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4.5

A dangerous book, power hungry buyers and two booksellers on a path to destruction.

This was nuts bro. The ending wasn’t my cup of tea, but it does make sense in relation to the story.

A fluid filled foray into the dark magic of human desires. ( )

What a trip!!! Eyes wide shut the book, but better. Very very cool. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed a copy of this on audiobook from my library.

Thoughts: This was an okay read. It's about a woman, Lily, who started to have a successful writing career until her husband developed severe dimentia and required constant care. Lily has now been eking out a living as a bookseller when she hears about a priceless book that a customer wants to purchase. She teams up with another bookseller, Lucas, and goes on a wild chase for the rare book. It's a journey filled with danger, mysterious occultism, and lots of sex.

This was okay. I struggled to like or engage with the characters here, they just all felt very selfish and unlikable to me. Yeah, Lily has it pretty tough but she made some pretty bad choices too. Watching her sexual romp through various European countries in an effort to heal herself and find "The Book of the Most Precious Substance" was engaging enough that I finished the book but I didn't really find it that intriguing or special. I think I was hoping for more magic or more character growth, or just more something out of this. Instead the characters ended up just as stunted as they had started.

Lily tells the story with this huge foreshadowing about how horrible everything ended up, but she doesn't seem that unhappy with how things turn out by the end of the book. It just felt a bit unfinished and unsatisfying.

I think part of my issue with this is that I read a lot of fantasy/horror/supernatural books and this just seems like a supernatural-lite book or something? It just doesn't build a magic system or really embrace this dark magical world that it attempts to introduce the reader to. I think if you really like straight-up mystery/thrillers and are looking for something with a touch of supernatural in it, this might be for you. I found that it felt fairly incomplete and boring.

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was okay. The narrator's voice is a bit scratchy and she sometimes forgot to switch character voices when switching characters. Definitely not the best narration out there. I would recommend reading on paper/e-book.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay but not really for me. The characters felt very selfish and immature throughout the story and never really showed any growth. The supernatural aspects of the mystery weren't well fleshed out and felt very surfacey. If you are looking for a mystery/thriller with subtle supernatural occult elements, you might enjoy this. The whole thing just felt a bit lacking to me. I don't plan on picking up future books by Gran. ( )

Hmmmm, not sure about this one.
Lily is a bookseller with a complicated life, who lands the purchase of an extremely rare book. She sets out to find this treasured book with Lucas, a fellow bookseller. Said book, can grant you what you most wish in life after performing certain rituals. All the rituals have to do with sex magic; but as they get close to finishing the ordeal, are they really sure that what they most desire is worth doing the final step in the book?
I guess it’s ok. Good ending, even though it is depressing.
Too much sex stuff snuck in when I wasn’t planning on reading something like that. Meh. ( )

This book was fun but like, is it really that hard for these international jetsetters to find the G Spot? I thought we as a culture had solved that problem in the late 90s ( )