Fantasy, Urban fantasy

Foxglove summer – #RiversOfLondon urban fantasy series #5 Another epic tale from Ben Aaronovitch, but with a slightly weak ending

So, have you heard of the Rivers of London series? It’s actually called PC Grant or Peter Grant series, but since it started with Rivers of London, everyone just calls it that. It’s one of the best urban fantasy series ever! If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do. I will include the links to the series at the end of the post!

Now let’s talk about number 5! (Cover picture leads to Goodreads)

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Foxglove Summer (Peter Grant, #5)

★★★★☆       4 stars

I love this series so much, and I could talk endlessly about it. But I have to admit, this one was a little weak by the end. However, I couldn’t give it less than 4 stars!

(If you’re a loyal fan of any series, you’ll know why.)

There’s also the fact that the entire book was very strong (as usual), but the ending just felt botched, like the author ran out of time or patience. I can’t punish the whole book for that, now can I? Can I??

So for those who have read the previous installments, I’ll say that this one is not as action-packed as some of the others in this series. On the contrary, it’s quite slow – it rather reminded me of a good mystery book than your typical #RiversOfLondon mystical adventure. But that was okay, because it does keep you wondering, and you don’t quite end up tying the knots before they get untied by the narration.

(Or maybe that’s just me, because I have been known as a gullible reader.)

The story goes like this (no worries, I won’t spoil – spoiler tags!). Having just come out of the events of the previous book, Peter needs some time and space to recover from the crazy events in book four, namely – being stabbed in the back in the most heart-breaking way, and he is quite lucky that a case in the countryside comes up. It’s about two missing girls, and although at first it doesn’t seem anything out of the ordinary, as he follows up, Peter finds that indeed there is some Falcon aspect to the case (Falcon is cop slang for “magic”, cause no self-respecting copper would utter that word in public anyway). As Peter delves into the case, he finds a lot of fun stuff going on there, such as (mild spoiler) unicorns, fairytale castles and finally getting laid, FFS.

(I know that he got laid in the second one, but that wasn’t really real, now was it. She had enchanted him and whatnot. So yay for Peter!)

This book is fun just like the others, and we even get to find out some saucy details about Molly’s origins, but like I said, I had a few problems with the story. For those who have read, it, here are my quibbles. Do check out the spoiler tag, if you’ve read it, cause I’d love to hear your opinion.

For example, why don’t they follow up with any of the characters? The second girl has been recovered, but where are the parents? What are their reactions? WHOSE kid was it at all, I mean on the Falcon side? And so they just talk about her going ‘to an orphanage’ and that’s that? What kind of crap is that? That’s not how you end a book like that :/ just so many loose ends left with the ending abrupt like that.

If you haven’t read it and don’t want to be spoiled, here’s a series of GIFs to sum up my feelings about the ending:

Now that we’re done with the review, I did promise links to the rest of the series, and here they are! All links lead to Goodreads.

Rivers of London (Peter Grant, #1)    Moon Over Soho (Peter Grant, #2)    Whispers Under Ground (Peter Grant #3)    Broken Homes (Peter Grant, #4)

So! Have you read this one? Do you enjoy this series? Which is your favorite one then? And maybe you have thoughts about the ending too? I’d love to hear them.