A little bit of sin is good for the soul.
Gadriel, the fallen angel of petty temptations, has a bit of a gambling debt. Fortunately, her angelic bookie is happy to let her pay off her debts by doing what she does best: All Gadriel has to do is tempt miserably sinless mortal Holly Harker to do a few nice things for herself.
What should be a cakewalk of a job soon runs into several roadblocks, however, as Miss Harker politely refuses every attempt at temptation from Gadriel the woman, Gadriel the man, and Gadriel the adorable fluffy kitten. When even chocolate fails to move Gadriel’s target, the ex-guardian angel begins to suspect she’s been conned. But Gadriel still remembers her previous job… and where petty temptations fail, small miracles might yet prevail.
Calvin
Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater is a fun, cozy, and simply delightful read. The story follows Gadriel, a former guardian angel who has become the fallen angel of petty temptations. The guardian angel boss has a job for Gadriel, however. Holly Harker is a little too sinless and could use some petty temptations. Of course, not everything is at it seems.
This novel is not an epic fantasy with high stakes. In fact, it’s decidedly low-stakes. The world does not hang in the balance, nations will not be affected by what happens. But to the characters involved the stakes matter. They’re personal and important, but not on a grand scale. While I’m normally someone who really enjoys epic fantasy, I loved this cozy read. Probably the part that I loved the most was that the characters were well crafted. The motivations for each of the characters made sense. While there weren’t earth shattering reveals, per se, the backstories of the characters felt authentic and the characters’ decisions and actions aligned with their backstories and motivations while also showing growth. In a low-stakes, cozy read a great deal rests on the characters. Not only did they feel authentic, but I also cared about the situations they found themselves in. Add to this that Atwater does a very good job of narrative voice, and you have a novel that is a nearly perfect blanket read.
The comedy scattered throughout the book was also fun. Comedy is always difficult because everyone experiences it differently. For me, this isn’t a laugh-out-loud funny book, but more a book that elicits fairly consistent chuckling. There is a running gag of gauging sin points throughout the novel (via footnotes) and I enjoyed that. I could see how it might wear thin on others, but for me it worked. Their are also footnotes that comedically flesh out previous events in the world or give a twist to historical events. Like I said, consistent chuckles.
No book is perfect, obviously, and that’s the case with Small Miracles. I personally could have done with a little more world building. The story is set in modern day London, so that alleviates the need to craft an entirely new setting. There were just a few moments when I felt like maybe making some of the fantasy elements or twists a little more obvious would have been beneficial. This isn’t a huge complaint, and may have more to do with my general preference for secondary world fantasy than anything else. A slightly larger complaint has to do with the romance sub-plot in the novel. For me, it didn’t feel particularly engaging. I was actually slightly surprised by the way it turned out in the end. Again, this isn’t a huge complaint and didn’t end up affecting my overall enjoyment much. But in a novel where the motivations for all the characters felt very clear, the romance elements didn’t feel quite a clear or believable.
This one is very likely to appeal to anyone looking for a cozy, low-stakes comfort read. The characters are well constructed and the book is well-paced while being short. It pressed almost all the right buttons for me and I’m glad it got assigned to me to review. I think this is my favorite book from this year’s SPFBO.
9/10
Kop
Wow thank goodness Calvin wrote that review first! Mine will be much shorter. All I have to say is that I agree; our thoughts align for the most part. I think the only thing that differs is I felt the introduction of the big-bad seemed to almost come out of nowhere relatively late into the book. Other than that, this was a delight!
8/10
The Fantasy Inn’s final score for Small Miracles is:
8.5/10
