Nocturnal Book Reviews

Egalley thanks to Little, brown & Co
What a clever, clever book! Without any doubts it's going to be one of the most memorable reads of this year for me the likes of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and The Night Circus.

In short, if you like Men in Black and Hellboy, this is British version of it, and a delightful at that, with self-deprecating humour and snarky personal assistants.

Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced like Tiffany with M) loses all her memories in a botched attempt of assassination. She is a high-ranking member of The Chequy, a super secret organisation which has been controlling and suppressing supernatural occurrences in Britain for centuries. Myfanwy before the amnesia left her new self thorough letters and descriptions of her life because her loss of memories was prophesied, but now this new strange woman has to pick up the pieces and lead day to day domestic operations of Chequy, because the alternative is death. Nobody leaves Chequy alive, it's just not an option.

Oh, and she needs to find the traitor who tried to kill her. No biggie. Just a day of work in the office.

What I found fascinating were the different characters belonging to The Chequy. You see, they don't work much with sophisticated weaponry, it's more like their bodies are the weapons. Myfanwy for example can manipulate biological responses of any body close to her, her counterpart, Gestalt has one powerful brain shared between four bodies who can work simultaneously in different parts of the world, another member of the organisation can walk through dreams of random people, and yet another has an affinity to metal...

...and it gets even more fascinating when you start reading about the big threat to The Chequy - The Grafters, who work with genetic modifications.

The old Myfanwy is an essential pencil pusher, a bureaucrat and a damn good administrator, but new Myfanwy has to take on a much more active role in the field, and it's so much fun, peeps! None of the other characters are there to be just props, they are alive, very interesting and have fascinating personalities.

I really want to spill all the beans here, but I don't want to spoil all your fun, so just READ IT. Highly recommended, hilarious and extremely clever.