Our Lady Of Mysterious Ailments by T L Huchu

 

                   About The Book

Some secrets are meant to stay buried

When Ropa Moyo discovered an occult underground library, she expected great things. She’s really into Edinburgh’s secret societies – but turns out they are less into her. So instead of getting paid to work magic, she’s had to accept a crummy unpaid internship. And her with bills to pay and a pet fox to feed.

Then her friend Priya offers her a job on the side. Priya works at Our Lady of Mysterious Maladies, a very specialized hospital, where a new illness is resisting magical and medical remedies alike. The first patient was a teenage boy, Max Wu, and his healers are baffled. If Ropa can solve the case, she might earn as she learns – and impress her mentor, Sir Callander.

Her sleuthing will lead her to a lost fortune, an avenging spirit and a secret buried deep in Scotland’s past. But how are they connected? Lives are at stake and Ropa is running out of time.

         

                        My Thoughts

 Well, here we go, back into the dystopian, post apocalyptic Edinburgh that we first saw in The Library Of The Dead . . . oh, and it's so good to be back.

 With her previous business now behind her Ropa is now she is now working a new job that will, hopefully, allow her to develop her skills and get lots of experience - but she soon finds out that it's an unpaid internship. This being the case Ropa, who is her family's bread winner has to take on side jobs to earn cash. 

 One of these is trying to find a cure for a teenage boy who is in a coma at Our Lady Of Mysterious Ailments. Time is short and more teen-agers are going the same way. Ropa's search leads her to one of the four Schools of Magic and plenty of scrapes in her search for answers.

 This second in the Edinburgh Nights series is an improvement on The Library Of The Dead (which is going some, as I really enjoyed that too). Maybe it is the author growing in confidence but the characters felt more fleshed out here and the Edinburgh of this book felt just a bit more 'real'. As before the speech is quite Scottish a good bit of the time which could put people off (not me, I read quite a lot of Scotland based fiction so I'm used to it) but I hope it doesn't as this series is a lot of fun.

 I've seen the Edinburgh Nights series compared in story style to the Rivers of London  and actually think that is quite apt.

 The second in a series that is going from strength to strength and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

 4.5/5*

 Many thanks to Stephen Haskins, Black Crow PR and Tor books for inviting me to review the book and providing a copy of said book. All views and opinions are my own.