To get it out of the way the copy I had was a little oddly formatted. I only bring it up to say once I stepped into the book I couldn't have cared less about that fact because this story was so compelling. I loved the settings, how backstory was layered in and how each central character had enough development to make them feel solid and real. The idea of experimentation occuring at this scale is a spooky thought but it is also an extremely interesting one. I think this book brings forth compelling questions and gives the reader enough room to step back and consider. Do the ends justify the means? Does knowledge that will push forward medical science and ultimately save many people mean that any way that information can be gathered is morally correct? I highly recommend this book and greatly enjoyed reading it.

There is nothing one Earth more appalling to me than the attitude "My ignorance is better than your education, training, and expertise." It's not just wrong-headed. It is dangerous. It leads to very, very deleterious results for the people who have no say in...often no awareness of...the risks they are being subjected to by the wilfully ignorant. The Yucca Flats, Nevada, nuclear-bomb testing disaster that People magazine broke the story of in 1980...the 1956 filming of The Conqueror ring any bells, fellow oldsters?...wasn't the only such official-denial event in the world. In the USSR, there was the Ozyorsk disaster, outed to the world in the New Scientist magazine in 1976 by a brave scientist called Medvedev. (I have to say that Siberia has a very unlucky past. This disaster occurred in 1957; the Tunguska event in 1908 was a holocaust; and sixty miles away from Ozyorsk is Chelyabinsk, of 2013 meteorite explosion fame!)

The story of the many "closed cities" in the USSR, and in today's Russia, is similarly grim, similarly marked by denial and obfuscation and outright lying. The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was going to be treated that way, only it was far too big to tamp down and deny. So, Author Pulley has me by the nose-hairs again. Again! I am putty in this wicked writer's hands. She tells stories that make my ears perk up, the hair on the back of my neck do its wolfman imitation, and my breathing to become labored in eagerness.

Valery K. the nuclear scientist, exiled to a colder and less hospitable part of Siberia than City 40/Ozyorsk is in, is suddenly ripped from his wretched routine without explanation or preparation. He's in the gulag...this is terrifying. But his worst fears...interrogation? execution?...aren't realized. He's sent to this comparative demi-Paradise of a place to study field mice. To assess them for effects of radiation exposure.

So, all is explained. He's a criminal, but also a thorough scientist trained in matters nuclear. Trained, talented, expendable.

What follows is a litany of nuclear-waste exposure nightmares. The effects on people, on the environment, are grisly. In the one plot strand I am absolutely sure is fiction (it says here) the authorities conduct radiation-exposure experiments on the people of City 40. The other plot strands, the environmental disaster, the carelessness and mismanagement that led to and characterized the ongoing handling of the disaster, are real. (Follow the links!) And gosh golly gee, wowee zowie, those sorts of things don't *ever* happen now. Especially the official lying and misleading! That could never happen in any authoritarian state in the twenty-first century, we have satellites and technology to sniff out problems, and scientists who would *never* lie to us here in the West.

So, the timing of the title's publication is now explained.

As one expects from Author Pulley, there are two men falling in love with each other amid the chaos and carnage that they are powerless to stop. Also as one would expect, there are events that occur that cause them trouble personally and interpersonally. I've said it before, the curse of adulthood is one never, ever has an unmixed emotion. Valery tries, in his what-got-him-gulaged way, to force officialdom to face up to the scale of the disaster. He wants to help people, to save them. Shenkov, his belovèd, is a married father, is in the game because it's the way to get ahead. And stay out of the gulag. The story, in other words, of generations of gay and bisexual men. Hide! They won't kill you if they don't have to notice your deviance.

But like calls to like. Valery knows that Shenkov loves him; he knows he loves Shenkov; things won't go well for City 40, but can things go well for them as men, as people, as...a couple? Fortune, as always, favors the brave. There must always be blood sacrificed before one gets one's rewards.

Morally grey characters, men past pretty on life's curve, the necessity of moving the world's blockages to make room for your authentic life: boxes all checked. The life you want, well...what do you know about how much it will cost, about what it will extract from you. You'll find out, if you're lucky. Or maybe unlucky. Most likely both. Consider, after reading the book, the title and its layers of meaning.

The right kind of read for me, right now, and it went down like the oldest, smoothest, most deceptively sweet tequila there is.

As editor, I requested this as background reading for a review we ran on BookBrowse -- so as to be able to comment on the review during the editing process and share personal views on it in newsletters etc. See link below to full review.

A physicist sent to a gulag, Valery keeps his head down and tries to not to think about anything in order to survive. When he is suddenly transferred to a secret installation, he does his best not to ask too many questions, but as the radiation levels become impossible to ignore and the number of people at risk increases, Valery struggles with his conscience. A good, thoughtful read, with the caveat that the most horrific elements of the story are real, historical fact, and the hope is fictional. Those hoping for an active hero or a moment of catharsis will be disappointed, but the story holds attention and is worth your time.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc I received in exchange for my honest review.

This book is about a Russian scientist named Valery in a gulag who is transferred to City 40, a top secret hidden city that is a nuclear plant. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants it was also the site of a huge nuclear explosion. The Half Life of Valery K is about how Valery got sent to the gulag and what happens to him in there and in City 40.

I did not love this book but didn’t hate it. There is sooo much science in it at times I felt like I was reading a radiation textbook. It also seems really long. As an American my opinion about Russia has been skewed of course in a negative way and while this book is at least partially fiction it does nothing but reinforce my opinion, I liked Valery but did not love him as a character. The only character I loved was Albert and at the end of the book I was so upset and wondering what happened to him.

This is my first Natasha Pulley book. While I didn’t love it I will give her another chance.

I think if you love Russian history and culture, about the horrors of Communism or have an interest in learning about radiation and what it does to the human body then this is the book for you.

This just didn’t land for me. I read the Kingdoms and thought it was just OK. I wasn’t dissuaded. I am not going to judge a write by one book. Like her other work, the ideas are strong, but they don’t land. I also feel that Ms. Pulley uses some exploitative situations for “shock” value and I don’t like that. I see lots of people love it. Just not for me.

Another wonderful book that I would've missed out on if it hadn't been given to me. Natasha Pulley has a magical writing ability that pulls you in to stories that are woven around shocking factual history. She takes some creative license in this case because not all facts are known, in addition to the fictional lives of the characters that feel very real. I loved Valery and Shenkov, but I didn't love all of them. They each had bad sides counter to their soft sides. Valery was a scientist that's moved from the gulag to city 40 to work again studying radiation on the environment, while he discovers the truth of city 40 and tries to help people, he still has his cold scientific mind that can be chilling. Shenkov seems very soft-hearted for KGB, but he performs his job of killing whomever is deemed a risk to city 40. I felt I was hanging out with real Russians while reading this book, for the way she conveyed the characters (at least my perception of them.) Natasha will be followed by me, so I never miss a new book of hers.

Thank you to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

Natasha Pulley is a superb historical fiction author. Normally her books put a bit of a fantasical spin on history, but the most fantastical thing about The Half Life of Valery K is that in this one that's not the case—the events of this book, while told through fictional characters, are firmly based in real historical events in an area of Russia that was purposefully irradiated by the USSR. I figured it was all fictional until halfway through the book when I googled something, went on a Wikipedia spiral and had my mind blown. I read this one just as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, and did some really questionable stuff at Chernobyl, so it was a little too close to home! All notes on human nature and history and the horrifically cyclical nature of both aside, The Half Life of Valery K also features Pulley's keen eye for engrossing characters and beautiful relationships.

I didn't love The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, but I loved this. It's a beautifully written historical fiction novel set in the 1960s and loosely based on a real city in the Soviet Union. Valery K is a Russian scientist, a radiobiologist, taken from a gulag to City 40 to study radiation effects. Per the afterward, the only element truly fictionalized are the human trials and the main characters. Perhaps my favorite character, though, is Valery's pet octopus. He provided some respite from the horrors and tension surrounding City 40.

The audiobook is also well-narrated and enjoyable, but since the novel does jump around in time, the sections I read in print were easier to follow.

Still thinking about this one weeks later. I think it’s a bit of a slow burn, but it absolutely sucks you in. Pulley’s illustration of everyday life in a place without freedom of speech and with the expectation of constant surveillance is thoughtful and certainly relevant today. The character-driven nature of the book allowed for the psychological impact of that environment to really be explored.

Life is bleak. Then you die. But somehow between the two, people manage to find life's beauty.

Valery K. is a Russian scientist, studying radiation and its effects on the living. In a life that sweeps him from the Berlin's Nazi era laboratories, to the Siberian gulag of the early 1960's, to a strange forest city whose citizens are experiencing unliveable amounts of radiation, Valery is always a scientist. And more important, Valery is human, always seeking and honoring human connection.

This should be a deeply depressing book, but Natasha Pulley's talent for finding the humor in tragedy (Albert the mail-order Octopus), kept me reading late into the night.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I came for the intense gay yearning and the scary Chernobyl-like historical fiction aspects and, just like I knew she would, Pulley pulls it all off masterfully. This is her most tense, least magical (like actual Fantasy) book yet and somehow she still managed to bring that soft deep emotion she always does that makes her books feel a little like a warm nap on a soft couch where you're still half-conscious.

Anyway.

I haven't read historical fiction in YEARS but N. Pulley shoved me back into it. I was so excited for this book and I feel like I truly learned along the way of this beautiful book.

The story was good, the prose was gorgeous, the characters are soft and vibrant.

The ending felt a little lacking but I think books are truly hard to end. That isn't to say all books have bad endings, but there's such a line in fiction between things ending happily or being too easy or too sad or too heartbreaking. I think Pulley tried but this one fell a little short of the story itself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC!

7.75 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2022/07/27/the-half-life-of-valery-k-by-natasha-pulley-review/

In Soviet Russia, the government monitored everything, but especially its own citizens. In 1937, Valery Kolkhanov was sent to Germany by the government to study biochemistry and radiology so that he could use what he learned for the benefit of his motherland. It was an educational and cultural experience that Valery never forgot, though it exposed him to more than he bargained for.

And then, in 1956, it got him arrested.

Jump forward to 1963, where we find Valery in a Siberian gulag, a Zek (a political prisoner) interred for that fateful time spent abroad. Time, if you remember, that the government sponsored. Serving his sixth year of a ten-year sentence, Valery’s priorities are food, warmth, avoiding frostbite, and keeping his head down—though he’s under no illusions regarding his future. He will die here; it’s just a matter of when.

Only the government still has use for him, it seems. Scooped up from Siberia, Valery is transported thousands of kilometers only to be dropped in another site, albeit a much different one. There are townsfolk and apartments, a lake and a reactor, scientists and guards. This, is Chelyabinsk 40.

Chelyabinsk 40, or simply City 40, is a radioecological research facility established to study the longterm effects of radiation on the environment, so that it might one day benefit humanity (i.e. the Soviet Union). Valery is but one of a growing population of scientists stationed at the Lighthouse, a scientific facility built to study the effects of the Event that occurred in the Techa River basin in 1957. An event that is never spoken of, but that left the lake and forest in a 40km radius heavily irradiated. But from what, no one is saying.

Even as Valery begins his research, he’s struck by so many more questions than solutions. In part due to the faulty data he’s been provided. Intentionally faulty, it seems. More than that, why is there so much radiation in the region? Or even, how?

Even more mysteries emerge the more he looks into it. Where is the radiation coming from, and why aren’t the citizens informed about it? Who are the mysterious people living in the forest, and why are they disappearing? What happened in 1957, and how does it relate to the present?

And if he’s to go fishing for answers to these questions Valery might not even live as long as he had had they just left him in Siberia.

—

<i>That peculiar thing was happening, the one that had happened in Leningrad when Valery was young; everyone knew one thing to be true, but everyone was obliged to keep insisting it wasn’t. Gosh, of course everyone who’s arrested is guilty. Of course Truth only prints the honest-to-god truth, it’s in the name.

Of course the radiation is fine.</i>

—

I’ll admit that I mostly just skimmed the prompt for this one before requesting it. An epic from the Cold War set in a mysterious town in the USSR. It got classed as science fiction and fantasy, so it was a shoe-in. Vibes of Wayward Pines and various Cold War spy thrillers. Therefore upon starting it I was curious about exactly how fast and loose it was going to play with history.

It turns out not very much.

Before reading this I was at least familiar with the Malak incident in Russia, which was at the time the worst nuclear disaster in history (it has since been moved to third—behind Chernobyl and Fukushima), despite the wider world not knowing much about it. Like, for example, what the hell happened, or how. Or why. But this book—despite being a work of fiction—fills in many of the blanks. Now, the story is still fantasy; Valery and Shenkov, Resovskaya, the octopus, pretty much the entire plot. But that doesn’t mean that a lot of what happened in it was real. The gulag may not have homed a chemist named Valery Kolkhanov, but it held thousands of political prisoners (and millions more), sent for the very real crimes of speaking English, have visited Europe, getting drunk and vocally disagreeing with the government, or getting outed by people they’d never met on charges that couldn’t possibly have been real. City 40 may not have been the scene of a thrilling plot like this, but it was the scene of a very real and very secretive nuclear incident, a radioecological research zone, and a real laboratory know as “the Lighthouse”. Sufficient that I was wondering how much would be real and how much would be fiction: the setting was entirely real; the history was entirely real; the plot was entirely plausible, but just as much fiction.

Pulley totally nailed the USSR vibe. Pretending everything’s fine even when everything points to the contrary. Paranoia is rampant. Everyone overanalyzing everything they say with the fear of being sent off to Siberia. Optimism also being a trip to Siberia rather than a bullet in the head. Women actually being contributing members of society, except where science is concerned. Communism and Russia seem to go hand in hand, except that the two together is almost completely nonsensical.

This was a slow build, one that took me longer than I’d’ve liked to get into. For the first third/half of it I had it pegged as a six star (out of 10) read. But as the mystery stretched, the story dug its hooks into me, and there was an octopus introduced—it gradually ranked higher and higher. So much so that I’d class this at about an 8—quite enjoyable and entertaining, but just ever so unfeasible.

This part, however, was easy for me to peg. For as much as I appreciated the romance, it was just hard to sell as anything more than a friendship. Yes, it was plausible, but not in a way that felt very real to me. Now, this might’ve been because I’d been immersed in the plot and the romance felt like a distraction from it, or it might have been that it felt like something inane—a budding friendship that just kept pushing the bounds of belief. Whatever the case, it was mostly this that I objected to. Sure, there were a few little things in the story as well—some of the language, the flashbacks—but the science seemed on point (I’m a physicist, not a chemist), and the story was wickedly entertaining, so who am I to argue?

<b>TL;DR</b>

A story set around the mysterious Malak incident in Russian USSR, the Half Life of Valery K takes place in a secret Soviet city where everyone is expendable and no one is safe. Radiation has crippled the countryside and permeated its citizens. And it’s up to the scientists of City 40 to stop it from happening again. An entertaining and immersive mystery once it gets going, the Half Life features strong characters and an interesting story, if a weak romance that only really takes over on its back half—like it was added as an afterthought to everything else. With vibes of Wayward Pines and every spy thriller set in the Cold War, this was definitely a book I’ve no trouble recommending, and an author I’d very much like to see more of!

(This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy provided by NetGalley.)

I haven’t read much Natasha Pulley before this, only the first half (so far) of The Kingdoms, but as far as I can tell, this book is pretty on-brand: quiet-feeling (despite literal explosions), character-focused, with a historical setting and a soft slow-burn romance between middle-aged men. I liked The Kingdoms a lot at first but felt the middle lagged, so I was worried this book would be similar, but this one is shorter and has a faster-paced plot, and I finished it quickly. I thought of this as sci-fi while reading it, but when I read the afterward, I found that it’s much more grounded in reality than I’d thought. It’s also startlingly funny, considering how grim the subject matter is.

Most of the reveals feel pretty obvious, though I think that may be on purpose, at least to some extent. There are definitely parts where the reader is clearly meant to figure things out before the protagonist does, because it’s heartbreaking to see the world through his eyes when you know he’s wrong, and because his mistaken assumptions convey useful character information to the reader. It does sometimes make the reveals feel anticlimactic, and it feels inconsistent with the characterization of Valery as a brilliant mind. If I, a random ordinary person with very little knowledge of Russian history, can tell what’s going on here, why can’t Valery? However, I think the real “point” of the book isn’t so much “what happened” as “what it felt like for this to happen,” and the book succeeds at that. You might be disappointed if you read this book hoping for a Dickensian plot or shocking twists, but not if you read it for the characters. Not that it isn't plotty - it is, but the characters are its real strength.

I loved Valery as a main character. Partly he's just one of those characters destined to be a fan favorite because so many terrible things have happened to him. Also, he has a pet octopus! He teaches his fellow gulag prisoners how to read! I read him as probably autistic or otherwise neurodivergent (he’s sometimes bewildered by other people’s interpretations of social interactions; he hates making eye contact; he describes himself as a “walking abacus”).

Another thing I love about this book is that it completely, viscerally gets loneliness, especially adult loneliness, loneliness at the age when most of your peers have partners/families. (Of course there are plenty of lonely people who have partners/families, and plenty of happy people without partners or children. I’m just saying this book gets a particular type of loneliness spot-on.)

Also, there's a lot for you here if you're reading the book from an abolitionist perspective. The main character spends time in the gulag, and the book explores the horror of treating people as disposable just because they're incarcerated.

One thing I found baffling is that, even though the author has publicly stated that she’s studied Russian, the book contains (what seem to me) hilariously nonsensical statements about Russian:

1. The main character, Valery Kolkhanov, who’s a native Russian speaker, notices that a German man pronounces his name as “Kolkhanoff.” This is due to a pronunciation rule called final obstruent devoicing, in which the V sound is pronounced as an F when it occurs at the end of a word. To English speakers, it’s a salient feature of German accents, because English doesn’t have this rule. But Russian (like German) does have this rule, which means that “Kolkhanoff” is exactly how you’re supposed to pronounce it. So rather than noticing that German speakers say it “Kolkhanoff,” a Russian speaker would more likely notice that English speakers don’t say it that way.

2. At one point Valery does a whole internal monologue about how weird it is to be called “Mr. Kolkhanov” instead of “Comrade Kolkhanov” because, he says, it’s weird to have your gender pointed out every time you’re addressed. However, Russian actually has more grammatical gender than English does. The name “Kolkhanov” is masculine (a woman with this name would be Kolkhanova). So “Comrade Kolkhanov,” to a Russian speaker, is just as gendered as “Mr. Kolkhanov” is. And the author clearly knows that Russian last names have different forms depending on the person’s gender, because the book has a couple where the husband is named Shenkov and the wife is Shenkova. So, I have no idea what the author was thinking with this monologue.

(Disclaimer: I have a linguistics degree but don’t speak Russian myself. If I’ve gotten anything wrong, I welcome corrections from Russian speakers.)

My main caveats (not necessarily bad things, but things to be aware of):
-If you read it for the plot: Several major plot points are easy to guess and somewhat anticlimactic.
-If you read it for the romance: It's a subplot with a very very slow burn. (Also, not sure how I feel about the love interest being a KGB officer.)
-If you have kids: You may have trouble enjoying the happy parts because the sad parts are so sad.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and definitely plan to try Natasha Pulley's other books.

Rep: POV character is a middle-aged cis white gay Russian man who's immunocompromised and probably neurodivergent. Love interest is a middle-aged cis Russian man of implied East Asian descent, who has relationships with men and women.

Content notes: POV character experiencing incarceration and living under a totalitarian government. Various violence carried out by the state, including police brutality and children being indefinitely separated from their parents. Social and medical infertility, including late-term miscarriage. Terminal cancer in children and adults. Medical experimentation on animals. Portrayal of eugenicist practices (not endorsed), including by Nazis. (view spoiler) A few instances of homophobia but not very much, especially considering it's set in the 1960s.

This is my first novel by Pulley, and I can see why people are such fans of her books. Her character work in Valery was charming, and I liked how she wrote the child characters. I did struggle a bit with how factual this book was as a background to an apparent romance (uncomfortable to have Mengele as a character even in passing).

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley
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1963 Siberia, Russia: Valery is a prisioner with a few years of his sentence left. On an ordinary morning he discovers he is being released to work on a radiation study in City 40. But he is finding that the information being given to everyone is wrong. And something is going very wrong in City 40.
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What I liked:
-I love when a book is set in a place or time that I know little about, and this story gave me both. I’ve read books from the cold war era before but set in the US so it was very interesting and sobering to read one set in Russia.
-The last quarter of the book really picked up the pace and I was anxious to know what would happen. It was a bit suspenseful for me!
-Valery’s character had such heart and was so concerned that people be treated with care and respect. I loved his character for that.
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What I didn’t like:
-The first half of the book was a little slow.
-I was a little sad about how things ended and gave a little side eye to Shenkov’s character. I can’t say more than that without spoilers though.
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3.5⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 A very interesting read, good main charcter, but a little slow and I wish I could enjoy the ending a bit more by just knowing one thing.

Valery Kolkhanov is plucked from an indeterminate sentence in a Soviet gulag and brought to a strange Russian town, Chelyabinsk-40. He is billeted with his fellow Soviet scientists who are all studying the long-term effects of exposure to nuclear radiation via their various specialties. Valery isn’t quite sure why he was chosen, even though he is an expert in biology and radiation.

Ostensibly, he is supposed to be tracking radiation effects on wildlife, using specific locations in a recovering forest. When his results are orders of magnitude higher than the official Soviet government ranges, he gets suspicious of their actual plans. He wavers between towing the party line and seeking to warn people about their probable exposure.

I quite enjoyed this book. I have only read one other book by Pulley and although it wasn’t the fast paced adventure that [book:The Kingdoms|54680112] did it was still a great story. A historical fiction set in Soviet Russia during the Cold War, scientists Valery Kolkhanov is released from a Siberian Gulag to work in a city to study radiation on the local plants and animals. Unlike his comrades, Valery is not content following orders from Moscow and discovers what the scientists are really doing there. There is a bit of a mystery and some science that’s isn’t too overboard to make yours glaze over. I usually forget to re-read a book’s blurb when it’s n my to read list and forgot this was a historical fiction so I was surprised when I got to then end and discovered this was based on a real Russian city and nuclear accident. Which is scary to think about what they were really doing back then and what the Soviets plan was.

4.5 stars

Some novels beg you to race through them — which can be good or bad; some novels ask that you slow down and stay awhile, and they'll tell you a story. The Half Life of Valery K is a slow-building, character-driven novel and is epic, both in its gained momentum by the end, its scope, and its weighty subject matter.

The Half Life of Valery K begins in a Soviet labor camp in Siberia in 1963 where Valery Kolkhanov suddenly and inexplicably finds himself released (not freed) into custody. As Valery is driven to an unknown destination, the scenery outside the vehicle displays various degrees of damage so severe that the trees appear to have rusted from within. As Valery arrives and settles in his new location, he struggles to temper his anxiety and incredible distrust — despite the fact that his old mentor is the one who has requested his release.

Before his time as a gulag prisoner, Valery had been a scientist working on the effects of various types of radiation. That knowledge is needed to continue along that line of study and research in this mysterious nowhere town. Now in a closed city, codenamed City 40, Valery is struggling with the balance of living behind the Iron Curtain — characters speak in code, rooms are bugged, and no one is told the truth, those who try are shot — and his incredible desire to seek the truth, something that comes naturally to him and his scientific mind.

Throughout the story, the mystery — which is not really a mystery to the reader but absolutely is to Valery and those in the town he's learning to trust — plays out slowly and is often on the back burner to Valery's personal journey. As he begins studying the effect of radiation on local animals, his research and exploration continue to raise more questions — putting his life in danger.

Though Pulley has noted at the end of the book that all this was created around and based on real events in Soviet Russia, the mastery of storytelling here was thrumming with that kind of relayed information that almost requires you to want to look up specifics to see if these things were real. This felt, not only possible, but absolute. Pulley's characters are, once again, amazingly crafted and so fully developed that it feeds into the desire to slow down and read this book properly.

As I begin every review of a Natasha Pulley novel: Natasha!!! How do you do it?

I don’t know how she draws me in like this every time — even to a quiet slowburn novel about Russian nuclear reactors — but she does, and I love her for it. I missed her more speculative elements here, and this setting and very scientific focus don’t speak to me as much, but those are my only complaints. Even though radiation and chemistry wouldn’t exactly be my choice of topic, I was ultimately so drawn into the story and Pulley’s use of Russian politics and intrigue helped balance out the science for me. More than that, though, Pulley excels at character work and the aforementioned quiet, slowburn relationships, as well as gorgeous writing that stops you in your tracks. Valery is as devastating as ever with Pulley’s characters, and I just wish we had some more time at the end with him and the conclusion. I can never quite describe it, but her books’ are unlike anyone else’s and I’m glad to have this book so soon after The Kingdoms. More Natasha Pulley always, please.