Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Published: Bindery Books, October 2024
My Rating: 2.5/5 stars
"It’s strange how grief works. I was content, walking these strange cobblestone streets, but then here you are. You lurk everywhere. You’re in my thoughts. You’re in my heart, so I cannot help but to find you everywhere."
Cozy fantasy is hit or miss for me, yet when it hits it hits, and I was fully expecting House of Frank to do just that. A warm-hearted story of found family, grief, hope and finding comfort in small things, set at a magical arboretum; sign me up!
Unfortunately, despite its wonderful elements and promising premise, the execution didn’t live up to my self-imposed hype…
The Story:
We follow Saika, a witch stripped of her magical powers in the wake of a tragic series of events that cost her beloved sister her life. Consumed by her grief, she leaves with nothing but the clothes on her back to travel to the famous Ash Gardens, where she plans to lay her sisters ashes to rest. When Saika arrives at the always-stormy sanctuary, she is welcomed by its owner, an enormous, knit-cardiganed mythical beast named Frank, who offers her a role as one of the estate’s caretakers. Accepting any chance to put off her final goodbye to her sister, Saika accepts and is taken in by the colourful “family” of staff at the Ash Gardens. Soon she realizes that not everything is as magical as it seems; from Franks increasing forgetfulness to the decay that threatens to break their very house down. Saika must unravel the mysteries in order to prevent losing the life and family she’s just beginning to build for herself.
What I loved:
As mentioned, there are plenty of individual elements to love here. A tender story of grief and healing made a little less “heavy” by a good helping of magic and whimsy: yes please. A cast of wonderfully diverse characters, all with backstories of their own, creating a patchwork found-family: absolutely! Set amongst magical greenhouses, functioning as the final resting places for the ashes of loved ones: brilliant! The issue wasn’t the concepts, but the fact that many of them didn’t make it past the “concept-stage”; they simply lacked development.
House of Frank sure has its moments, especially when it comes to Saika. The portrayal of her grief over her sister felt authentic. It’s not easy to make a reader care for a relationship with a character we’ve never actually seen on page, but Synclair manages that well. Similarly, there are some endearing moments between Oli and Saika (fans of sunshine-grumpy-romances will adore these two), and Saika and Frank. If you’re able to enjoy the story on just that surface level, enjoying the ambience and “aesthetics” only; you might have a great experience. Unfortunately, when you give it more than a passing thought, things crumble faster than the walls of Franks house.
What I didn’t love:
Underdevelopment is the keyword here, which I’ll explain by 3 hallmarks of a good (fantasy) book (story, characters, worldbuilding) and finally a small spoiler-section on the resulting plotholes.
First things first, the story is less than wafer-thin. It’s a McGuffin-hunt for a magical fallen star that will magically solve all the problems around The House. The plot is driven mostly by “time-to-falling-star”, rather than characters actions, which makes for a very passive story. The few actions the characters do take often feel out of left field, lacking decent character motivation.
Speaking of which: the characters. Apart from Saika and Frank, they exist to make for a cute and whimsical ensemble, but are little more than window-dressing. There are “grumpy elf”, “magical-grandpa-like-beast-who-wears-knit-cardigans”, “semi-invisible-ghost-with-bowler-hat”, and “pair-of-cherubs-who-constantly-bicker”. Sounds more like character-prompts than actual characters, right? That quickly becomes a problem when your story hinges so much on found-family and character relationships. We’re told to root for this bunch and think of them as a tight-knit and cozy community, but what we actually see is often the opposite. For a “family” there is surprisingly little love and surprisingly much indifference on display here. Many of the characters have a clear problem that Saika must solve for them throughout the story. Except all of these problems should’ve been solved easily by other “family-members”, if only they’d shown a single grain of attention and care for each other. E.g. It’s clear very early on that patriarch Frank suffers from memory-issues (and has for a long time!), yet I’m supposed to believe that all of his “family members” have just shrugged this off and offered him no help whatsoever. Same for Phil: he’s a mute ghost who’s made it abundantly clear that he wants to communicate something to the rest of them. Yet everyone just ignores, dismisses him or even laughs at his antics. How is this a family I’m supposed to root for?
Thirdly there’s the worldbuilding. I’m not expecting a Brandon-Sanderson level epic from a cozy-standalone, but still… I want something more than “just roll with it”.
We barely get an impression of the immediate setting. I was excited for the descriptions of the house (just look at that cover) or the gardens, but was left so disappointed. There’s also no rhyme or reason to the magical creatures or their powers. From the cherubs to the ghost in the bowler-hat: they’re there because the author thought they were cute. The issue with that is that it creates massive plot holes along the way.
Beware spoilers ahead:
Poor Phil is the accumulation of all this novels plot-holes combined. When death and grief are your novels central themes, introducing a ghost is a big deal. Why is Phil a ghost who lingers beyond death, yet other deceased characters are not? we learn that he used to be a human, in fact: a close friend to Frank and some others in the house. That makes it even more unbelievable that his “family” would treat his ghost with so much indifference, and don’t even attempt to give him tools to communicate with them. It’s shown he can open locks and move cutlery: give the man a pen and paper and let him speak!
Of course, that would spoil the mystery that Saika needs to solve, which hinges on him and his knowledge specifically. Yet again; as he’s shown to be able to manipulate objects (locks/boxes/cutlery) just fine: Phil shouldn’t have needed Saika in the first place!!
Final note: Death as a character makes NO sense in this story. His deals are ridiculous and benefit no-one. In combination with the presence of the ghosts and cherubs, it became increasingly clear that there’s no thought behind the way the afterlife works in this world…
End of spoiler-section
This novel takes clear inspiration from other cozy fantasies like The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Unfortunately for it, I’d recommend any of them over this title.
Many thanks to Bindery Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
You can find this book here on Goodreads.
