Review--The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor

 

The New York Times bestselling author of Hotel Magnifique returns with another glittering dark fantasy about a deadly mystery that spans worlds and a teenage girl who must risk everything to uncover the truth.

Seven years ago, Maeve Abenthy lost her world, her father, even her name. Desperate to escape the stain of her father’s crimes, she lives under a fake name, never staying in one place long enough to put down roots.

Then she receives a mysterious letter with four impossible words Your father was innocent.

To uncover the truth, she poses as an apprentice for the Otherwhere Post, where she’ll be trained in the art of scriptomancy—the dangerous magic that allows couriers to enchant letters and deliver them to other worlds. But looking into her father’s past draws more attention than she’d planned.

Her secretive, infuriatingly handsome mentor knows she’s lying about her identity, and time is running out to convince him to trust her. Worse, she begins to receive threatening letters, warning her to drop her investigation—or else. For Maeve to unravel the mystery of what happened seven years ago, she may have to forfeit her life.

Emily J. Taylor's The Otherwhere Post was a mysterious and intriguing read, much like her debut, but yet for some reason I struggled a bit with this one too. I can't tell if it's me, my surroundings and my struggle to concentrate with the book, or the writing. I think it might be the first two, I need to start wearing my headphones when I read, but then I might not hear my laptop ding when things come in!

Anyway, in this one we follow Maeve Abenthy, a teenage girl who is trying to unravel the mystery of her father who was framed for a heinous crime. Everyone believes he committed it, and maybe Maeve even believes a little bit. She has had to change her name several times to avoid recognition or persecution from others, for "the sins of our fathers..."

But then Maeve receives a mysterious letters, and letters in this world can be very mysterious and magical. This letter proclaims that Maeve's father might have in fact, been innocent and Maeve is determined to prove his innocence. But to do this, she will need to get inside the Otherwhere Post as an apprentice to gain a magic key that gives her access to all the answers she'd ever need. But this is easier said than done.

Donning yet another new persona, Maeve manages to get inside the post as an apprentice but she finds she has caught the eye of the postmaster's son, Tristian. Tristian also harbors his own secrets and naturally these two collide together. Tristian is determined to uncover Maeve's secrets, but not in any way that seems nefarious, simply a boy trying to get to know a girl. And naturally, Tristian is assigned to be her mentor at the post.

While the premise of this book was intriguing, I struggled to get into the mystery itself and figure out where Maeve was going all the time. I get that magic was involved, but I guess with my distracting surroundings, it held me back from understanding key components. Again, this is likely another me issue. As I did still enjoy aspects of the book. Maeve was a great character to follow and I enjoyed her interactions with Tristian. The romance was also the sweet kind that took awhile to bloom, but was perfect once it did!

If I ever get the time, I might try re-reading these one day without the distracting surroundings. I think I need to get me some head canceling headphones or at least an app on my phone to allow such noise cancellation when it comes to these new to me reads.

This was another one that had potential to be amazing for me, yet I just struggled to get into. Curse my circumstances for sure as I think it really held me back from truly enjoying this one.

Overall Rating 3/5 stars