Unfortunately, all of these good premises are let down by indifferent writing. The first problem I encountered whilst trying to read the book was that Brooks swapped between first and third person narratives in alternating chapters. I’m not a big fan of this sort of technique. You need to be a really good writer to pull it off and, sadly, Karen Brooks is not such a writer.

First person narrative is indeed more challenging to write. When it works, such as in Zelazny’s and Brust’s work, it’s brilliant. However, I feel that the narrator must be someone interesting. Sadly, Tallow isn’t interesting. She comes across as a particularly clueless individual, which isn’t helped by a particularly stunning plot twist early on that, upon reflection, makes no sense whatsoever.

The book isn’t unreadable, but it managed to fail to retain my interest. It’s currently sitting half-read next to my table. Meanwhile, I’ve just finished the first of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn books again and I’m into the second. The two series have some points of correspondence, but Sanderson’s work is greatly superior. Lots of strong, interesting characters I want to spend time with; in Tallow, most of the characters are quite unpleasant and weak.

So, I don’t recommend Tallow. There are better new (and old) books out there.