Last Car to Annwn Station [Kindle Edition]

In the interests of fairness, I must disclose that I am a personal friend of the author and his family.

I like many different kinds of books and authors, and I like them for different reasons. One thing they all have in common is that the books are interesting. Other strengths and weaknesses vary from book to book.

Where Michael Merriam and Last Car to Annwn Station shine are in the realms of story and character. The story sets a good pace, and feels neither rushed nor plodding. There are really three storylines at work. Two are intimately related, and the third is tangled up in their dance. Mae Malveaux is a CPS case worker who has stumbled across something hidden while trying to protect a young girl named Chrysandra Arneson. She's warned off the case, which has been closed irregularly by the county attorney. Shortly afterward, she begins to see strange things that have no right existing in the staid world of the Twin Cities. A ride on a ghostly trolley car changes her life forever.

At the same time, we learn of a young girl being held captive and writing letters to a wall in her room with a smuggled pencil. It quickly becomes apparent that the girl is somehow connected to the Arnesons, and whatever strange activity Mae has tripped over.

In the midst of this chaos comes Jill, a fellow county employee and long-time friend of Mae. With timing that couldn't be worse, she begins to pay serious court to our confused heroine, getting herself involved in the mystery as well.

The story unfolds well, with revelations and events coming along quickly enough to keep it interesting but no so fast as to feel chaotic and confused. The story ties romance, mythology and mystery together in an enjoyable package. The use of the unknown kidnapped girl as a viewpoint character removes some of the mystery, but allows us to know in a vague way what the Bad Guys are up to, and prevents many things in the final confrontation from feeling like a convenient deus ex machina.

The romantic subplot is handled in a believable and appropriate fashion. Romance and its attendant dramas are not the motivating factor for the overall plot, though they have a predictable effect on the actions of some characters. The choice to make the main character's love interest a long-standing friend was a good one: there is no way a relationship budding this quickly between strangers would have been believable.

The characters in the novel are very well realized, including many that have relatively little active time in the book. Motivations and relationships are complex, and some are pleasantly left vague instead of being artificially tied up in a neat package. The antagonists, though quite vile in sum, are not two dimensional and have their own multi-layered reasons for their actions. I would like to have known a bit more about the personalities and motivations of some of the supernatural entities, but at the same time their vagueness lent them an air of inhumanity.

The only real issue I had with the book was an occasional area where the language felt stiff. Merriam's prose is straightforward and to-the-point, rather than beautiful or lyrical. This works for his style of storytelling, getting the words out of the way of the story and its characters. However, there are times when I felt like the dialog in particular was begging for more shorthand or contractions, and the text's more formal tone interrupted the rhythm in my head.

All told, an excellent and easy read. Recommended for any fans of urban fantasy without the overwhelming preoccupation with romance and sexuality.

In fairness, I will admit I know Michael through the MinnSpec writers group, but this is the first time I've read any of his work.

I thought this was a great Urban Fantasy with strong pacing. I started reading it yesterday afternoon and couldn't put it down. I stayed up late, even though I had a cold and a nasty headache, because I just had to find out what happened at the end. I was happy to find the ending didn't disappoint. It surprised me just enough and tied everything together.

One thing I loved about the book was how it dealt with lesbian protagonists. They're just like any other couple. There's no explanation of why they're gay (some SciFi and Fantasy feels the need to invent a reason for it), they just were who they were. They went on dates and fell in love just like everyone else. Jill's painful family backstory was also well done, plausible and not too cliche.

Another great thing about the book was the connection to Minneapolis. It's obvious Michael lives here and used actual places for his setting. I loved all the references to local coffee shops, buildings, parks, etc. I also loved how he brought back our lost streetcars and how he showcased them in the story.

There were a couple issues I had with the book. For me, the POV switch between Mae and Jill was a little jarring at first, so it took me a while to catch on to it. I also would've liked more details on Mae's background to make the ending more real.

Overall, it was a great read!

(3.5/5 stars)

Welsh afterlife/mythology references? Fantasy elements? AND two main LGBTQ characters? Sign me up! This is a really great summer beach read - I consumed it in two or so sittings. The relationship flowed pretty naturally, though at times did seem a bit quick in terms of how quickly Jill and Mae got together, but I guess danger does that to people - cement them tighter together quicker than normal. But the ending was awesome, and tied up some ends, but not all.

However, I do have to say that the fae vs. mage war could have been expanded upon a bit. It only concentrated on the main arc of what was going on with the children, and even though Mae's supernatural-related backstory was mentioned and hinted as important, it was delved into for only one or two paragraphs. That was it. That disappointed me, and I think that if re-edited, that this could really make the book better. I wanted to know more about this war, wanted to know more about the role of the street cars, and was just kind of left hungering for more but with nothing left to eat. I wanted to know more about how all of the Welsh mythology tied in, because you could have inserted any other cultural magic mythology and the story probably would have ended up the same way. Why use the Cwn Annwn? A lot of questions like that remained after, and it was more than a bit frustrating.

The dialogue was natural and it flowed, and it felt as if I were really there. Yeah, even in the supernatural scenes. If anything, Merriam definitely has a talent for those scenes and makes them really pop off the (virtual), makes them shine. His use of white space is really good in terms of separating the everyday scenes from the letters to the Wall (and other supernatural-only scenes), which is hard to wrangle and achieve. He also does an equally good job with merging both the mundane with the supernatural within the same scene without completely jarring the reader. I loved how the fae child wanted so fiercely protect the mortal child, a prisoner of her parents, even though that might be considered "sleeping with the enemy".

But his hesitance to push these scenes to the max is what bothered me, and what limits the book. I firmly believe this could probably be a cult hit if re-edited with a few rewrites thrown in for good measure. For an indie publication, it's good. But I believe with more work put into it, it could be even better.

There was the traumatic coming out story that is as real as it much as it is cliche, and that scene was very well done. Very tenderly written, and I felt for Jill. Luckily, I never had such an experience, but I felt for her, and thus emotionally connected to her. Again, this is hard to do correctly, and I laud Merriam for getting it right.

If you're comfortable with a heroine who's gay and love urban fantasy, I definitely recommend this as a read for you. If gay relationships make you uncomfortable, you still might want to try to push past your comfort zone anyway and give this book a try.

(posted to shelfari, goodreads, and [...])

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 4 reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars