Melissa Crowe

This book is steeped in desire.

It’s easy to see why this collection won an award. To quote Sally Beauman, “death and desire live back to back” and that’s the easiest way to describe this book and speak of the unnameable hurt and the hurt that we arm ourselves against for the sake of those two.

I’ll be honest, I downloaded and waited so long to read Lo by Melissa Crowe that the book expired on the netgalley app on my phone and my iPad. I’m glad it was already on my kindle, even if I do suspect that sending poetry books to kindle removes any and all formatting they have.

And when I did read it I lapped it up.

And it genuinely has been a while since I read a poetry collection which as a whole has worked. There is nothing is this book that could be considered mediocre or bad; everything has a place and a purpose. It feels like Melissa Crowe knew exactly what she wanted to put together and did it.

Thank you NetGalley and University of Iowa Press for the chance to read such a stunning collection.

Favourite poems:

I’m Not Mad at My Mother for Letting Me Roam the Neighborhood Unsupervised
But Nothing Bad Ever Happened to Me in the Woods
When she speaks of fire… (meer)

I received a pdf copy of this book from the author for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for the review, and all conclusions are my responsibility.

I’ll start by saying this is a short, novella-sized story, only 55 pages, yet there is much packed into those pages. Karina is a psych nurse, rather shy and retiring, who recently ended a relationship with Ian, and is trying to find her new normal. Enter Xavier, a handsome and charming man who sets her life on tilt, encouraging her to question her heritage when he explains her middle name, Tuatha, to her. Cue the overt paranormal flavor of the story, and let the battle for Karina’s heart and life begin.

I enjoyed this story, although the length did not allow for great development of any of the characters. It really feels like a good introduction to Karina, a prequel to her story and discovery of her relevance in the paranormal world as a Tuatha de Danann. That isn’t meant to discount this story, for it does stand alone as a complete work; there is a clear beginning, middle and end.

The writing flowed and was well paced, while there were a few minor spelling/word choice errors that I found, they did not distract overtly from the pacing or the reading. The plot twisted and moved quickly enough to throw up a few surprises, with a particularly satisfying ending. I do want to see more of Karina and her discoveries of her new talents, and hope the author is working to that end.
… (meer)