The Grief of Stones, Katherine Addison

Received to review via Netgalley

As ever, this book continues the trend: Thara Celehar needs a hug, but he won’t let anyone give him one.

That’s a pretty succinct summary of this book, but it’s a bit unfairly reductive, so let’s see what else I can say without spoilering… This obviously continues in the vein of the previous book about Celehar, and it widens the scope again to show us more of this world. Photography, for example, does exist, and is considered automatically rather risqué. Celehar ventures into that world with very little judgement and does what he does best and listens. Not just to the dead, but to what people are willing to tell him, and to the scraps of information that let him eventually put things together: not just who killed who, but also where the scone recipe might be, and the burial customs of particular traditions, and who you need to ask about any given problem.

Slowly, he pieces his way through multiple mysteries, which of course begin to intersect. He’s helped in this by a new apprentice, a woman who began to hear the voices of the dead as an adult and has no training in how to be a prelate, and by the friends he made in previous books.

There is some progress, I think, toward Celehar forgiving himself and allowing light into his life again… but it’s a slow, slow burn. I really want to see that come to fruition — and I really need to know what happens to Celehar next given the results of his work in this book.

Rating: 4/5