Publishers Weekly
★ 03/18/2019
The savory second book in Camp’s Crescent City series (following The City of Lost Fortunes) is that rare, welcome sequel that can be enjoyed just as easily as a standalone story. Renaissance “Renai” Raines has guided souls to the Underworld for the five years since her death and resurrection. When mysterious teenager Ramses St. Cyr escapes from destiny—and from Renai—she’s thrown into a tangled world of New Orleans gods, magic, and dangerous deals. Renai’s second outing is as raucous as her first, and the magic is just as double-edged and slippery. Camp crafts a journey through New Orleans’s spirit underworld that’s whimsical as well as grim and sometimes horrific. Renai is a real standout of a heroine, a powerful African-American woman cutting through bad or desperate situations in living and dead realms of increasing chaos, armed with snark, courage, and a storm of magic drawn from deep within her. This will be a feast for all lovers of urban and dark fantasy. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Company. (May)
From the Publisher
A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week, May 20 "Honestly, I wasn’t sure how author Bryan Camp was going to follow The City of Lost Fortunes – it was one of my favorite books of 2018. But I am glad to report that he manages quite well, thank you very much... Under his care, the swirling milieu of the Crescent City’s colors and cultures – both sacred and profane – come to shambling and glorious life...a masterful work by a brilliant new author. As long as the quality of the writing stays this good, I hope there are many more Crescent City novels to come."—Litstack "Camp’s prose is suspenseful and rich with feeling, highlighting an incredible heroine. VERDICT: Full of magic and numerous mythologies but still tied to the lush New Orleans setting, this Crescent City is one readers will not want to leave."—Library Journal, STARRED "Savory...Renai’s second outing is as raucous as her first, and the magic is just as double-edged and slippery... Renai is a real standout of a heroine, a powerful African-American woman cutting through bad or desperate situations in living and dead realms of increasing chaos, armed with snark, courage, and a storm of magic drawn from deep within her. This will be a feast for all lovers of urban and dark fantasy."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED "The second Crescent City book (after The City of Lost Fortunes, 2018) once again displays Camp's ability to weave different mythological beliefs in fascinating ways. Readers will relate to Renai as she learns her most trusted guides are unreliable in this fast-paced urban fantasy."—Booklist, STARRED "In this second installment of his Crescent City urban fantasy series, Camp raises the stakes and broadens the scope of his alternate world...the richness and inventiveness of Camp's vision and the vivacity, warmth, and compassion of his leading woman keep you alert to whatever's happening next. As with the real New Orleans, once you leave this creepier but just as colorful variant, you'll be eager to go back."—Kirkus Reviews "What a joy it is to return to Bryan Camp's weird, dark, vivid, gorgeous magical New Orleans. Highly recommended!" —Sam J. Miller, award-winning author of Blackfish City “The magic and mythological heft of Bryan Camp’s debut doesn’t lose any momentum in Gather the Fortunes. He captures the essence and resilience of a still healing New Orleans by digging into the parts of a city too often ignored by the well-to-do and powerful. If The City of Lost Fortunes was a love letter to New Orleans then its next installment is an Earl King blue’s song.”—Brent Lambert, editor at FIYAH Magazine
Kirkus Reviews
2019-02-28
A brainy, awesomely resourceful heroine makes her way through a supernatural doppelgänger of New Orleans to track down a missing soul and, in the process, save both her world and ours from unimaginable catastrophe.
Readers of Camp's debut, The City of Lost Fortunes (2018), may remember a captivating, tough-talking young woman named Renaissance "Renai" Raines, who died in 2011 and reawakened a few weeks later in a "new reality…where myths walked the streets of New Orleans and magic was possible." Renai's role in this fascinating if macabre realm is as a "psychopomp," whose task, roughly speaking, is to break apart the mortal coils of the dead and lead what remains of their souls into the Underworld. With guidance from a talking raven named Salvatore, Renai's been gradually shaking away her awkwardness with this uneasy calling; that is, until one soul destined for passage belonging to an adolescent boy named Ramses St. Cyr vanishes from the site of a drive-by shooting along with the rest of what should have been his dead body. And so with Sal and another talking bird named Cordelia by her side (or, more precisely, on her shoulders), Renai mounts her ghost motorcycle to probe the corners of her shadow universe to find Ramses. Along the way she interrogates shape-shifters, tricksters, and a wily sorcerer named Jack Elderflower, who has somehow managed to cheat death without having a soul. The more she finds out, the more questions she has; most of them having to do with whatever consequences could ensue for both the living and the dead if Ramses continues to avoid his ultimate fate. In this second installment of his Crescent City urban fantasy series, Camp raises the stakes and broadens the scope of his alternate world; at times his impulse to further explain the nuances of this world make his new book a bit slower going than its predecessor. But the richness and inventiveness of Camp's vision and the vivacity, warmth, and compassion of his leading woman keep you alert to whatever's happening next.
As with the real New Orleans, once you leave this creepier but just as colorful variant, you'll be eager to go back.