This was an easy 5 stars for me!

I enjoyed this book from the very first page and flew through the pages. This is a fantasy set in a small, dark town in the woods surrounded by a poisonous mist.

The world is not very large. The entire story takes place in the small town of Blunder. In fact, not only does the entire story occur there, but none of the residents of Blunder can leave, owing to the mist that surrounds the town. You follow Elspeth Spindle as she tries to navigate this dark town, hiding secrets of her own. There were also only a small cast of characters - appropriate for book this length - all with family names of trees. Servants were mentioned so I assume that the reason it feels like there are not many people in the town is because only the elite or noble families are mentioned but it isn't super clear if the servants also belong to these tree families. Honestly, the setting gave me Rd Riding Hood (the 2011 film with Amanda Seyfried) vibes.

Moving on to the magic. I am pretty flexible when it comes to my magic systems. Hard rules, soft rules, generic, innovative, I don't really mind. Gillig has definitely come up with something innovative here though. Her magic system is inspired by card games and revolves around what she calls providence cards that give the characters different and unique powers.

 As for the characters, as I said, there was only a small cast of main characters, and you only follow the perspective of Elspeth, but they all felt unique and their interactions with each other genuine.

Finally, the plot was mysterious, intriguing and fast paced - I couldn't put it down. I'm just unhappy that I have to join everyone else in waiting for October 19th for the next book...

If you are undecided about picking this book up - do it!