ARC Review: The Angel of the Crows

Hello everyone! How are you? Today I am finally back with a new review, and I can’t believe it!!! I am so happy! It really seems like I am back reading, and this is just amazing!

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and to the editor.

Title: The Angel of the Crows
Author: Katherine Addison
Page count: 448
Publication Date: June 23rd, 2020

This is not the story you think it is. These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting.
In an alternate 1880s London, angels inhabit every public building, and vampires and werewolves walk the streets with human beings under a well-regulated truce. A fantastic utopia, except for a few things: Angels can Fall, and that Fall is like a nuclear bomb in both the physical and metaphysical worlds. And human beings remain human, with all their kindness and greed and passions and murderous intent.
Jack the Ripper stalks the streets of this London too. But this London has an Angel. The Angel of the Crows.

I read the first book by this author in May and I loved it (I wrote a sort of review/comparison here, and it is one of the best books I have read so far) so when I saw this book on NetGalley I had to request it. And then they approved me! It was a happy dance moment because I was over the moon! I just discovered an amazing author and I get to read her new book, how cool is that???
Then I have started to read some mixed reviews, and I started to fear… and if this book is bad? That would be terrible! But the reviews I have read helped me understand better what to expect from this book because let’s be honest, this is quite peculiar. Especially if you have read The Goblin Emperor. They are completely different, and this one was born like fanfic, and it still is a sort of fanfiction even now, so all the mixed reviews I have read helped me figure out what to expect, and that allowed me to enjoy this book.

Yes, enjoy this book, and enjoy it a lot. I wasn’t expecting to like this one so much, but even if I think this is not on the same level on the other book by this author, and even if I admit that this is quite far from perfect, because there are some things that aren’t so well… done, here, I had a great time while reading!
This is a retelling, in the strictest way possible, it made me think of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because it not only re-tells the story of Sherlock and Watson, but it takes parts and scenes directly from the original. And I appreciated it quite a lot.
And we get Angels, Werewolves, Vampires, Hell-Hounds and more! It is really fascinating.
The world-building is intriguing, and I appreciated a lot this alternative London with all the supernatural around. But I think that this could have been developed a bit better. The part about the Angels was intriguing and original, but the rest is not as well developed. I mean, we have a world full of magical creatures, it could have been amazing, and in this respect, the book falls a tad short.

But let’s get going with the good parts! The MCs are the thing I loved about this book! Sherlock in this book is an Angel, a unique one at that, and he is called Crow, while Dr. Watson is Doctor Doyle, a doctor and a supernatural creature due to an accident while he was with the army.
I am a fan of Sherlock and Dr. Watson, but in some ways, I preferred this new couple. For one, Crow is ironically more human than Sherlock. Sherlock is an almost inhuman character, but Crow is way more compassionate and kind, even if human feelings and interactions aren’t always clear to him. And while I was reading Conan Doyle’s books, I sometimes felt Watson like a bit detached, like a secondary character, the shadow of Sherlock bright light, but in this one, Doyle has more vitality, he is real to you. He has a personality, thing that sometimes I was feeling lacking in the original character.

The plot follows, for the most part, the original one, but we don’t see much of the real investigations and we don’t get to see the abnormal brain of Crow at work. So, even if in some sense it is really near to the original, for others it isn’t so… strict about it. And even if I enjoyed seeing Crow and Doyle going around for London and I loved to see how they interact, there isn’t really so much going on. And this was maybe not the brightest thing ever, because I was enjoying myself and I was quite enthralled by this book, so I didn’t mind the light plot, but if you are not really into the characters, for example, I think you would find it boring because, to be honest, there is really not so much happening here.

So, as you can see, this is quite far from perfect, but I loved it nonetheless, and since I enjoyed it so much I have rated it quite a bit on the higher end. I really can’t say what it was that really draw me in so much, but it was fascinating, and I had a great time!

What about you? Have you read this book? Or are you planning to do it? Let me know!

Happy reading!
S.