Johnee's Reviews > Running Close to the Wind

If you read this book and didn’t find it funny, we can’t be friends. This was an utter delight of a story, which felt both rambunctious and cozy, with characters that will have you both gasping and endeared to with each turn of the page.

At first, I wasn’t too sure about our main character Avra as he came off instantaneously annoying. However, there was something about his annoyingness, which I started to enjoy and found that this is evidently part of his charm (as this has the same affect on the characters he interacts with.)

I know this story is comp’d as “You’ll love this if you loved Our Flag Means Death” and I truly now want to retry watching the show again. I didn’t jive with the show in the first 20 mins but perhaps it’s going to be similar to how I felt about Avra?

Regardless, the story comes across as high stakes, but in actuality is mid to low stakes, and by golly, the last third is about a cake competition. I’m bewildered by how silly and laugh-out-loud funny this story, in juxtaposition to how well the story is actually written. The prose astonished me at times, especially when it’s dialogue coming from our ridiculously annoying and charming Avra.

For my first Alexanda Rowland book, I’m a huge fan of her writing in this and excited to dig into A Taste of Gold and Iron at some point.