Book Review: Gather the Fortunes by Bryan Camp
Author: Bryan Camp
Publisher: Titan Books
Release Date: 25th May 2019
Synopsis: Renaissance Raines has found her place among the psychopomps – the guides who lead the souls of the recently departed through the Seven Gates of the Underworld – and done her best to avoid the notice of gods and mortals alike. But when a young boy named Ramses St. Cyr manages to escape his foretold death, Renaissance finds herself at the center of a deity-thick plot unfolding in New Orleans. Someone helped Ramses slip free of his destined end – someone willing to risk everything to steal a little slice of power for themselves.
Is it one of the storm gods that’s descended on the city? The death god who’s locked the Gates of the Underworld? Or the manipulative sorcerer who also cheated Death? When she finds the schemer, there’s gonna be all kinds of hell to pay, because there are scarier things than death in the Crescent City. Renaissance Raines is one of them.
Review: I'd been waiting for this book ever since I finished The City of Lost Fortunes! That was a book I completely feel into and I needed more of. Well now I need book number 3!! This is an indirect sequel, in that it follows on from the events of the first book but Renaissance has taken the reins and we go on a completely different journey, but one I wanted to be shotgun for at every opportunity.
"destiny could neither be created nor destroyed, and that made it precious"
Renai is one of those characters that you believe in. Though it was written in third person, it was very much her narrative, almost like I could hear her talking to me. She became a real person, that I had strongly formed in my mind throughout. This makes for a great reading experience because you;re already at one with the narrator and you can enjoy the ride.
Like book one this book has EVERYTHING that I enjoy in a story; adventure, gods, mystery, the underworld and SO MUCH SASSSSSS. And then there was Sal in a league of his own. Renai is a psychopomp, a role which I love. hey act as the guide for spirits on their journey through the seven ages of the underworld, each playing its own part in a persons passing into the afterlife. But it's not always that easy, gods as we know like to play games, people find ways to...slip through the cracks, and what started as a simple recon mission blows up into the drama of the book and I was here for it.
There are so many layers here, Bryan really adds it in, bringing in different mythologies and evoking the real heart of New Orleans to weave this narrative together. Mythologies have always for me existed in their multifaceted so it was good to see them coexisting here. This is where I wanted to live, I loved every journey into the gates of the underworld and wanted to explore more.
There is a sense of resilience within this series. A life within New Orleans that will not stay down and this is reflected within Renai who throughout the book pushes at people, challenges the worlds around her and isn't afraid to call it out. She's a fighter with a moral compass. She's someone you want to hang out with....it did it for me.
Writing this review so long after reading it makes me want to go back and re-read the series and craving more! Ima leave you with this because it just does it for me:
"What's a life-bringing rain god doing in the underworld?" "Same thing a god does anywhere else," Sal said. "Whatever the F**k he wants."
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