THE SOCIETY OF UNKNOWABLE OBJECTS

Eldritch artefacts alert

- Jonathan Wright

▷ RELEASED 7 AUGUST 352 pages Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Gareth Brown Publisher Bantam

Some novels read as if they were hard won. Even before you reach acknowledgments that note how "'difficult second book' phenomenon is real", Gareth Brown's sophomore offering comes across as such a novel. In great part, this is down to the plotting, which seems to jump around so that you're never sure where the story is going to go next.

For the first 100 pages or so, as we're introduced to the book's heroine, Magda Sparks, a member of a four-person-strong secret society devoted to locating magical objects and hiding them away, this is disorientating. Gradually, though, as Brown weaves together different narrative strands, a hugely entertaining fantasy emerges rather than, as you half-fear, a muddle.