Book review: The Barrow Will Send What it May

The Barrow Will Send What it May (Danielle Cain #2), by Margaret Killjoy

Please note that this is a sequel and you might get spoiled if you keep reading further and haven’t read the first book yet. My review for the first book can be found here.

Description: (from Tor Dot Com Publishing )

Margaret Killjoy’s Danielle Cain series is a dropkick-in-the-mouth anarcho-punk fantasy that pits traveling anarchist Danielle Cain against eternal spirits, hypocritical ideologues, and brutal, unfeeling officers of the law. The story continues with The Barrow Will Send What it May.

Now a nascent demon-hunting crew on the lam, Danielle and her friends arrive in a small town that contains a secret occult library run by anarchists and residents who claim to have come back from the dead. When Danielle and her crew investigate, they are put directly in the crosshairs of a necromancer’s wrath — whose actions threaten to trigger the apocalypse itself.

Expected publication: April 3rd 2018.
A review copy (eARC) of this book was provided by the publisher. Some things might change in the final copy.

Good news everyone, this sequel was everything I wanted it to be!

Running away from the events of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, the gang is now on the road looking to do it again, by which I mean using what they know of the occult to hunt demons and spirits. You got it, this is a bit of a Supernatural-like story but more inclusive with a good cast of queer anarchist characters.

“She had a claw hammer in her hand. No, wait. Both hands. She had a claw hammer in each hand, it’s just that only one of the two was raised. Instant friend-crush.”

I loved to get to know every characters even better, how some relationships were explored more and the romance moved on slowly just like I like it.
The whole story, while dealing with some very serious events and dark turns, still manages to be hilarious, which is one of my favourite kind of thing. I highlighted A LOT of quotes that had me on the floor laughing, or even some quotes that were deep and relatable.
I also loved all the tvshows references, like Xena or Star Trek, and all the book talk, instagram talk, dinosaur talk…

Like in the first book, Danielle experiences panic attacks and talks about it, in a way I had never read before and just for that I would recommend these books.

Fighting demons, staying in the coolest library ever, meeting new people in a very small town, creepy feels, necromancy and maybe the apocalypse: this novella is a worthy sequel that I loved with all my heart. This was a 5/5 with zero hesitation.

“We talked about friends in common who weren’t dead or missing. The state of the anarchist movement and its role in fighting the rise of fascism and nationalism globally. Then, more interesting to me, the state of magic.”

I am ready for a dozen more adventures on this series, so far this is a perfect score on these two titles and I’m sold on anything Margaret Killjoy has to offer next.

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Content warnings: car crash, death, murder, violence, mention of cancer