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Malum by Stacy Bender

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This self pubbed gas light fantasy has some very fun ideas on one hand and some lacking character development on the other. Josephine has had a hard life. Her mother hated her because of her paranormal abilities and her gambler father has sold her to a wealthy monster of a man who wants her for his homosexual son as a beard (and full on plans to rape her to get the 'grandkids' he wants)

She's saved by by her bohemian aunt Sylvia who shares her gifts. Once in an unnamed city (I'm assuming London though the only thing rooting this in our world are Beethoven and Rossini and Cockneys and in a way that threw me), Sylvia (who was an actress who married well) confronts the man Josephine was purchased by to say in no uncertain terms would this happen unless it was Josephine's will (why her husband is never seen until the last chapter is never explained). Needless to say this doesn't go down well.

In the mean time, workers accidentally release a demon and Josephine's powers awakens all the gargoyles in the city. They are the ones who have helped the heroes fight demons over mankind's history. Josephine with her serious inferiority complex takes a lot of prodding from Sylvia to engage in any of this (and she spends half the book hiding the gargoyles from her aunt).

Into this comes Oscar Bennet, an eccentric inventor and his friend Edward Blair. Oscar has many inventions using new tech: electricity. Oscar takes the existence of gargoyles rather well. They plan to stop the demon even as it (and Mr. would-be rapist) try to stop them.

As I said, the story's plot is an interesting one and it is entertaining. However, there isn't much in the way of character development for anyone, especially Josephine. She ends up the same at the end as she started. Mousy, without any real agency. Without her aunt, she'd be nothing. She doesn't really stand on her own two feet.

The other thing that bothered me was the choices made, two very small things really but they nagged at me. For one, the man who helped free the demon didn't need to be so nasty. If he lasted more than one chapter or purposely freed the demon maybe I could get it but no, that's not how it went so why work in derogatory comments about Jews, Blacks and the Irish into one chapter? Also part of Sylvia's theater craft is to make herself unrecognizable for her duties in seances so she chooses to look Moorish. I'm like of all things to pretend to be of color (which granted in the last 1800s no one would have thought twice)

It does wrap up nicely and sets up the possibility of more. If there is, I hope Josephine has more agency.



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