not gonna lie i was really excited to read this one and it didn't wholly meet my expectations.

the story is set in Edinburgh following various people in various times throughout the 1900s around WWII. it was sort of like a series of short stories where each chapter was a different person but they were all connected through living in Luckenbooth which a tenement building that used to exist in the middle of the Royal Mile next to St Giles. The outline of this building still exists today in gold bricks marking the foundation. While that is a fascinating origin for a historical fiction and I found the characters and writing style interesting the book was a bit slow for me. Because each chapter is almost a completely random person in this building, in different flats and occasionally different times, I found it hard to keep track of who was where, when. In the end they all tie together sort of but overall it just seemed like each chapter was a new person and nothing really mattered. I honestly could not tell you any of the character's names or recall how many there are or what each one did.

In general, the story was very queer which was fun and it felt like it was really showing a microcosm of different Edinburgh cultures using slang and different speech patterns but overall I felt lost. It also didn't help that the author is one of those writers who doesn't use quotation or speech signifiers to tell you who is speaking. (I could mostly understand who was talking but there were many times I just knew two people were talking and that's it) I think the lack of standard quotations really affected my ability to connect with the characters and follow the story since I couldn't tell the characters apart.


It also had a magical/demon plot line and a 'Edinburgh's effects from WWII' plot line throughout but it just sorta seemed like too much was going on. I think maybe this would make a good tv show.

The concept is really interesting but overall it was eh and I wouldn't really recommend it.