Reverie by Ryan La Sala has its UK release on December 3rd, and it should DEFINITELY be one of your pick ups for the magical time of the year.

I gave Reverie a 4 star rating in my full review, here.

Read me for the…

• Unabashed, queer characters
• Fierce, drag queen sorceresses
• Rainbow magic!!!
• Daydreams gone rogue
• Amnesiac main character
• Love and friendship

The Plot:

Kane Montgomery has amnesia after a car accident that his family believe was an attempt at suicide – but he’s not so sure about that. He’s slowly piecing his memories back together when he finds himself drawn into a battle over control of reality himself, fought out in Reveries – the real manifestation of daydreams. Each reverie is highly personal, a person’s most private fantasies made real, and once they come into being they can only be unravelled and the souls within them freed by bringing the story to its resolution. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, as any tiny mistake can spiral the reverie through a dangerous plot twist, and turn it from daydream to nightmare. Unravelling a reverie is dangerous work undertaken by The Others, a team that uses their individual powers to run the reverie to its conclusion, and was apparently run by… Kane. Up until one of The Others stole his memories at least. Now Kane is chasing the truth, whilst being chased by a drag queen who wants the reveries for her own.

What did I love?

• The reveries: The concept of the reveries is SO COOL, I wish I’d come up with it. Especially considering I’m very guilty of spending half my day lost in a wild daydream that’s more interesting (and usually more dramatic) than my day to day life. If my daydreams ever manifest as a reverie, I’m sorry to anyone caught up in it. It’s probably a musical. The reveries are themed around each individual’s fantasies, meaning that this novel dips into different settings from dystopias to historical fiction, and casts the main characters in different stereotypes throughout the novel. Without delving into spoilers, one of the reveries also touches on the heteronormative attitudes that a lot of passing-queers face, with a reverie twisting because the heterosexual characters in the Others completely misunderstand that the ‘hero’ is queer.
  
  
• The amnesia plot device: I mentioned this in my full review, but I’m usually SO wary of amnesia as a plot device. It’s very rarely done well, but Ryan La Sala has done an incredible job with Kane’s amnesia. It doesn’t feel like a way to hide information from the reader, nor is it used for cheap exposition. Instead, it felt like I was right there with Kane, picking up the breadcrumbs left behind by his previous life and piecing his memories together piece by piece. I also particularly love the way that there is no assumption that Kane was a good person before his memories were lost. No main-character morality armour here, Kane has to struggle with not knowing for sure whether he was in the right or wrong before his memories were erased. Personally, I’ve got a big soft spot for main characters who aren’t automatically the picture of Good and Righteous, so I liked this internal struggle.
  
  
• Poesy: Well, all of the characters actually, but I don’t want to talk too much about the Others because I really enjoyed the experience of learning about the individual members of the Others through Kane’s rediscovery of his friends. But POESY. She’s fierce and she’s fabulous. If drag queen sorceress doesn’t make you desperate to read this book, I don’t know what will. She’s a reality manipulating, magic wielding badass, collecting reveries for her own purposes and controlling a cool as hell shadow monster dreadmare.

What did I not love?

Honestly, I didn’t have any huge criticisms of this novel. If I had to pick anything, I’d actually only say that it was a shame that the novel advertises Poesy as a villain. There was a good section of the book that, if it hadn’t been for the outward description of her as a ‘sorceress villain’, that I would have been truly uncertain about whether Kane should trust her or the Others, but there was always that descriptor hovering in the back of my head and making me mistrust Poesy.

Where can I buy?

Amazon

If you can, please support your local independent booksellers!