Small Miracles charmed me with its simple, effortlessly funny story and likable characters. It's whimsical, often amusing, and there is hardly a dull moment. The text is peppered with Pratchett-esque footnotes. These fall into two categories, the first being authorial asides that raise a smile, or an eyebrow or both, for example the one about how Wilson, Nigel Robert (October 21, 2022). "Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater". The British Fantasy Society. Archived from the original on March 2, 2023 . Retrieved March 2, 2023. While companionably meeting up over a coffee, Gadriel becomes indebted to his/her non-fallen angelic bookie and sibling, Barachiel, after losing a friendly wager. Barachiel is the Angel of Good Fortune. First off I have to say that readers who are a fan of the above genre will like it more than I did.

Kudos to how Atwater approaches gender fluidity in the novel! As per many interpretations of Angels from a Christian perspective, which denotes them as not being assigned a gender in the way humans can comprehend. Atwater notes in her work, casually, Yet, true to her advanced sin metrics, Holly proves remarkably incorruptible, despite Gadriel’s initial efforts to inveigle Holly to live a little, and treat herself to some of the better things life has to offer. So Gadriel is forced to up his/her game, and use small miracles to achieve his/her ends. I have a strange love/hate relationship with Anne McCaffrey. I also devoured the Dragonriders of Pern… but I felt unaccountably betrayed when I realised she had hidden science fiction behind her dragons! I’m one of those people who eats my mashed potatoes and my vegetables separately, instead of squishing them together—so the idea of dragons in science fiction just offended some irrational, compulsive part of me, and I’ve never been able to forgive it!

Wilson, Nigel Robert (November 25, 2022). "Ten Shousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater". The British Fantasy Society. Archived from the original on March 2, 2023 . Retrieved March 5, 2023. Gadriel, the fallen angel of petty temptations, has a bit of a gambling debt. Fortunately, her angelic bookie is happy to let her pay off her debts by doing what she does best: All Gadriel has to do is tempt miserably sinless mortal Holly Harker to do a few nice things for herself. a b "Half a Soul". Publishers Weekly. March 29, 2022. Archived from the original on March 2, 2023 . Retrieved March 2, 2023.

Burkhardt, Joanna M. (December 1, 2022). "Ten Thousand Stitches". Library Journal. Archived from the original on March 3, 2023 . Retrieved March 5, 2023. When I first came up with the idea of Half a Soul , all I knew was that my main character had lost half of her soul, and that this caused her to be far less socially adept. I asked myself how best to set up a conflict around this, and obviously the Regency era seemed like the worst possible time period to be a woman who can’t read social cues. The Regency genre is also similar to classical faerie tales in many respects, with several Cinderella elements to it, so it made for a nice parallel. As soon as I’d decided on the Regency era, I bothered all of my old historical friends and found myself someone with a Regency thesis to consult—and then, the first book basically wrote itself!Atwater sold the English rights of the Regency Faerie Tales to Orbit Books, who re-released all three novels in 2022. [7] That same year, she published Small Miracles, [2] an homage to Good Omens (1990) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. [18] Writing for The New York Times, Olivia Waite recommended the novel, likening it to Pratchett's work. [19] Small Miracles won the eight edition of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. [20] Writing style and technique [ edit ] Atwater was influenced by Terry Pratchett ( pictured). Olivia Atwater writes whimsical historical fantasy with a hint of satire. She lives in Montreal, Quebec with her fantastic, prose-inspiring husband and her two cats. When she told her second-grade history teacher that she wanted to work with history someday, she is fairly certain this isn’t what either party had in mind. She has been, at various times, a historical re-enactor, a professional witch at a metaphysical supply store, a web developer, and a vending machine repairperson.