How To Talk to a Goddess

Nearly four years ago I was browsing shelves at a local library and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker caught my attention. It was a paperback and rather thick, as these sorts of fantasy books tend to be. Anyway, I checked it out and read it and I was in love. It was a fantasy book about magic, unlike anything I’d read. There was action, drama, and a bit more than a suggestion of a blooming romance. I really loved the writing: it was just a joy to read the words. I have read it a couple more times since then and still take delight in reading it. Alas, there was a very long wait for the follow-up book. I was rather lucky not to have read it until 2017. Some readers have been waiting since 2013. It’s no surprise to say I was thrilled when I heard late last year that the next book was being published in 2021.

The strange part for me is this book was published on audiobook well before the text editions. Normally I’d wait for the ebook to be released but I was slightly impatient to read the rest of the story. So when I noticed the audiobook on Netgalley, I immediately requested it and happily was accepted. It’s taken a while to finish the book so it’s just now I am writing this review.

As I mentioned before, I am new to audiobooks and have not had much experience of being read to before. I do remember our fourth-grade English teacher reading Charlotte’s Web before we all went en masse to see the film back in the 70s. Anyway, this is a new way to process a book and I will be honest and say it was pretty odd and weird and strange and hard at first. It took a while before I got used to it. I also think the audiobook narrator took a bit of time to fully get into it too because I didn’t find too much difference between a lot of characters at first. Or maybe that was just me. I did persist and I think I’m a bit more used to this now that I have completed over nineteen hours of listening. 🙂

I won’t go into the story of the first book except to say that Nora had just returned through the gateway to her home at the end of it. When we meet her again in book two she has been home for a few weeks or months and has settled into an existence of sorts. But she is definitely not feeling at ease with the way life is going. She misses using magic and she misses Aruendiel. Her life just doesn’t seem complete. A few chance situations eventually lead her back to the other world where she eventually reunites with Aruendiel, who is a bit shocked to see her back after making sure she was safe at home. He does have a few other emotions, though, and those are eventually explored in this volume.

It’s not long before Nora meets up with someone from her past in this world and again faces many difficulties which she must handle on her own. Help comes in the form of someone new and mysterious and this new connection leads her into totally new territory and gives her power she has never had before. It’s definitely not straightforward and it becomes a matter of working out who she might trust in order to take the steps she needs to continue on.

The romance ramps up in this part of the story but there is still plenty of action and drama to take in. I found that this again was unlike any book I’ve read before in this genre. It just takes a totally different approach. I really did enjoy this in the end but I find it so difficult to compare to the first book due to the different format. I can’t say too much about the writing either because I found I had to concentrate a lot more to keep up with the story. When the ebook comes out later this year, I will read that and more fully appreciate the story. But really I did like the essence of the story and I can see there is more in the future for Nora, Aruendiel, and some other characters we meet in this book.

I’m going to give this 4 solid stars for the moment. I may well change it once I’ve read a text edition.

Thank you to Netgalley and RB Media for sharing an advance reader copy in exchange for my review.