I had thought this might be fun based on the Diana Gabaldon blurb, but this was a long slog to get through. Too many characters, too many settings, and at the same time the action is very slow. And a fair amount of icky sex, in the Eyes Wide Shut vein. The main three characters are appealing, but as soon as one of them becomes interesting, he switches to another. The alchemy/fantasy scenario of the book is so complicated that it never becomes clear exactly how it works.
She’s combining a lot of elements here—gothic mystery/horror, postmodern structuring, prison drama, unreliable narrators—and it works. In all of it, she has some extremely real and memorable characters—Danny the burnt out hipster, Howie the nerd child turned successful businessman. I think a lot of books that try to work with a multi-narrative structure end up underdeveloping one of the stories. In this book, I wasn’t annoyed when she switched from one story to the other. And when the stories converged at the end, it seemed natural without having been predictable. I’ve enjoyed all of her books, and they’ve all been completely different—though she is definitely growing in scope.