Hirondelle's Reviews > The Brides of High Hill

So, this was a letdown. Not totally unexpected due to reviews from friends (thanks! For all its many bugs, that is something Goodreads is unbeatable at, finding people whose taste you trust), but hope springs eternal, and surely it would work for me. But even with lowered expectations, this was odd. 

An Asian (Vietnamese?)-inspired gothic-tinged fantasy, the further adventures of cleric Chih. The gothic bits are there, but I would say this goes more strongly into straight-out horror themes. There was a frustrating vagueness to Chih and the story here, Chih seemed out of character compared to how they were defined in previous stories, though that ends up being less objectionable than I thought it was going to be. It also ends up tying up better with the themes of the rest of the series. Her writing quality, which is usually so dazzling for me, was not as sparkling as usual. 

I noticed an unusual part of the acknowledgements: "Usually this is where I talk about something in my life that’s relevant to the novella you hopefully just read. However, given that The Brides of High Hill is specifically about lies, I decided that for legal reasons, I’m going to stick with a few useful truths, and then thank everyone who made this book what it is.". Ok, then.. It sounds like there might be personal backstory to the difference in tone and themes of this book, but without knowing that context, I can only judge it for what was in front of me, and I decrypted nothing and did not much get the book as it was.

An odd story, that I did not like. The rating is probably 2.5 stars, but considering  how good the rest of the series is and how well  Vo can write and plot, sorry, but I am rounding it down. Though I am aware I might just not be "getting" what this was really about.