Contains a mild spoiler about the direction the story goes, but it’s info that is spelled out even more in the blurb.

Balam, Spring starts very idyllic countryside cosy mystery, think Murder She Wrote, and then strays a bit into some horror territory, think Alien, before ending on a sweet note in the epilogue.

Overall I liked it, I really loved the cosy parts,but was bugged by a couple of things.

The narrator is a one woman show. She’s delightful, puts in a performance, and has a pleasant voice. When Theo is walking around Balam enjoying spring, you can hear the smile in her voice. She also changes rhythm based on characters, there’s one guy thatalkslikethisohmysuchfastveryexcite. It’s really fun.

Balam is a very small very quiet little town, where everyone knows everyone. We follow 3 point of view characters for most of the book, though others have a few scenes too. The cast is small, easy to follow and the narration makes them very easy to tell apart.

The characters

Theo is the first we meet, the schoolteacher finishing up his work at the start of spring break. He’s a wholesome good guy, who’s the unfortunate witness to the town mage’s mysterious death.

Ryckert is the retired mercenary, the town recluse, who’s a Rossian (spelling may vary) a non-human race that I couldn’t really visualise very well, but sort of wolf-like. He decides to investigate this mysterious death.

Aava is the new white mage, fresh out of school, sent to the town. She’s very sweet and also tries her best to solve the mysterious death, and treat the other villagers that are getting sick.

My downsides

The part that bugged me, was how deliberated heart strings were being pulled, with regards to other villagers getting sick, especially one of them. The way it’s written definitely makes sense in the story, just felt a bit on the nose. Though it did ultimately move the plot along a lot. I also thought the change from sleepy town murder mystery to icky invading insects was a bit weird, but I knew about it from the blurb so it wasn’t that much of a shock. And I think the was some out-of-character action on Aava’s part in dealing with the increasing number of patients.

My upsides

Despite some dark stuff, Balam is very feel good. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the people are happy. It’s by the sea, it’s a lovely spring, people have good relationships. And there’s always that hint quiet towns have, of something darker hidden underneath.

I also liked that the world building was only partially revealed, hinting that this is more than just your average world. There’s a mix of modern and fantasy things, for instance mentions of far away airships, and the local blacksmith, the local clinic run by a mage not a doctor, people riding horses for transport but wearing jeans. I’ve see people mention this as a complaint, having modern terms among fantasy ones, but I thought it was quirky.

I also liked how LGBTQ representation was just normal, same-sex relationships were normal and not a single eyebrow was raised about them.

The mystery was cool, a lot of red herrings were chased down, and the hint that cracked the case was hinted early on enough that I could mentally scream at the characters remember the thing about 15 mins before they remembered the thing.

I received the audiobook through TBRindr, and I want to thank the author, it was a very enjoyable listen.