"Greymist Fair," by Francesca Zappia

Audience: Young Adult

Genre: Fantasy/Horror/Paranormal

Overall Content Rating: Clean

Content Warnings

Death

Non-graphic and paranormal-esque in that the bodies just disappear, leaving only clothes

Violence

an instance of whipping

being held at knife point

Overall Review

Considering this book is a fantastical horror story, it's a bit surprising that there are as few content warnings as there are. While there was death involved, it was immensely non-graphic in the way that it was described. In each death scene, there was no real blood or gore described, and most of the time, there wasn't even a body, just clothes left behind to the point where we could only imagine their disappearance and wonder if they were, in fact, dead.

Before we continue, though, I have to admit that I am a biased fan of Zappia's work. Out of all my favorite authors, she's rather close to the top, if not at the top, simply because of how her books grasp my attention and seem to fit all my hopes and dreams when it comes to book content. While not all her books are as clean as this one, they're usually more on the clean side and she does an amazing job approaching more serious issues with a good tone and overall solid voice of reason. Though this doesn't entirely top Eliza and Her Monsters, Zappia's second novel and the one I read first, it is my second or third favorite of her books, which may not seem to be saying much, but in my book, that puts this book pretty high up there.

As with Zappia's latest works, such as Now Entering Addamsville, there's a lot of solid worldbuilding going on here and it's so brilliant to see the world be woven together as you delve deeper. Separated into different shorter stories all coming into this one whole, you see many different points of view before you get the full picture.

Who is the witch? Who is Heike's father? Why is Doctor Death so ominous? Nobody knows the answers to all these things until the end (unless they're much smarter than I, which is very well possible) and that really drives the book home for me. In terms of suspense, it's as if there is none, and yet is a ton all at the same time. I could put the book down and pick it back up if I had to, but when I was reading, I was hooked unless I was vigorously interrupted.

The characters themselves never seem to reveal their true selves, either. Just when I thought I was getting to know them, there were another few layers for me to unfold. And just when I began to like one character (Wenzel), I found my heart tugged towards another (Hilda and then Heike). The gradual build of their traits and wants and desires, especially toward the end, really gripped me and I loved to see them build new relationships with new characters as other hidden relationships were revealed. The hatred of one character for another seemed to be there, but until they directly referenced it, I wasn't entirely sure if it was, and it's those kinds of details that I found all throughout this book that made it so endearing to me.

Overall, this was a terrific read and another job well done by Zappia. I'm so glad I got to read this book!