Gather the Fortunes
Caught in the schemes of a bunch of feuding Trickster gods, Renaissance Raines wound up dead, then resurrected, and then abandoned, stuck in the shadows between the world of the living and the Underworld. In the five years since, Renai has found her place among the psychopomps—the guides who lead the souls of the recently departed through the Seven Gates of the Underworld—and done her best to avoid the notice of gods and mortals alike. When a young boy named Ramses St. Cyr manages to escape the moment of his foretold death, though, she finds herself once again at the center of a deity-thick plot unfolding in the streets of New Orleans. Because someone helped Ramses slip free of his destined end. And someone is willing to risk the delicate balance of life and death to steal a little slice of power for themselves. Whether it’s one of the storm gods that’s descended on the city, or the death god who’s locked the Gates of the Underworld, or the manipulative sorcerer who also cheated Death, someone knows what happened to Ramses. When she finds that scheming someone, there’s going to be all kinds of hell to pay, because there are scarier things than death in the Crescent City. And Renaissance Raines is one of them.
Praise
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 Review
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.
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.
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.
What a joy it is to return to Bryan Camp’s weird, dark, vivid, gorgeous magical New Orleans. Highly recommended!
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.
Bryan Camp’s magical New Orleans gets deeper and richer in Gather the Fortunes, as he tackles issues of destruction, injustice, and life and death themselves. Some authors are content to repeat themselves with a few added bells and whistles; Camp forges ahead, breaking new ground for his series. I can’t wait to see what part of the Crescent City he explores next.
—--Marie Brennan, Hugo Award-nominated author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent series
