Review: The High Gate by Violet Fenn

Blurb:

“I’m being stalked by a vengeful half-witch, my love life’s deader than I am, and now there’s a runaway vampire in my spare room. Eternity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Lilith O’Reilly just wants to be left alone to run her coffee shop on a quiet Liverpool back street. But you don’t choose the undead life—the undead life chooses you.

There’s something strange going on in the local cemetery, and it’s not just the sharply dressed ghost who likes to practise his stage moves amongst the gravestones. The local pharmacist is suspiciously interested in Lili’s vital signs and her cat is developing unnervingly human abilities.

And now there’s a voice in her head—a voice that definitely isn’t her own.

Rivers of London meets Neverwhere in this funny and fast-paced urban fantasy about friendship, family secrets, and the power of a city’s spirit.

Review:

Fenn finds her feet with another hilarious romp through the undead soap opera of Liverpool.

Our main character, Lili finds herself new frienemies, visits Queen Lizzie; the Undead ruler of London and battles returning demons both in and outside her own head!

This 2nd instalment is lighter on plot, having already established the foundations of the series, and feels more of a journey through the cast; reestablishing relationships and meeting new players on the undead city scene.

Once again, though, the characters are super relatable and fun to follow. Kitty is still the amazing feisty and sarcastic gran-ghost and Grimm the cat is proving to every cat-owner out there that they really do know more than they let on!

We are introduced to Martha, the 130-going-on-40 year old… human(?) living in a crypt, a newly created vegetarian vampire and the voice of the city inside our revenant Lili’s head.

Ultimately, this book shows a development and increased level of comfort from the author, but without losing any of the punchiness and humour of the first book. At slightly fewer pages, we see the plot wrap up quickly, but constantly gives the feeling of building towards something bigger. I have a hunch that we will see a culmination of bad-guy surprise  in the next few books (ala the Faceless Man in Rivers of London) as a huge pay-off for the less well developed plot in this book. 

I am very excited to continue this series!