“What’ve we got?”“Tigers. Snakes. Alligators. Tears in the skin of the universe.” Susan shrugged. “I think I saw a kraken in the sink, too.” Find a missing book. That was the job the woman in the Doc Martens gave us. Easy money, right? Only now it seems she’s actually an ancient, powerful sorcerer, and the book is a Book of Power that doesn’t want to be found. It wants to tear reality apart at … Book of Power that doesn’t want to be found.
It wants to tear reality apart at the seams, and it’ll use anyone it can to do it.
So now we’ve got one spectacularly displeased sorcerer, a hungry, still-missing book, a dentist with bad hygiene, and a neighbourhood having some reality issues to deal with.
Plus about a day before the book turns our world – and us – inside out.
We’ve totally got this.
I hope.
This is the first book in the Gobbelino London, PI urban fantasy series, centred around the adventures of a mercenary feline PI and his human sidekick. It contains snarky cats and other gods, many bad jokes and terrible puns, plus a large serving of mythological and real creatures behaving badly. It will appeal to anyone who likes their fantasy funny, modern, and filled with friendship rather than romance – and also to those who suspect their cat may be living a great and secret life when they’re not looking.
A Scourge of Pleasantries contains some violence, particularly toward furniture, but none of it is graphic. It contains no sex and only mild language. It does, however, contain blasphemy.
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I was in dire need of a light-hearted book. Having read some of this author’s Beaufort Mysteries, I was sure this would offer some relief. I wasn’t wrong!
Gobbelino is a talking cat – what, like that’s not normal, or something? This book is charmingly written from his POV. He’s quite mercenary but ever so charming.
His human, Callum, fortunately has better morals.
Together, they are PIs.
On this, the first of their adventures, they are set on a mission to locate a stolen book. Easy! Well, no. There’s a lot more than meets the eye, or whisker.
There’s a whole host of marvellous characters.
And a bunch of crazy.
The misadventures crescendo into a frenzy, with laugh out loud moments as well as gasps of ‘eek’!
Wonderfully written, we get all the sights and smells of Leeds, and not always as you know it.
The world-building is masterful. The humour delightfully dry and witty. The creatures fantastically outrageous.
A curious, quirky, cosy!
A full 5* from me.
What an adventure! Callum and Gobbelino were out of control and doing all they could to keep up with catching up. A grand day out adventure in finding and fixing the “challenge” of the book. Love how they have a great team up and yet still manage to find and escape trouble. Great storyline kept me interested in the next page and the characters were too funny but spot on with the story. Does cause cravings for lots of tea.
Gobbelino is a PI in a run-down part of Leeds with his partner, a slightly-magical human named Callum. Gobs has most of the magic in the duo, although he’s limited in what he can use due to some unfortunate run-ins with The Watch, the paranormal law keepers. They don’t have much business or money, so jump at the chance of a big paycheck when a woman shows up and wants them to “acquire” a book that’s been stolen from her, no questions asked. They don’t know it’s evil until they see it, and then everything hits the fan. The book gives the feel of the old noir Raymond Chandler novels, except with a lot of humor. Even with the humor, the suspense is there and I read the last hundred or so pages without stopping. A great beginning to a series and I’d like to apologize to the author for putting off reading and reviewing it for so long. On to the next!
If there’s a book out there that matches my own snarky humor better than this book, please don’t give it to me to read because I might just wet my pants. And no one wants to see that.
Besides the humor, there’s a talking cat who can’t quite seem to get his idioms correct, a touch of paranormal mystery, and plenty of tea…what more could I want? Okay, a great story, whip-crack dialogue, and a cast of unforgettable characters. And Watt managed to deliver all that in a terrific package.
If I had to find any fault, I’d say maybe the jungle fight scene toward the end went a bit long (I mean, I was eager to find out what was going to happen and the jungly madness just kept coming!), but it didn’t detract in any way from the overall enjoyment of the novel as a whole.
I will definitely be diving into the next book in the series soon!
I fell in love with Ms. Watt’s cozies so as soon as I saw this new series I had to read it. It’s very different in tone and content but the humor, the sense of absurdity is still alive and well in Gobbelino London’s story. I laughed all through the book (the butler toward the end had me in giggles) and Gobbelino came across so real it was spooky. Yes, real cats don’t talk (at least in front of us) but the author wrote a perfectly believable feline as anyone who has ever been around cats will recognize. The whole story reminded me of Jasper Fjorde’s stories (which I love) with all the zany characters and situations. Ms. Watt you have a dazzling imagination. Please, keep writing these fabulous (and extremely well written) stories.