Crown of Veils

There are books that tell you about loss and there are books that make you inhale it. Crown of Veils does the latter. From the first scrape of Neris’s blade to the last exhalation she gives to bind bones, the prose hums like mycelium under stone. I keep thinking about the small scenes: Aunt Salai’s fingers, scarred from net-mending, tightening on Neris’s sleeve; the vent that ‘sighed blue’ at dawn; the moment the fungus hisses into the glass vial like a small ghost complaining. These images accumulate into a living map of Gharum — salt-splintered, beautiful and terrible. The mycelial mind is not only a plot device but a mirror for Neris’s own interior: both are networks of memory and sacrifice. The matriarch’s plan to wake the leviathan reads like an old, dangerous superstition given new machinery, and the showdown in the catacombs is as claustrophobic as it is elegiac. Neris’s final choice — to give up her breath to bind bones — felt inevitable and honestly painful in the best way. This is a story about how cities survive on hidden breathing things and the quiet people who keep them alive. I left it with a lump in my throat and a fierce admiration for a protagonist who learns the true cost of keeping a place breathing.

There’s a lot to admire in Crown of Veils — the sensory details, the eerie mycological imagery, and Neris herself as a sympathetic, curious protagonist. Lines like 'nets hung like gray lace' and the glass vial’s soft hiss are the kind of writing that pulls me right into a scene. But I’m left with niggling frustrations. The worldbuilding sometimes assumes more than it explains: how exactly the luminous fungus 'keeps the city breathing' is evocative but vague, and key mechanics (like the ritual/logic behind binding bones by giving up breath) feel only sketched-in rather than earned. The matriarch antagonist is menacing but leans on familiar trope beats — ruthless leader who wants a world-devouring beast — without enough unique motive. Also, some pacing issues: the opening hums along, the descent into the undercity is promising, but the middle stalls with exposition dumps (Marlo’s appearance and the guild politics felt a touch clunky) and the resolution felt abrupt. Still, the prose and central themes — sacrifice, stewardship, the porous boundary between life and city — held my interest. With a little more tightening around the plot and clearer stakes, this could have been a standout.

I finished Crown of Veils in one sitting and felt like I had been breathing salt and moonlight for hours. The opening scene — Neris scraping glowing hyphae with that copper blade, the fungus hissing into the vial — grabbed me immediately. The writing is tactile: you can feel the rough mortar, taste the brine on her knuckles, and hear Aunt Salai warning about the vent that 'sighed blue.' What I loved most was the relationship between Neris and the mycelial mind. It’s handled with tenderness and a slow, uncanny intimacy that never feels like a throwaway fantasy gimmick. The stakes, too — the matriarch’s obsession with waking the leviathan, the undercity catacombs, and Neris’s ultimate sacrifice of her own breath to bind bones — all carry real emotional weight. The scene where she offers her breath is heartbreaking and brave; it made the whole book about breathing and belonging in the most literal way. This is dark fantasy done right: rooted in worldbuilding, full of mood, and centered on a female protagonist who grows into her courage without losing her fear. Highly recommended if you like atmospheric, slightly grotesque, and deeply human tales.

I wanted to like Crown of Veils more than I did. There’s a cool hook — a mycologist protagonist, luminous fungi, and an oppressive harbor city — but the execution felt oddly familiar. The matriarch-as-villain and the 'wake-the-leviathan' plotline tread too close to standard dark-fantasy beats without subverting them. By the time we hit the catacombs I was waiting for surprises that never really showed up. Specifics: the scene where Neris scrapes the fungus and puts it in a vial is nicely written, and Aunt Salai’s warning about the vent sighing blue is atmospheric, but the middle sections drag. The relationship with the mycelial mind is intriguing but underexplored — we get hints of depth, then hop to the next threat. And the big emotional moment, Neris sacrificing her breath to bind bones, landed with less punch than it should have because we didn’t get enough buildup to feel its full weight. If you like atmospheric concepts and don’t mind some predictable plot turns, this will do. If you want your dark fantasy to surprise you, this one might feel a bit by-the-numbers.

Crown of Veils is a compact, well-crafted dark fantasy that balances strange ecology with human drama. The port of Gharum is drawn economically but vividly — the nets that 'hung like gray lace' and the procession led by Guild Inspector Marlo give the city texture without slowing the action. I appreciated the specificity: the copper blade scraping hyphae, the glass vial’s soft hiss, Aunt Salai’s eelgrass shawl. Plotwise it’s tight: Neris breaks a ban, goes into the catacombs, bonds with a mycelial mind, and faces a matriarch intent on awakening a leviathan. The moral core — the sacrifice of breath to bind bones and save her home — lands because the author invests in her choices and small moments of doubt (the rattling window, the vent sighing blue). If you’re into ecological horror and forlorn urban fantasy, this is an efficient, satisfying read. The pacing is brisk but controlled, and the blend of science-y mycology with mythic stakes felt fresh.