The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin

I loved Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels. I merely enjoyed the sequel, The Midnight Mayor. This is not an uncommon experience to have with a sequel. I think part of the problem comes from the amount of time devoted to the first novel, when the writer had years to re-imagine, revise, reread and rethink; time to burnish that pivotal paragraph or really dig deep to capture that motivation, contrasted with the length of time allowed with Book Two of a multi-book contract. The Midnight Mayor seems to suffer from a lack of the deep and loving detail the reader saw in A Madness of Angels… There are also moments of pure delight and magical wonder, just like in the first book… Of course, with a book named The Midnight Mayor, one has to expect politics, but the series would benefit from fewer political manipulations and more of the sheer exuberance of Griffin’s magical city. Overall I enjoyed the book, and I will continue to read the series, but my passionate honeymoon with Matthew Swift is over. Read the rest.