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The Crack at the Heart of Everything - Fiona Fenn (novel)

(I got this ebook as a free ARC; it releases on November 12th 2024.)

This one will be as spoiler free as I can manage because this book was amazing and I don’t want to, well, spoil it.

(I treaded some of the same ground in a slightly more *gestures* form in a review you can read on Storygraph or LibraryThing.)

This is a dark-tinged fantasy, with an edge of (minor spoiler) post-apocalypse, with a queer romance which takes up space beautifully alongside a dramatic plot, and a very close focus - the entire book very much focuses on Orpheus, not because he’s a hero or a major player or a key figure (though he is) but because he’s him and we’re seeing the world through his eyes.

Y’all. Y’all, I don’t think I have read a better book handling trauma? Like. A lot of kinds of trauma, especially floating into the main line with other characters, but especially that dealing with deep childhood scars, also toxic friendships.

The story hurts, in many places, like weight on an old injury - something healed over but never forgotten. But also learning to take that ache and let it go.

(But it isn’t all that hard, achy examination - there’s lighthearted moments, laughter, teasing and breathless steps towards friendship, or romance, and the confusion they bring. There’s softer sorrows and wrenching grief, there’s, always, hope and moving forwards because what else are you going to do? What can you?)

It shows us a lot of hope even in dark, terrifying, seemingly-doomed spaces, and y’all that is so my jam.

Oh, and those other characters? Pretty much all the side characters felt like the main character of another story, who just happened to be intersecting Orpheus’ here. That is such a challenge to pull off, and it was great! (I’d really like to see Red’s background - and her friendship with Fenrir, and how it grew and their adventures together - and her future.)

So was the worldbuilding, which the author gave as the pieces showed on-page, giving us more that built on what we knew as more things happened and Orpheus learned more - as well as showing us things he already knows as they became relevant - allowing the reader to slowly weave together more of the history as well as the present of the world. It never felt out of place with amounts of detail or reveal or confusingly lacking.

The magic and the technology hit a nice balance of ‘yes that’s how that works, I see’ without tipping into ‘okay we did not need a treatise on it, I’ve lost what was going on before’. Orpheus’ Netherflame is fascinating, a little terrifying (even aside from the Hellbeasts!), and a very naturally-handled part of him in his actions, reactions, and senses.

We begin after a number of Major Happenings have, ah, happened, and past, because we aren’t following the drama of the world - we’re following when Orpheus’ world takes a sudden turn.

Orpheus who has in some ways been through a hell of a lot (no pun intended >.>) and in some ways has been very sheltered . . . and is now kicked away from that ‘shelter’ (for good or ill) and facing a lot more hell, and- Also a sunshiney tagalong of a hero trying to look after him, probably just to taunt him and kick him while he’s down, he’s sure, obnoxious handsome-

(Yes, it’s a grumpy x sunshine romance. Yes, Orpheus has no idea how feelings work.)

Orpheus’ view of the world gets a lot broader, very fast, and it hurts - it hurts him, shock and guilt and responsibility, and it hurts us, because there’s some very grim shit out there. (But it never feels grimdark or cruel for the sake of it, or ‘gritty’; there’s a lot of hope, and welcome from character who have their own struggles and triumphs going on, widening Orpheus’ experiences and his feelings.)

We begin very closely with Orpheus’ personal disaster, and as his understanding grows, it widens to the disaster facing the entire world - both that which has already happened, and the ways in which it could get so much worse - while keeping close in on Orpheus himself.

Every few chapters there’s one that’s an interlude to Orpheus’ past, (in chronological order) mainly his childhood with (now-Empress) Lore . . . and places where the reader can see the source of wounds Orpheus carries now, and even some he hasn’t . . . quite realised himself, yet, in the now.

There’s some twists and surprises, some of which are neatly foreshadowed and some of which really did take me by surprise - and those always came with an oh, ohhhh that fits realisation of settling into place when they did. Not once did something feel like an addition for shock value or similar.

Orpheus has to face a lot of rough realisations and decisions, and he struggles with them! He isn’t a hero, never thought of himself as such; but even when he struggles, even when he’s not sure what he’ll do, the reader can see the path he’ll choose and it hurts how hard he’s trying and what it costs him.

Fenrir, our sunshine, carries his own share of trauma (I think everyone does here, even our biggest villain; which is shown, as is how it led to said villainy . . . but not as an excuse or softening of the atrocities caused), but is that hero Orpheus knew he’d never be and maybe resents a little. There’s a hell of a lot more to him, we find along with Orpheus, and . . . more yet that there isn’t time or space or perspective for (locked in Orpheus’, of course) in the novel.

The romance builds slowly due largely to Orpheus having no idea how feelings work, his own or anyone else’s, really, and some very understandable hitches between that and the major dramatic plot elements. (My few agh points, shall we say, were very much people are agh, and didn’t stretch on too long.)

Also, the title? Super well chosen, weaves very well into the happenings, more and more so as we learn more.

I will not spoil it, but I was on the verge of tears for almost the last quarter of the book, anticipating the climax along with Orpheus, and the author surprised me pleasantly! (I did cry once during the book; it was not at the end, and it was a very well done moment of grief and loss as much as it hurt, and Orpheus’ raging reaction to it was . . . cathartic and painful and soothing at once.) I was surprised at how the main villain was handled, but it was not a disappointment (and at least/especially for Orpheus, may have been the best way it could have gone).

While the book stands alone well, it does say it’s book one of a series; I’m quite curious to see how Fiona Fenn continues to explore the world, and, hopefully, at least some of the characters I got so attached to or fascinated by here.

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