Reviews

Astoria by S.P. Miskowski

thomaswjoyce's review

5.0

I've done myself a disservice by not reading Miskowski's Skillute Cycle sooner. I actually let a year pass between reading Knock Knock (book 1) and the next book (Delphine Dodd). But I enjoyed that book so well I immediately bought this book and read it in the same day. I'm happy to report that the quality of writing is just as high as in the previous two books, and the story develops more of what is happening with the characters from Skillute. But this is the Weirdest offering thus far, thanks to the strange circumstances that befall the protagonist when she leaves Skillute. Where she ends up and what happens to her definitely wander into the Weird horror realm. But she handles these different elements with the same thoroughness she handles all other facets of her writing, and it all makes for an enthralling and entertaining read.

errantdreams's review

4.0

This is an extremely internal narrative, exploring Ethel’s feelings from the time her parents died in a fire when she was young, to everything she went through with Connie Sara. She’s always been the charity case, the poor relative, learning to smile sweetly and curtsey so her aunt would get better tips as a seamstress. Now she’s done with smiling and saying thank you. She’s ready to cut loose and take what she wants through lies and moxie. There’s a lot of insight here into the kind of woman she is in the time and place and circumstances in which she lives.

Minor content warning: there’s some discussion about Connie Sara’s tendency to maim and kill animals, and there’s a small amount of adult material and gore. This is really an internal horror story, however, not a gore-fest. I think I got a lot more out of it from having read Knock Knock first, but I think you could read them in a different order.


Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/03/short-take-astoria-s-p-miskowski/