Review: The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb

The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb, author of A Certain Slant of Light, is a 'supernatural romance'. It's about Calder who is a Fetch - he fetches the souls of the dead and escorts them to heaven. At one death scene he visits he falls for a women he sees there, and breaks all the rules by making the rash decision of going backwards through Heaven and occupying the body of a living person in pursuit of her.

While The Fetch is marketed as a supernatural romance, that is a bit of an over simplification. When Calder goes from Heaven to Earth he comes out during the chaos of the Russian Revolution, in Rasputin's body! So the book is a sort of cross between historical fiction and the supernatural. I really enjoyed this historical aspect of the novel. It was really interesting! Calder ends up taking Anastasia and Alexis Romanov all around the world so the book gives a look at the world during the early 20th Century.

'Time is not the same everywhere. On earth it is as constant as the planets pulling against one another in their dance around the sun, but in the Aisle of Unearthing time stops and starts, stretches, and flies forward depending on how many earthlings are dying at any given hour.'

It was a long book with a very well-developed plot line. When I first started reading it I thought it was just going to be a basic story - Calder goes to Earth, gets the girl, goes back. But it went much further past that and then further again! Fantastic!

The writing was beautiful and poetic. And the ideas explored were thought-provoking. I recommend you go have a read of The Fetch if you're at all into historical fiction, anything supernatural or just after a good read. I didn't think there was a great deal of romance in the book, so that could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you like!

Also, for those who are interested in book design. The edges of the pages are all rough and uneven - Lemony Snicket style, I suppose to give the book an old/authentic look. I don't know?! It's fun though.

I give The Fetch 4/5 stars :) Also, I asked Laura Whitcomb some questions about the book and I'll be putting them up tonight, so check back!