Book Review: “Gather The Fortunes” by Bryan Camp

Gather The Fortunes by Bryan Camp

Camp’s latest is a sequel to The City of Lost Fortunes, picking up what happens to Renaissance Raines after the dramatic end of the earlier story.

She has been resurrected as a psychopomp, tasked with ushering the dead into the underworld.  She seems only partly aware, and there is a whole lot that she doesn’t understand, though she doesn’t seem to question things even after five years.

But weird stuff starts happening, including a young man who somehow avoids his own death (is that even possible?, she wonders with good reason).  This can’t be good, and the arrival of the Hallows—the three days around Halloween and All Saints—means that the barriers between living and dead will be open.

Thing get even more complicated as we learn that resurrected Renai is very special case indeed. Just who is she, and what is her role in whatever bad stuff is happening?

Renai regains herself, and must  try to fix things, if she can.  Her path takes her around New Orleans and down into the underworld.  There are so many spirits, gods, and magicians that it’s hard to keep track, which is not made easier by the skullduggery and deception of many of these entities.

In the lands of the dead, there are horrible, violent, dark events and entities, but there are good people and there is hope.

Camp is a fine writer, and he is writing of the city he clearly loves.  I have never been to NO, but I’m sure that the places are recognizable to natives.

I look forward to more from Camp.  (I hope there is more music and food in  future stories. : – ) )

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1. Bryan Camp, Gather The Fortunes, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

 

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