Alright, nice and slow — purse and wallet first. Good.
Now, your attention. Hand it over — hey! No funny business, eyes where I can see ‘em.
Good, good. Real good. Now,
it’s time for another Loser’s Thoughts on Substack Literature, so get comfy. This’ll take a minute. If you don’t know why you’re bein held up, peep the link. losersflashfiction.subs…
Lisa Kuznak latest fantasy novel, The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick is a masterclass storytelling. When the story is bound up in prison, you can feel the slop, the grime, the mold. Side note, I wouldn’t have thought a scene of placing bets on someone puking could be so funny.
The characters and interactions here are gold, pure gold. They grow and yet remain consistent, like a bud opening into a flower. The situations and plot of the book develop so naturally. I said this of Clancy Steadwell’s The big T, but it’s the sort of effortless refinement that only comes from great effort — aka practice. You know it’s good because they make the difficult look easy — also incredibly frustrating because you(me[the reader]) don’t see all that effort, just the butter-scultpure final product that lookssssss pristine.
The conclusion of this book was everything I wanted, and I had worried maybe it would falter at the end. It did not. The magic was just enough for this book, present and interesting but not distracting. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t need to. Do yourself a favor and buy this, add it to your wishlist, write it down, tattoo it on the white of your eye, whatever you gotta do — just don’t miss this one.
(Sidenote, love the cover. Some intriguing implications regarding our main character and Mr. Thornwick — but maybe that’s just me)
Read the original Note here.
