ancientreader's Reviews > The Evening Wolves
The Evening Wolves (Iron on Iron #4)
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ancientreader's review
bookshelves: arc, child-abuse, crime, dark, heartbreaking, m-m, morally-gray-and-then-some, murder-mystery, suspense, trauma-trauma-so-much-trauma, wept-through-major-portions-of-this
Feb 05, 2024
bookshelves: arc, child-abuse, crime, dark, heartbreaking, m-m, morally-gray-and-then-some, murder-mystery, suspense, trauma-trauma-so-much-trauma, wept-through-major-portions-of-this
I often find, with Gregory Ashe's books, that I have to work my way up to reading them or take breaks from them. What with, you know, the suspense and the emotional intensity and the general rough ride.
As for The Evening Wolves, I fled for a solid week about two chapters in, because John-Henry Somerset had just been arrested for child porn. False-accusation narratives terrify me anyway, and the secondhand shame and humiliation (child porn, FFS!) just about undid me. Mantra: Greg Ashe always pulls it out of the fire at the last minute. Greg Ashe always pulls it out of the fire at the last minute. Greg Ashe ...
Yes. Yes, he pulled it out of the fire. By the way, this is also the Hazard-and-Somerset novel for anyone who might just possibly have felt that maaaaaaaaaaaybe John-Henry has gotten off a little lightly for his atrocious behavior as a teenage bully and overall golden boy whose rich, influential parents can always make his troubles go away. Here's the reckoning, folks.
*laughs weakly*
Also -- here's a teaser, because I'm a terrible person -- you know how Shaw is always going on about how he and Emery are soulmates? They are. Oh, they are.
Thanks to GA for the ARC; this is my honest, and very shook up, opinion.
As for The Evening Wolves, I fled for a solid week about two chapters in, because John-Henry Somerset had just been arrested for child porn. False-accusation narratives terrify me anyway, and the secondhand shame and humiliation (child porn, FFS!) just about undid me. Mantra: Greg Ashe always pulls it out of the fire at the last minute. Greg Ashe always pulls it out of the fire at the last minute. Greg Ashe ...
Yes. Yes, he pulled it out of the fire. By the way, this is also the Hazard-and-Somerset novel for anyone who might just possibly have felt that maaaaaaaaaaaybe John-Henry has gotten off a little lightly for his atrocious behavior as a teenage bully and overall golden boy whose rich, influential parents can always make his troubles go away. Here's the reckoning, folks.
*laughs weakly*
Also -- here's a teaser, because I'm a terrible person -- you know how Shaw is always going on about how he and Emery are soulmates? They are. Oh, they are.
Thanks to GA for the ARC; this is my honest, and very shook up, opinion.
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Reading Progress
January 20, 2024
–
Started Reading
February 4, 2024
–
Finished Reading
February 5, 2024
– Shelved
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
arc
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
child-abuse
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
crime
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
dark
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
heartbreaking
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
m-m
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
morally-gray-and-then-some
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
murder-mystery
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
suspense
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
trauma-trauma-so-much-trauma
February 5, 2024
– Shelved as:
wept-through-major-portions-of-this
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Corinne
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Feb 06, 2024 01:19AM
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They are especially excruciating. I can't say I had to *force* myself to read this, because I'm hopelessly addicted to Ashe, but I had to time my reading carefully -- I didn't go anywhere near this book before bedtime, and I made sure to pause at moments when the tension wasn't maximal.
It's really not a spoiler: the arrest happens very early in the book.
Might be an interesting conversation for the Discord -- what is it about !fictional! false accusations that strikes especially deep?
Anyway, great future QOTD!!
For me, dementia. My mother died of Alzheimer's and watching the last decade of her life was the emotional equivalent of being racked. Fictional dementia stories are almost always made even worse via prettification and uplift: Tender Moments with My Drooling Grandma. No. It's a screaming horror show from start to finish.
ETA: North, Shaw, and money ... Shaw's casualness can be infuriating, agreed, but IMO part of what's going on there is that he has plenty of money and he would love for North to accept that what's Shaw's is also North's. IIRC he says that fairly explicitly, more than once, but an aspect of North's whole toxic masculinity thing and feelings of unworthiness is his insistence on ~standing on his own two feet~. I relate to this pretty well, aside from the toxic masculinity, because I grew up working class & with little money, whereas my wife comes from fairly old money. It took a long, long time to stop panicking and fully understand that she really did mean her money to be ours & to keep me safe as well as her.
J-H's reckoning is wonderful, honestly -- it's so intimate and so moving. The kiddie porn charges provide the hideous context, but the scenes with Hazard are cry-your-eyes-out glorious.