High Times in the Low Parliament

- Kelly Robson

Goodreads Book Blurb:

Lana Baker is Aldgate’s finest scribe, with a sharp pen and an even sharper wit. Gregarious, charming, and ever so eager to please, she agrees to deliver a message for another lovely scribe in exchange for kisses and ends up getting sent to Low Parliament by a temperamental fairy as a result.

As Lana transcribes the endless circular arguments of Parliament, the debates grow tenser and more desperate. Due to long-standing tradition, a hung vote will cause Parliament to flood and a return to endless war. Lana must rely on an unlikely pair of comrades—Bugbite, the curmudgeonly fairy, and Eloquentia, the bewitching human deputy—to save humanity (and maybe even woo one or two lucky ladies), come hell or high water.

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My Review:

***Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for an eARC of this book. The following review is my honest reflection on the text provided.

enjoyable/easy to read:
3.5/5
I enjoyed this quirky novella, but there isn’t a lot of depth to it.

Lana trudged beside the glassed-over drain coursing down the middle of Cheap, watching the filthy water rush to the sump at the foot of Cornhill. Now her ambitions were going the same way. What ambitions, one might ask? Well, Lana might have dug some up eventually, given soft soil and a sharp enough spade.
The landlady of the Twin Pumps had been right, after all. Kisses had doomed her. And romantic as she was, Lana couldn't pretend they'd been worth it.

I was hoping to see some growth from Lana. She gets herself into this deadly predicament because she’s a massive flirt with no aspirations that doesn’t take anything seriously. She ends the book exactly the same way. I appreciated her positive outlook on life, but it’s pretty easy to stay positive when all you care about is getting high and flirting.

It's fair to say that Lana had never worked hard to understand anything before.
Why should she? Life was good. Girls were pretty, ale tasty, and work light. Maybe she didn't make her family's life any easier, but she didn't make it much harder, and any problems she caused were leavened by her bright smile and cheery temper. When others caused trouble, they doubled it with grumbling and grudges. Not Lana.

I wish there had been more explained about this world. For an entirely female world, I have no idea why or how some became mothers, and the word mother was used in many ways that didn’t always make sense. Why were the fairies in charge but not in charge, how did their powers work, and why were they so uneasy and unhappy all the time? The different nationalities seemed based on our world, as did some locations mentioned but in an entirely unrecognisable way.
And the ‘solution’ in the end seems to have been one that should’ve been reached immediately, not because of a dance…
I finished High Times in the Low Parliament with more questions than I started

High Times in the Low Parliament is a fun read if you treat it like Lana would – entirely superficial without asking too many questions.

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