10 Reasons to Read The Diviners

In lieu of writing a review for King of Crows, since it’s kind of overdue at this point, I’m going to list ten reasons why you should read the Diviners series, one of my all-time favorite series.

1. It’s an incredibly diverse look at 1920s America, particularly New York City. We have characters from all backgrounds, including LGBT+ characters of many different kinds. This succeeds at showing the multitude of lives that have lived in America for so long: it wasn’t just straight white people in 1920 like the media would tell us. Moreover, it addresses topics like eugenics, which are barely even addressed today.
2. It’s paranormal historical fiction! So, that means if you like historical fiction and you like fantasy, you’d like this wonderful combination of the two!
3. It has an absolutely splendid cast of characters. We have…the cocky male who’s a softie beneath layers of arrogance (Sam), the fun and quirky main character (Evie), her strong and incredible best friend (Theta), and Theta’s best friend who is the most kind-hearted in the whole series (Henry). And it doesn’t even stop there.
4. There are…and I say…speakeasies.
5. There’s dream-walking? Albeit only in book two forward, but you’ve got to get far enough to appreciate how incredible this plot line is.
6. There’s lots of fake-dating, surprisingly, and I know that gets a lot of you guys going 😉
7. It’s incredibly well-written, like gives me chills well-written. Reading this series is like being transported to another world entirely and Libba Bray is deserving all of the respect for her writing alone.
8. Poetry and music play a large role with some of the main characters. It shows a glimmer of the Harlem music scene, African-American poetry, blues music from the South, and more, and it’s all done SO WELL.
9. There are so many lovely couples to ship and so many lovely friendships to support. For large-cast books, it really doesn’t get better than this, honestly. Also the solidarity between Henry and Ling…so worth getting to the end of the series for.
10. Before the Devil Breaks You. It’s worth it for the third book. Honest to god, even if you don’t love the first two, try to make it to the third. Before the Devil Breaks You blows The Diviners and Lair of Dreams out of the water. It’s absolutely incredible. And if you can’t even get through that, in the least read the author’s note at the end. It gave me shivers.

This is a book about ghosts. For we live in a haunted house.”

-Book Hugger