Early Review – The Absinthe Earl (The Faery Rehistory, Book 1) by Sharon Lynn Fisher (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release Date: October 15, 2019
ASIN: B07PB5DNC3
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Faery Rehistory series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Miss Ada Quicksilver, a student of London’s Lovelace Academy for Promising Young Women, is spending her holiday in Ireland to pursue her anthropological study of fairies. She visits Dublin’s absinthe bars to investigate a supposed association between the bittersweet spirit and fairy sightings.
One night a handsome Irishman approaches her, introducing himself as Edward Donoghue. Edward takes absinthe to relieve his sleepwalking, and she is eager to hear whether he has experience with fairies. Instead, she discovers that he’s the earl of Meath, and that he will soon visit a mysterious ruin at Newgrange on the orders of his cousin, the beautiful, half-mad Queen Isolde. On learning about Ada’s area of study, he invites her to accompany him.
Ada is torn between a sensible fear of becoming entangled with the clearly troubled gentleman and her compelling desire to ease his suffering. Finally she accepts his invitation, and they arrive in time for the winter solstice. That night, the secret of Edward’s affliction is revealed: he is, in fact, a lord in two worlds and can no longer suppress his shadow self.
Little does either of them realize that their blossoming friendship and slowly kindling passion will lead to discoveries that wrench open a door sealed for centuries, throwing them into a war that will change Ireland forever.”
This is the first book in the Faery Rehistory series and it was okay. I liked the historical Victorian setting in Ireland and enjoyed some of the Irish fae mythology. However, the writing was a bit disjointed and I had trouble following some of the story.
Ada is a student doing research on Irish fairies and, while visiting an absinthe bar, she runs into the Earl of Meath who has a keen interest in the history of faeries as well. They end up journeying together to an archeological fairie site when things start to get strange. They are drawn to each other in more than an academic way, but the Earl of Meath has periods where he doesn’t seem to be himself.
The writing didn’t flow very well throughout the book, and I thought the actions and settings of the characters were very hard to picture and imagine. I really struggled with some parts of this and found myself rereading parts a lot.
Additionally, there are so many Irish mythology names thrown around it was hard to keep track of who is who. A lot of the characters are two people (current day and mythological one) and it got confusing who was talking when and what reality we were in.
Overall I was very excited to read this, it ended up being okay but was not as good as I had been hoping. It’s a very neat idea and the first half of the book was well done. As the story continued it got confusing and hard to follow. I don’t plan on reading any more of this series.
