What a beautiful prequel! After getting to know Viv in L&L, getting to know her younger, more impatient self was so sweet, it even gave me a weird kind of nostalgia. Learning the history of meeting Gallina and Blackblood was a great treat as well for the fans (me!) of the first book. The setting being moved into a cozy and sleepy seaside town was a wonderful experience, imagining the salty breeze, sand dunes and seaviews was a fresh release from the warm and bustling Thune. The bookshop with its many wonderful  books working as a mirror to Viv’s mind was fun and exciting, as well as the characters we got to know and their lives we got to glimpse into. There is one exception though, and that is Maylee; I don’t know if it’s because this is young Viv’s first awkward attempt at dating or what, but the romance lacked any sort of fizzle, and seemed more like an extended crush with long meaningless walks. That, and few other parts of the plot made the story and pacing a bit jagged at times; I could see Baldree stitched this story together from many ”organs” of different ideas as he put it. For me, it still made a beautiful Frankenstein’s monster and I’m excited to read more about Viv’s excitingly cozy life <3