insightful and an inspector? Any other quirks, traits, whatever? Nope.

And that's when I stopped enjoying the story. After my realizations about how she writes race and fat, the whole novel crumbled. Lizzie's cliche tragic lesbian lovestory felt more and more like a gimmick and made even her sound one-note. Why couldn't she have found happiness, or another lover? Why are all our lesbians sad and their partners dead?

I think if it weren't for the faults in these social matters I could have enjoyed this one immensely. Despite the two dimensional characters. The horror elements were nicely written and thought out and very creepy. I wanted to love it as the first one, I really did. ( )

Written in the same style as the first book, Chapelwood picks up a good bit into the future, where Lizzie is an old lady.

Much of the story takes place in Birmingham Alabama, at the height of the KKK's power. Lizzie and Inspector Wolf come to town to investigate the death of a priest, and the spate of murders being committed with an axe. We get introduced to a couple of new characters, and once again Lovecraftian horrors rear their ugly heads.

I was kind of surprised about the ending, but the author left it open enough that we could very well get another book in the series, though I wonder if it'll be such as a large jump in time as we had between the first two of the series. ( )

A follow up to her earlier work "Maplecroft", this book picks up the lives of Lizzie Borden/Lizbeth Andrew and Detective Simon Wolf in 1921. Seems there is another set of unsolved bizarre killings in Birmingham, Alabama that bear a striking resemblance to those we read about in Massachusetts. Inspector Wolf calls himself to do the inspecting, and Lizzie just can't stop her intuition telling her to leave her home and go find out what these newspaper articles are describing.

The veterans form a natural alliance, with Detective Wolf "giving" Lizzie a new name, and they set out to learn about a Catholic Priest's murder, his aid to a young woman, and her father's brutal attack. Oh, and then there's this strange church on the outskirts of town, not to mention an axe-wielding murderer driven by numbers and one of his survivors who seems to have an insight into the beyond.

There is a bit of formula here that Priest used to great effect with her first book; this one uses it because it works, but it leaves the originality of her earlier work a bit tempered. Still, the strange creature lurking is enormous and not at all like what they fought in Massachusetts. Or is it?? ( )

Priest returns to Lizzie Borden’s fight against the Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the stars. Thirty years have passed and Lizzie has to head down South to investigate another series of axe murders. It was okay, but I didn’t feel like it was necessary to Lizzie’s story. ( )

Fair Warning: This book is the second in the Borden Dispatches series, and so this review will unavoidably contain spoilers for the first book.

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Thirty years have passed since the events of Maplecroft. Emma Borden is dead, as is the good doctor Seabury. The town of Fall River is quiet and peaceful, and Lizzie Borden (now going by Lizbeth Andrew) has settled into quiet infamy with a great many cats.

But a new celestial threat is rising in Birmingham, Alabama of all places. A shadowy group calling themselves The True Americans, supported by a strange new church known as Chapelwood, is looking to cleanse Birmingham of its undesirables, namely blacks, Jews, Catholics, and those who don’t want to see the world end screaming in the tentacles of an Elder God.

Called in by her old aquaintance Inspector Simon Wolf to help solve the murder of a local priest, which may or may not be tied into the nighttime activity of an ax-murderer known as Harry the Hacker, Lizzie Borden must shoulder her ax once more to defeat a cosmic evil growing strong in the dark southern soil.

I began this series because I could not say no to a Lizzie Borden-Cthulhu mashup (who could?). The first book in the series was enjoyable (though with some tweaks to the mythos and to geography that irked me a bit). The second in the series is weaker, less cosmic horror, more plain old crappy human beings. I will say, however, that I enjoyed the Ku Klux Klan as despotic bringers of the elder god apocalypse angle. That part of the story was done quite well, and should resonate with anyone who’s been following American politics recently. Though I will say that it made this book a bit of a dud when it comes to escapist fiction (but not entirely in a bad way).

In all, if you enjoyed the first book, this one is a different creature altogether, but still worth your time. New comers to the series should definitely start with the first book, both because that one is a bit more in the Lovecraftian style, and because you will be thoroughly lost if you try to start this series in the middle. ( )