Review by Eliza
This review first appeared at Leviathan Libraries.
Ropa Moyo is back, and finally has a chance to put her ghostalking days behind her with a steady job. Ropa soon finds herself up against an adversary who opposes her new position, and must start out as an unpaid intern, forcing her to take side jobs to pay the bills. As she investigates a student’s mysterious illness and an alleged heir’s claim to a stolen fortune, her investigations collide, with deadly consequences.
Title: Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments | Series: Edinburgh Nights | Publisher: Tor Books | Pub Date: 2022-04-05 | Pages: 368 | ISBN13/ASIN: 978-1250767790 | Genre: Paranormal Fantasy | Language: English | Source: NetGalley | Starred Review
Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments Review
I enjoyed T. L Huchu’s The Library of the Dead, so I was interested in seeing where Huchu took cheeky protagonist Ropa Moyo in book two. Ropa isn’t even 16 years old, but her parents have passed away, leaving her responsible for caring for her aging grandmother and her younger sister. A gifted student, Ropa’s dropped out of school to focus on earning enough to keep food on the table.
Things are looking up for Ropa in Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments. She’s supposed to start a paid apprenticeship, but an adversary forces her into an unpaid internship instead. Ropa starts taking side gigs to pay the bills, and they soon become enmeshed with her internship. Students are left comatose, unresponsive, and they’ll die if Ropa doesn’t find the source of their ailments. It’s soon apparent there’s dark magic at work, putting Ropa’s life and the lives of her friends in jeopardy as they search for the truth. The main point of mentioning some of the plotlines is to highlight the fact that there’s a lot going on, which serves to keep you engaged and on your toes as the story develops.
The premise for this book is solid, and one of the perks of a sequel is that a lot of worldbuilding was established in book 1. While readers are still learning about the magic system, because Ropa’s learning herself, it doesn’t slow the action at all. Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments moves at a brisk pace, with plenty of developments that leave you guessing until the end.
It was fun getting back into Ropa’s world and reconnecting with her friends. At the same time, Huchu pushes Ropa in new ways, and she faces personal and professional challenges that lead to significant changes. It felt fresh and engaging and, although Huchu wraps up the core plots in this book, it feels there are some dangling threads that can be explored in future installments. I truly hope Ropa’s back for more because she’s one of the most interesting protagonists in recent years, and Huchu’s got a knack for developing complex plots that lead to surprising, yet satisfying, resolutions.
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