Two book series that I absolutely love for their detailed genre-mashup world-building and strong character development came to an end in 2019. The first was E.Catherine Tobler’s 6-book Folley & Mallory series, which I discussed in last week’s Series Saturday post. The other is Jordan L. Hawk’s 11-book Whyborne & Griffin series.
The Whyborne & Griffin series mashes up Lovecraftian Mythos with urban fantasy and three different romance sub-genres: historical, paranormal, and m/m. The setting is late 1800s New England (the town of Widdershins, north of Boston); the title characters are a socially-awkward museum professor (Percival Endicott Whyborne, late of Miskatonic University) and a retired Pinkerton Detective who has moved to town to work as a private investigator (Griffin Flaherty, late of Chicago and before that the rural Midwest). Opposites immediately attract but their meet-cute is complicated in the first book, Widdershins, by murder, theft, and supernatural shenanigans that involve not only both men’s personal histories but the history of the town of Widdershins itself.
Whyborne and Griffin are endearing first-person narrators throughout the run of the series. It’s fun, if sometimes frustrating, to witness relationship, and other, misunderstandings from both characters’ POV. (This is something Hawk excels at and employs to good use in his Spirits and Hexworld series as well.) The reader often has a clearer idea of what’s really going on than either of the characters do, which I actually enjoy provided the characters eventually come to the same realizations the reader has. And they usually do, although often it’s slightly too late in terms of the dangers being faced. (I should note: I don’t always expect the story to go where I think it should go; that’s different from the characters realizing things the other characters and reader have already been made aware of. Hawk often surprises me with plot twists I didn’t see coming but which make perfect sense in retrospect.) Their relationship grows and deepens across the eleven books and several adjacent short stories and novellas in the series.
They also have a wonderful primary supporting cast that grows as the series progresses. From the very beginning, Whyborne’s Egyptologist coworker Doctor Christine Putnam is involved in the action. Strong-willed, fighting the attitudes towards professional women endemic to the time-period, Christine is as compelling a character as the leads and gets her own character arc that also eventually includes romance with an adventurer named Iskander. Whyborne’s family is often front-and-center in the action, and often at odds with our heroes (particularly his father Niles and older brother Stanhope). Griffin’s estranged adoptive and birth families come into the action eventually, as do Whyborne’s distant relatives on his mother’s side of the family tree. There’s also a fun set of tertiary characters who add color and a sense of life in Widdershins: Whyborne and Christine’s fellow staff at the Ladysmith Museum, the local undertaker and police force, and the Librarians at the Museum, who have a distinct devotion not only to the city of Widdershins but to Whyborne.
Hawk is faithful to the Mythos genre in general, capturing the tone of Lovecraft/Derleth/et al without being slavish to those authors’ penchant for florid descriptiveness. And as befits a series such as this, the Mythos elements are not only prevalent, they build on each other and become more important as the series approaches its apocalypse-level finale. Hawk also adds to the Mythos, spinning some new creatures and twists on old favorites into the mix to keep things fresh. (The author has also posted a list on his Patreon of the Lovecraft stories that influenced/inspired the various books in this series.)
Likewise, Hawk is faithful to the primary tenet of the urban fantasy genre: Widdershins itself is as much of a character as Whyborne and Griffin and their supporting cast. From the very start of the first book, the city’s layout and history are important to the storyline as opposed to being just the place events occur. But the series avoids the inherent claustrophobia of the setting by occasionally veering outside the city. Trips to the mining town of Threshold in Appalachia, Alaska, Egypt, a rural Kansas farming town called Fallow, and coastal England build on the core mythology and present new and growing challenges for the characters that eventually follow them back home to Widdershins. Each of the remote locations is as well-developed as Widdershins.
I feel like I should also mention that most of the books and stories in the series have one or more explicit sex scenes. Readers who don’t like erotica may be caught surprised when they encounter such scenes. I also feel like I should mention that they are very easily skipped over if one doesn’t enjoy reading such material; in fact, as the series progressed I found myself only skimming the sex scenes. They do include little bits of character development (for instance, Whyborne becoming a little less “vanilla” as his confidence in their relationship grows) but nothing that can’t be gleaned from the rest of the scenes in the book.
The Whyborne and Griffin series includes:
· Widdershins
· “Eidolon” (short story)
· Threshold
· Stormhaven
· “Carousel” (short story)
· “Remnant” (short story crossover with KJ Charles’ Simon Feximal series)
· Necropolis
· Bloodline
· Hoarfrost
· Maelstrom
· Fallow
· Undertow (novella)
· Draakenwood
· Balefire
· Deosil
(The link leads to the author’s website, which includes purchase options.)
Although the Whyborne & Griffin series has concluded, Hawk has announced a spin-off series centering on the Widdershins Librarians. I’m excited to see other aspects of the town and its history being explored.
