My sister likes this series, so I borrowed this on a whim from the library audiobook app. A pleasant light audiobook not needing much engagement, with two different readers covering the different perspective characters. I am not entirely convinced by the recasting in these books of fantasy-Victorian English exploration, archaeology and scientific expeditions as essentially benign, positive and only occasionally corrupted by scurrilous non-academic interest, but that did not detract very much from it, especially since this book Does engage with racism personal and societal, and I think it does that pretty well. In form, it has a lot of translation & notes on translation of an ancient text, which is pretty fun if you’re the kind of person who likes to read research notes.

All in all, fun, and works standalone even though I can tell it kind of spoils the endings of previous books by showing their main characters’ post-book situations! I am fairly likely to pick up another of these if it becomes available as a library audiobook & I want some more of the same kind of adventure.

Spoiler zone below. . . . . . . . . . . —- I also enjoyed the autistic character! It’s nice to see clearly neurodivergent people treated nicely in fiction. I would like to see Cora get that archive desk, and make friends & branch out into a freer life. And I’m glad that Audrey’s connection with Mornett was neither flattened into ‘I was over him the second he was racist’ (the passage from her diary talking about how he’s not Really racist, just has these very reasonable concerns, and can’t people be civil? was SO uncomfortable because it was I think very well observed) nor developed into ‘now that he has stopped imminently destroying Draconian artefacts and plotting to restrict their rights (and apologised for his incredibly shitty behaviour) he is a suitable romantic prospect again’. The way that played out was pretty satisfying for me.