TW: First Born

Next up, Gwen and Rhys and the baby makes three. In First Born by James Goss. [In his Acknowledgements, James thanks RTD for advice about breastfeeding... I really do not want to know more about that conversation...]

Gwen and Rhys are hiding out with baby Anwen, and they are doing so in the isolated village of Rawbone. The inhabitants want children, but have none of their own. Instead they have Scions. ...and that's stretched out over 200 pages. The last 50 pages pretends to have something happen, but it's resolved without anyone needing to do anything, least of all the supposed heroes of the story.

Which, as you might be able to guess, is the problem. Very little happens in this book, and most of the story is around Gwen and Rhys dealing with Anwen. Which doesn't make for exciting reading. And yet... it is most of the book! And the village (for story reasons) is all about Anwen too!

I don't think James is a first time father when he wrote this, but it wouldn't take much to convince me of it. Clearly he enjoyed writing this book far more than I did reading it.

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