Anarchy: A Novel by James Treadwell & Reading Coffee Roasters Sea Salt Caramel Mocha Coffee

Title: Anarchy: A Novel
Series: Advent Trilogy #2
Author: James Treadwell
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Publication date: September 17th 2013
Page Count: 449 pages
Age Rating: Adult (non-explicit sexual reference and violence against a minor)
How I got my hot little hands on it: Received a free ARC to review

The second novel in an astonishingly imaginative fantasy trilogy that began with the critically acclaimed Advent

If there’s one thing Gavin Stokes knows, it’s that something unimaginably dangerous has returned to the world. A mad dog runs amok, a mermaid floats in the bay, and a wild beast stalks the countryside. He and others make the same strange claim: magic has returned. All signs point to it.

Now, Gavin’s aunt has disappeared. A young girl who’s been accused of murder vanishes from a locked cell. She is at large somewhere in a vast wilderness. Meanwhile, a desolate child leaves the home that has kept her safe all her life and strikes out into the unknown. And a mother, half mad with grief for her lost son, sets off to find him.

There is a place where all their journeys meet. But someone is watching the roads . . .

My Review

The second book in the Advent Trilogy, Anarchy tells the tales of three very different women whose lives intersect in a world where the veil between the possible and the impossible has been torn asunder.

Anarchy is a beautifully written fantasy book with an ethereal, literary quality to it. The descriptions create haunting and detailed imagery and the characters are deep and well-rounded. Foreshadowing is used well, keeping the reader on edge and instilling an awful sense of foreboding.

The plot is slow going and the thing I found to be the most off-putting was plodding along in one of the slowly building stories, finally getting to an attention grabbing spot, and then veering away from that story and going into one of the other two.  This got very frustrating. It’s interesting to note, however, that my journey reading this book cleverly mirrored those of the protagonists: slowly moving toward a destination, thinking I’m getting somewhere only to experience a setback and finding myself at almost square one again, and finally finally getting near where I want to be, only to be dismayed at the reality of it when I get there.

I learned the hard way that this is not really a standalone story. I jumped into this book blind, having not read the first in the trilogy, and I never quite found my footing. Nonetheless, the book was intriguing and I find myself wanting to read the one that comes before it to see if my understanding of the events laid out becomes any clearer.

I would recommend this book to fantasy lovers who like their reads to have a more literary flair and a dash or two of surrealism, but highly suggest reading Advent first – as I should have done.

Reading Coffee Roasters Sea Salt Caramel Mocha Coffee. I chose this coffee for a few reasons. The first being that it’s made of three distinct flavors, woven together to make one great-tasting coffee, much like Anarchy takes the stories of three different women and weaves them together to make one fantastic tale. The second is that water plays a big role in this book (in rain, snow, rivers, and the sea), so a tiny bite of sea salt seems appropriate. The last reason is sweetness. This story is very emotional, so I think everyone who reads it could use a little extra sweetness in their day.