All Who Wander by April Alieda

I wanted to enjoy this book. I expected to enjoy this book. Cosy small-town romance with magic pies? Sign me up! Alas, twas not to be. Alex and Duncan’s story just wasn’t what I wanted.

The most interesting character in this book was Aunt V, hands down. I didn’t really get a feel for any of the other characters, even the main ones. What they were feeling and thinking, sure, but not who they were as people. Even the magical Miss Sadie could have done with more page time.

Still, for the majority of the book, I thought I would give it a 4-star rating. The slap-kiss-slap-kiss romance was nicely sweet and fluffy, and not totally predictable. Unfortunately, the editing really let it down. The stream-of-consciousness narration was impaired by slippages from third-person to first, and from past tense to present. Even from the beginning, there were little inconsistencies and questions that could have been smoothed over with a single line of explanation, like: “Two parents with Blood Type A would only have children with the same.”

Speaking of the adoption storyline, it felt very shoe-horned in (don’t even get me started on the divorcee part). It’s used as an excuse for Alex to come to Anastasia, batted around a bit, then pretty much forgotten until her family turn up for a chapter or two. Then they disappear and are never mentioned again. It all seems very inconsistent, but I was willing to overlook it.

The kicker came at 88% when a character already labelled as BAD refers to Alex as a “g*psy sl*t”, except “slut” was the only word that was censored. For the uninformed, “g*psy” is a slur; to see it uncensored when “slut” was asterisked-out BOOTED me out of the story. It felt ridiculously harsh for such a sweet book so far, as if someone has said, “this guy isn’t bad enough, we need to make sure the audience hate him”. Well, mission accomplished.

So to recap, four-star story, losing one star for poor editing and another for a totally unnecessary and oddly censored slur. It’s really a pity, because the author and the series show such promise, too.

Two uncensored stars.

I received a copy of this story from the author through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.