TITLE: Seasonal Fears (Alchemical Journeys Book 2)
AUTHOR: Seanan McGuire
475 pages, TorDotCom Publishing, ISBN 9781250768261 (hardcover, also available in e-book and audio)
DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): The king of winter and the queen of summer are dead. The fight for their crowns begins!
Melanie has a destiny, though it isn’t the one everyone assumes it to be. She’s delicate; she’s fragile; she’s dying. Now, truly, is the winter of her soul.
Harry doesn’t want to believe in destiny, because that means accepting the loss of the one person who gives his life meaning, who brings summer to his world.
So, when a new road is laid out in front of them—a road that will lead through untold dangers toward a possible lifetime together—walking down it seems to be the only option.
But others are following behind, with violence in their hearts.
It looks like Destiny has a plan for them, after all….
"One must maintain a little bit of summer even in the middle of winter." —Thoreau
MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
MY THOUGHTS: Seasonal Fears, the second book in Seanan McGuire’s “Alchemical Journeys” series, is in many respects a classic genre road-trip novel: the lives of the main characters are upended, everything they thought they knew about their world thrown into confusion, because of a supernatural event, after which they must make their way across the country, pursued by evil/adversarial forces, to solve the mystery/finish the quest/find their destiny. Along the way, the characters face their own insecurities and their perceptions of themselves and their friends are challenged (and confirmed or altered).
I had no problem ‘feeling’ the stakes of the journey (even though I was quite sure I knew what the outcome of the journey would be), because of how well McGuire establishes Melanie and Harry from the very first time we meet them, which is several years before the main action of the book. Fans of McGuire’s Wayward Children and Up-and-Under series know how well she writes pre-teens and teens, and that skill is on full display here both when we meet the characters briefly at age six or seven (first or second grade) and when we meet them again as seniors in high school. I instantly believed Harry and Mel’s feelings for each other and the way each navigates the world based on their family life (Mel with a single father and deceased mother and twin sister; Harry with a loving set of parents who also happen to be very rich). Their relationship is not possessive in either direction but is equal in all ways: Harry’s concern for Mel’s physical health is matched by Mel’s concern for what Harry will do after she dies. Each is the other’s anchor. This is even more true once the events of the novel, the road trip to the Labyrinth where the new King(s) or Queen(s) of Summer and Winter will be crowned, commence. Without the emotional anchors of Harry and Mel, Seasonal Fears might have been just another fantasy/horror road trip novel. And I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that several times in the novel, I teared up at how much Mel and Harry love each other, and the lengths they’re willing to go through to protect each other even before things get weird.
The book is also populated with a number of interesting supporting characters and antagonists who complicate things along the way. As mentioned, I was never really in doubt as to the outcome, but several times along the way, I found myself thinking “Okay, this is Seanan, we’re pretty much guaranteed a happy ending, but I can’t wait to see how Harry and Mel survive encountering [XXX].” (I don’t believe in spoiling major plot points, so I’m not going to even name the characters I’m thinking of here.) And because this is Seanan, the antagonists in question do have personality and agency and a deep belief that they deserve what they want – they are far from the one-dimensional roadblocks one often finds in fantasy/horror road-trip novels.
Then there’s the alchemical underpinnings/world-building, which is deep and wonderful and thought-provoking and provides an interesting spin on the traditional “human avatars of natural forces” concept. It is clear that McGuire has put a great deal of thought into how all this works, and she makes every effort to explain it clearly multiple times in the book. Like Harry, I initially struggled a bit with wrapping my brain around the concepts – but also like Harry, I eventually “got it.” Supporting characters Jack and Jenny serve as the author’s mouthpieces when the alchemical stuff needs explaining to Harry and Mel and to the reader.
Seasonal Fears is set it the same world as McGuire’s previous novel Middlegame, which also featured heavy alchemical underpinnings. While this book takes place after the events of Middlegame, it is not a direct sequel. Seasonal Fears builds on Middlegame thematically, for sure, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that characters from Middlegame do show up in Seasonal Fears – but their roles are purely supporting and their time “on stage” is relatively brief. Still, it was good to see them.
I am highly confident Seasonal Fears will appeal not just to Seanan McGuire fans, but to fans of fantasy/horror road-trip stories and fans of books about alchemy operating in the fringes/underneath the natural world. And I very much hope it sells well enough that book three in the series gets greenlit sooner rather than later. McGuire, of course, already knows where she wants the story to go, and I can’t wait to go there with her.
I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Seasonal Fears published on May 3, 2022, so I’m only a day late!