I am SO READY for this book to be out so I can buy all the editions and add them to my Gail Carriger-esque shelf. This book has mystery, Sapphic, witches, and a mischievous (and judgy) narrator trying desperately to avoid boredom. This was an absolute delight to read and I can't wait to hold a physical copy in my hand to tab and annotate and fawn over. Thank you SO MUCH to the publisher and netgalley for letting me read this work for review purposes I will ABSOLUTELY recommend it to everyone I come into contact with.

The gorgeous cover really reeled me right in to apply for this ARC. This is my first book by this author, and I really enjoyed it. My favorite thing was the witty character dialogue/banter and the way the author describes the setting so you can easily visualize it and immerse yourself in the world. I read this in one setting and it was a really enjoyable read. Would read more by this author. TYSM for the opportunity to read it early with the ARC.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Alexis Hall, and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for providing me with an ARC and the chance to review the book.

I enjoyed this book. The book's cover and description are what drew me to it. I'm a sucker for fantasy and romance. The humor in the book was a bonus. The Narrator is outside the story looking in. It took a little while to get used to, but it was a delightful read once I got used to it. It is like Bridgerton or Gossip Girl in that sense but with a twist. The humor in this book is witty, and I laughed out loud a couple of times which is rare for me when I'm reading. I love how Alexis Hall uses humor, even in a serious scene. The characters were well-developed.

One thing that was difficult for me was following along with the characters. Books written in this period of time where the characters go by their last names, first names, and titles are challenging. I always forget who is who when they use a different name every few chapters, which has me going back to see who that person is.

Overall, it is a great book great. I recommend reading it.

I absolutely LOVED the unique narration in this one! This book is narrated by Robin (aka Puck, aka Oberon's jester from A Midsummer's Night's dream), who is now writing and selling stories (stories of real people he has observed in his long, long life) in order to make a living.

In this book, Robin is narrating the story of a young woman in mediaeval times, who must pair up with a rumoured witch/murderess in order to ward off a curse. And well, they also fall in love in the process.

💫 The plot was amazing - the mystery, the slow build-up to the true nature of the curse(s), and the resolution of those curses werec written really well.
💫 The central romance in this book is sapphic, and (1) I loved how accepting and excited every friend/family member of the MC's were regarding this, and (2) the beginning and middle of the romance was a bit drag-gy, but it's later revealed that the drag-giness was for a totally justified reason so *sobs*
💫 Every bit of dialogue by Miss Bickle, the best friend of the MC, was absolutely entertaining, I love her so much.

I'm really hoping for more books in this series, aka narrated by Robin. It seems like a natural set of books, given that he has observed and is going to narrate a lot of books to make a living, and if the author is planning something like that, I'm super excited for it!

TWs - a man kidnapping a woman with the intention of raping her, the former leading to the woman killing the man in self-defense, subsequent trauma the woman faces for being almost assaulted and for being a killer, murder, drowning, deaths

Thank you NetGalley, Alexis Hall, and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for providing me with an advanced copy of this book!

I would like to start off by saying I have not read a lot of books in the LGBTQIAP+ category and was excited to read more in that category and this book did keep me entertained for the most part. One of the things that made me take pause when first starting the book was the presence of the faerie narrator. While I think that the faerie narrator was definitely entertaining and comical I did also have some issues with him. First, it did take 3-4 chapters for me to even get used to the narrator at all and really immerse myself in the book. Second, I did not feel that some of the long-winded monologues from the narrator were also distracting and unnecessary especially when they were on topics that were not pertinent to the main plot of the story. Lastly, I found that having the faerie narrator made it difficult to really connect with either of the main characters. I wasn't able to really see what Miss Mitchelmore or the Duke were really feeling and felt like an outsider in their relationship. There would be times it was mentioned how in love they were and I truly did not understand how that could be because I was not privy to their inner thoughts.

Another part of this book I found fault with is the plot line holes. The main plot line of the Miss Mitchelmore being cursed was what drew me in to this book to begin with. While I feel that this plot line was somewhat interesting in execution I feel that their could've been more to it or more investigation to it. Furthermore, my biggest issue was that the main plot line was resolved around 60% through the book, so from 60-80% I feel that nothing really happened. It was a time where the relationship between Miss Mitchelmore and the Duke was supposed to build but I felt that nothing really happened and frankly it dragged on for me! However from 80% on the secondary curse and the investigation into that proved to be the most entertaining plot of the book for me, I was thoroughly invested in this and it held my attention well!

Overall, I think that the story was okay. As I said I wish we were a little more privy to the inner thoughts of the main characters to get a better idea of the relationship from their perspective and that the plot line was developed a little more like the ending curse was. The side character Miss Bickle truly made this book for me! She was so funny and light hearted and had the best comebacks. The banter and dialogue of this book were entertaining and I would check out a book focused on Miss Bickle for sure.

Hall crafts and incredible rich, sumptuous sapphic romance that consumes the reader's imagination and leaves them wanting for the experience of reading it for the first time all over again.

This was cute and fun enough, but I struggled to stay interested in the story sometimes. Something about the author's writing style didn't exactly work for me either. I'm sure this book will find its audience, though.

I quite enjoyed this one overall! I generally have enjoyed Hall's recent historicals, though I would say that compared to A Lady for a Duke (the most recent of his books I've read) this one felt a lot more... perhaps modern? Not that it didn't have all the historical vibes one would want in this type of book, but there was a lot more quips and banter and back-and-forth that Hall is quite known for, but that can also feel a little exhausting. I didn't experience that here, thankfully, but there was definitely a lot of witty reparte!

The blending of the magical was really interesting and well-done, and the whole concept of the curse was really fascinating. I loved the characters, and Miss Maelys Mitchelmore's cousin and her best friend both particularly made for really wonderfully engaging characters--if the author ever decided to write books for each of them, I think there's a market for it! The narration was also really interesting here, with the book being told as a story from the POV of a faerie who was "collecting" the story, which I quite enjoyed on the whole. But, of course, it did somewhat lead to a slight feeling of distance from the characters since we're never directly in any of their heads. The smut, while present and semi-on-screen is definitely quite vague and nowhere near explicit--it makes sense with the narrative choice here, but I do continue to bemoan Hall's increasing tendency towards non-explicit sex, particularly since he writes smut so beautifully. But the build between Maelys and Lady Georgianna Landrake was lovely and I really quite enjoyed the dynamic between them. I also appreciated that there was a good amount of tension in their relationship throughout.

Where the book somewhat suffered for me is actually a very similar issue to one I had with A Lady for a Duke, which is that the initial drama, and what one thinks will be the central crux of the book (the curse), is more or less resolved around the 50% mark. So then we proceed for a while to have the plot entirely centered around the relationship tension, until around 75% we get a new, sort of random secondary plot that then needs to be resolved. And while I liked all three of these elements (the two separate curse plots, and the relationship stuff) I really wish the author had found a way to more seamlessly weave them all together so it felt like one cohesive narrative, instead of the mildly clunky way it felt divided. Emotionally, I was ready for the book to be over soon after the initial curse wrapped up, and then to realize we still had so much more to go just felt like poor pacing, and I found this to be almost the exact same thing that happened in A Lady for a Duke, though here, at least, the secondary plot did still center the main characters.

So overall I did quite enjoy myself, and I'd very much read more in this universe--frankly desperate for Miss Bickle to have a book, which is saying something as I'm not generally one for het romance.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey, and NetGalley for allowing me early access to this book!

What I liked: The humor, the side characters (as always, that's an Alexis Hall standard), the narrator.

What I struggled with more: the romance and romantic relationship? It's not even that we weren't inside the heads of the protagonist, as Alexis Hall has been able to do with non-protagonist characters, I just couldn't really vibe in with them. Which is such as shame-- I really like the Kate Kane series, had been disappointed by Murder Most Foul, and was hoping Mortal Follies would bring me back in.

I also . . .it was definitely lampshaded extremely heavily who the one who had cursed Maelys was, and at time it felt like I was trying to project my thoughts onto the characters. Which of course, might have been furthered by not even being in their heads, much like Robin.

I did really like Robin. I shared a paragraph or so from them and was able to have two of my friends decide they needed to purchase this as soon as it came out. I also really liked the interconnections of magic in this 'verse, and this is *absolutely*, and I'm sure Lysistratia would agree with me, taking place in the same universe as Kate Kane.

Overall, I liked everything about this book save for the romance, so 4/5.

I signed up for the ARC of this book originally because I've read this authors previous work before and really enjoyed it. I figured I’d enjoy their sapphic work more and I was definitely not disappointed. This book has such an interesting plot and incredibly silly characters that make you want to continue reading.

Despite how frustrating the characters may be sometimes, I still found myself loving them all the same. Cant wait for the next!

DNF (65% through)

I genuinely wanted to enjoy this book, since I've enjoyed some of the other books written by Alexis Hall. I was really excited by the premise, the feel of otherworldliness, and the romance (love me a sapphic romance) of it, but it just didn't fit right to me. The narrator, while hilarious at times, took me out of the story a lot - instead of feeling like I was reading a story about Miss Mitchelmore and Lady Georgiana, I was removed from the world every few paragraphs to get insights about the "magic" that I didn't care about since it barely plays any part of the story. The magical world woven into the story is incredibly interesting, and I wish it played a bigger part in the plot itself rather than being used as a plot device, which made every tidbit we actually do learn about the world just a distraction from the story.

The characters are...fine? That's all I can say about it because I don't know much about them except what they do, and most of the time even that came off as entitled, whiny, or outright annoying to me. The story is told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator who claims to not care about the subjects of his story, which meant that most of the time I didn't care about the characters either. I didn't really care about Miss Mitchelmore's curse, or Lady Georgiana's back-and-forth relationship at her that seemed jarring at times, as I could never figure out exactly why she was pulling back. It didn't help that the main conflict of the story resolved around 50% in a less than satisfying way, and the next 10-15% of the book is spent just dallying about in Miss Mitchelmore's life without anything exciting happening - which is about when I stopped reading.

I might come back to this book and finish it at some point, but right now it's not the right book for me to read and I need a break. However, it does have a lot of charm, the narrator did make me laugh out loud at times, and it is very well-written despite my complaints. For someone who enjoyed Something Fabulous and A Lady for A Duke by the same author, I would recommend it. As it stands, neither of those books were very memorable for me, and I don't think this will be memorable either.

What. A. Ride.

It's pretty well-documented that I am an Alexis Hall Fan (yes, capital F). He's one of my favorites precisely because I actually don't love everything he's written. He experiments and plays and explores and that's a fascinating journey to go on with an author. I am never, ever bored with Alexis Hall, and that's exciting.

My favorites of his tend to be the smaller, weirder books like The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (god, I want allllll the books from that world), or the Prosperity series. The Spires books are all gems. I never liked a billionaire romance pre-Ardy.

Did I love his massive hits like Boyfriend Material? A Lady for a Duke? Obviously! They're great! I hope they help Alexis to spread queer joy into the world AND allow him to dive into a pile of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck. But they aren't my favorites of his.

Mortal Follies, to me, is a return to the experimental. I read it CLEARLY contrasting it to the way-crazier/pervier/creepier The Autobiography of a Flea. Mortal Follies definitely is not Victorian-era porn, though. The spice level is low. Interestingly, the angst is pretty low, too, which I didn't expect. I didn't love it as much as some of his other experimental stuff, but it's still a very worthy read.

Overall: a very funny, experimental, interesting book that I highly recommend. Would I recommend it to everyone I know? No. But that's also kind of a recommendation, too?

What worked for me:
* the narrative structure was FASCINATING. I love a good unreliable narrator, especially one drenched in dark humor.
* The side characters, as ever, are a treat. Everyone of them is fully formed and add something to the plot and the tone.
* The banter. ALLLL the banter, especially the banter between Mae and her friends. I laughed a lot in public, which was occasionally awkward, but so worth it. Just genuinely a very funny book.
* Oh god, Mae's parents.

What didn't work for me:
* I get that Mae is 19 and love hits hard at any age, but especially first love at that age. That said... I didn't totally buy her relationship with Georgiana, which was really disappointing. A lot of the interaction in the book is actually between Mae and her friends, and not Mae and Georgiana, which is interesting. I thought a lot of the interactions between Georgiana and Mae felt redundant, or at least, like there wasn't a lot of progression or change happening.
* This wasn't an emotional book, really. I didn't feel like I connected to Mae or Georgiana or their story. Georgiana spoke occasionally about her longing, but I didn't feel like I experienced that ache.

"You would defy a goddess for me?"

This book was never what I expected in both good and bad ways.

The prologue was intriguing and different; establishing a witty, comical, and at times unreliable narrator.

The magical/fairy elements in the baths I thought were particularly good. Those scenes were probably my favorite of the book.

I found intensity of Lady Georgiana and a lot of her dialogue to be really compelling. Mae's character arc was particularly interesting and fulfilling.

Unfortunately the removed-ness of how the story was told made it hard to connect with the romance. Being "told" the story rather than experiencing it with the characters was jarring and kept me from immersing into the story. Additionally, the hot and coldness of the romance got boring.

A lot felt particularly unresolved. Why was the horrible uncle included in the story to not be utilized? Why did Mr. Caesar's trip to Serena's and introduce a whole other set of character's to be discarded just as quickly.

The world building was wanting (does everyone just accept that magic and the fae are apart of our world?).

The end felt super rushed and not satisfying.

Join a fairy (who is definitely NOT invested in the well being of these mortals) as he narrates the scandalous, exciting, sapphic tale of Maelys who is caught up in the machinations of the old gods and Lady Georgiana who, despite her more than probable murdering of her four closest male relatives, seems intent on saving Maelys. There are impossible trials set by goddesses, consultations of various witches/priestesses, a visit to an 18th century drag bar, and plenty of witty conversation to delight any reader.

Thank you, Random House Publishing Group, for allowing me to read Mortal Follies early.

I have to be honest, I had to get used to the narrator and didn't like the story at first. But eventually the narrator and the story grew to me because it still has Alexis Hall's wit and charm.

This book was delightful, amusing, and light, and, as it happens, the perfect distraction during an otherwise awful few days. It got a little grating and frustrating at times, but overall, I enjoyed it. Read on for more detailed thoughts:

The Writing

There was a lot to like here — the dialogue was fun and often witty, and the narration contained some wonderfully snarky commentary. However, the narrator's tone wore thin on me at times, and I found that the nature of the narration itself distanced me from the rest of the novel. This may be a matter of personal preference. I prefer close 3rd over omniscient POV, though neither is objectively better than the other.

The Characters

Mae and Lizzie were the standouts of the cast. I appreciated Mae's chaotic tendencies and Lizzie's remarks made me laugh out loud more than once. However, I wish I could have spent more time in the character's thoughts. Due to the intrusiveness of the narration, I didn't feel particularly close or connected to any of the characters. I was watching them from a distance instead of seeing the world through their eyes. This might not bother some readers as much as it bothered me.

The Plot

To sum up my thoughts on the plot succinctly, it was a fun romp. Nothing in the plot felt out of place, though it dragged at a couple places when the characters were trying to decide what to do (I think the style of narration doesn't lend itself well to introspection). I appreciated that the romance struck the balance between not insta-love and not agonizingly slow burn, and the book finished strong.

The World Building

Not much to say here, as I'm not a stickler for world building, except that I loved the inventive theology. I also appreciated the author's effort to write a diverse cast in a setting and time period that is usually very whitewashed and heteronormative. It was a breath of fresh air.

TL;DR, my minor gripes with this book all stem from a personal preference regarding narration. This is a fun sapphic romance that could easily be a five star read for others.

Mortal Follies, my first Alexis Hall book, was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. For its strengths, of which there are a few, the book is humorous and light-hearted, sweet at its core, and perfectly whimsical. I was hooked within the first few pages and refused to let up until halfway through, when things began to... drag.
Speaking of. Onto the weaknesses: Mortal Follies is like a thin layer of paper being used as an umbrella. It sags under the weight of its expectations; it holds far more than it can feasibly hold. Its structure is built entirely around the humor and whimsy and *vibes* of this book, which, despite being a fan of the three, is certainly not enough to carry a book. Similarly, the romance—something of a sapphic enemies-to-lovers between a suspected murderer and a cursed woman who comes to her for help—is all potential. Both characters are flat mimicries of far better books: the "dark", "angsty" murderer and the "sweet" but "strong" woman who needs her help. Their chemistry is questionable. I did not find myself rooting for them.
Some more assorted thoughts; I loved the side characters (though they were also flat), the aesthetics of this book are gorgeous, the murderer's backstory is so disappointing, and this felt like it could be simultaneously 100 pages shorter and 200 pages longer. There was so much story that needed to be told, and so much unnecessary humor and description that could be cut.
I certainly am disappointed. Still, my hopes are high for Alexis Hall. Will be anticipating a book that balances humor and plot from him.

I was completely unprepared for the narrator and was skeptical but ultimately really delighted by the voice throughout. Alexis Hall’s books are always funny and always feel like they have a little something extra that really holds my attention and this was no exception! Would absolutely read more if this turns into a series.

The premise is amazing and Hall’s writing, as always, is very fast-paced and full of humor. Mostly, though, this didn’t work for me. I need a lot more intimacy in romance—I need to be in the characters’ heads and get a lot more insight into their evolving feelings, so one POV is already a reach for me. This one, with the narrator being a supernatural being watching the two love interests, is a bit too far removed for me.

And it really didn’t help me like Maelys, or understand why I should care about her curse when she’s so entitled and does so little to show Georgiana she trusts her beyond demanding her help and her complete honesty again and again. I honestly couldn’t figure out why Georgiana liked Maelys, never mind was attracted to her.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC.

It was just okay, nothing super unique but pretty forgettable.