earthflown review (and spoiler summary review)

So one of the reasons I thought it would be fun to start this blog was so I could have a space to write long reviews. And spoiler reviews. Because -don't get me wrong, I love re-reading my favourite books- sometimes I just want a refresher before reading the next book in a series. Technically while Earthflown is listed as a series, per the author the sequel is going to be a standalone in the same world. But here's my review!

After the review I'll include a spoiler summary and quick notes on the major players and terminology in this world. ;) Feel free to skip to whichever section is most relevant to you.

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One part dark and gritty crime noir with nefarious individuals, and one part charming love story; I really enjoyed Earthflown by Frances Wren. 

The world is interesting and the setting ends up playing a large part of the book. Most scenes take place against a backdrop filled with shadows and dripping water, the glow of a streetlight nearby. There’s a contrast between the extreme opulence of the Arden family and the way they take so many luxuries for granted with infinite time to pursue any whim, versus the take-out containers and powdered food packets with cramped and messy rooms, everyone else struggling to make time to connect to each other in their overworked schedules.

Though it’s atmospheric, there were a few world-building details that didn’t fully work for me. I’m not sure if it’s a case of limited information given to the reader, how the explanation was provided, or my own real-world knowledge and biases, but I found the politics particularly confusing and muddled. Apart from the opening scene, the 64thers really didn’t play a pivotal role or impact the story in any way, which seemed odd for a supposedly threatening activist group nearing election time. The elections and votes and propositions/bills were also pretty unclear and under-developed, with a lot of guesswork and assumptions on my end to fill in the gaps.

But that’s mostly because, at its heart, this story is about the romance between doctor Ethan Faulkner and Javier Arden. Jav is a very over the top cinnamon roll, sending an entire room’s worth of flowers to Ethan to apologize for his outbursts (their meet-cute could’ve gone better for sure) and convince him to go to dinner. It’s a little gross to use such extravagant wealth and impracticality, but likewise totally earnest and coming from a place that means well. And given how apathetic and jaded Ethan is, I think it was a needed push to start chipping away at his many defensive walls.

Jav’s earnestness continues throughout their relationship, as he does everything in his best effort to meet Ethan where he’s at. It becomes clear that he’s a people pleaser, which may or may not be due to his strong empathic ability and the fact that empathic reception is much harder to block and likely plays into his daily decisions, but also fundamentally shaped who he was as he grew up and learned to manage his ability. Though that empathy also provides their largest relationship obstacle in two ways: a secret festering between them, and Javier’s unwillingness to have sex (without Ethan’s knowledge of his empathy, he cannot obtain full consent).

Only on rare occasions did I want to shake these two dummies, as most of the time I was just smiling at my screen. The scene at the sushi restaurant was so adorable and I want the sushi chef to get as many cameos as he can in subsequent books!

The tension of what’s going on in the background and whether or not the crimes will escalate maintains constant interest and investment for the reader, but the romance keeps the tone lighter and introduces moments of levity. It also allows for more human connections and higher stakes in coming to care for those characters.

I should note that I read the Kindle Unlimited edition of this book, and due to formatting constraints the ebook doesn’t have any of the illustrations. But it’s clear that the author took a lot of care and treated this novel as their book baby, as not only did they commission 60 illustrations for the book, but also spent a lot of time uploading them onto their website. There are even chapter heading gifs!

I’m still deciding if I’d like to purchase a copy for myself because I really enjoyed the book and could imagine re-reading it in future, but what if maybe I’m just being swayed by the temptation of lovely art? 😅 Though I really love supporting authors, I also want my home library to be a good reflection of the books I’ve loved most (and to curb my consumerism habits). Jury’s still out!

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SPOILERS

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Earthflown (The Anatomy of Water, Book 1)

by Frances Wren

The book opens with Corinna’s sole POV chapter in which she catches a thief and Sixty Fourther (Timothy Hersch) who has been stealing from Arden. With the help of her ghost, Peter, they cause Tim to overdose then stage and leave his body to be found with the evidence to weave the narrative they want. On leaving, Corinna is unexpectedly shot by a sniper and she falls to the ground. She’s expecting the second shot and manages to use her abilities as a Firestarter to cause the gun to backfire on her assailant, thus killing them. Peter has emergency services take her to the nearest hospital (and one she doesn’t want to go to) in order to save her life.

At the hospital, Ethan’s on shift as the only Healer and we quickly learn that he frequently overworks himself. Healers are a valuable and rare commodity– his hospital only has 3 including himself. But because of their abilities, they can overwork themselves to the point of death. To mitigate this, they wear visors to display their exhaustion levels and their colleagues can intervene when they work too hard to make sure they don’t pass their threshold and die. It’s a traffic light system where green is good and red is dead, and Ethan is frequently operating at the upper levels of yellow (aka amber). 

Ethan is already on the end of a tough shift when Corinna comes to his hospital (deep into amber) and in the process of healing her flesh and reconstructing her lung that was punctured by the bullet, he goes into red and nearly passes out. After being pushed out of the OR, he ends up in the lobby where Corinna’s twin Javier is fretting about the lack of information. Ethan helps him -noting that his own empathy is going a little haywire- and then kind of gives him a talking to since he’s at the end of his rope and Jav’s being a rich douche. He tells Jav that Corinna isn’t stable enough to be moved without endangering her condition.

Then we jump to Oliver who is a newshound and not very good at respecting boundaries. He calls Vegas to get more details on the incident (Vegas is both his ex-girlfriend and Ethan’s friend/fellow doctor). He found the overdosed body of Timothy Hersch on Level 4 and started piecing together more than he should by tagging along with the police and overhearing their conversations about the attempted assassination and a fire.

Corinna is recovering in a private hospital and she and Giulia want Javier to play nice with the doctors and smooth things over. They’re trying to manipulate headlines in their favor so they can control the narrative and what stays in the popular consciousness, but are also aware of Ethan’s connections and see Javier as a chess piece. So Jav starts sending Ethan flowers (a very flashy and controversial gift, given the water crisis and how much water flowers need to do nothing more than briefly look pretty) and eventually gets him to agree to a dinner (aka a date). Meanwhile the siblings are fabricating and covering evidence as needed to shape Rina’s perceived innocence and cover up her involvement in the murder she took part in shortly before being shot at.

Ethan and Jav’s relationship develops as they see each other more. Ollie and Vegas get back together (and he’s very surprised and suspicious to find Jav hanging around Vegas and Ethan, as he immediately recognizes any Ardens from his years of CM15 reporting). Rina and Peter spend more and more time together causing a distance and unease with Javier, with Rina publicly dating Charlie Langley to appease the Langley family (Langley does most of the logistics for Arden and is also involved in covering up their nefarious activities). Timothy Hersch’s father was suspicious that his son was murdered and commissions Ollie’s help, but ends up dying from “alcohol poisoning” which Ollie suspects is covering up another murder. 

Eventually Jav finds out that Ethan’s dad is Ian Garner (who has been on the glass/CM15 beat for decades) and learns that that’s why Rina had wanted him to cozy up to Ethan, but by then his heart is already too involved. This is also when Nick, Ethan's "no strings" partner of two years, finds out that Ethan has a new boyfriend and didn't even consider their relationship to be involved enough to shoot him a text. Nick's pretty put out about it and ends up taking Ollie's advice to block Ethan and move on. By chance, Ollie discovers that the fancy cufflinks that Javier wears have a biometric sensor and are actually empath suppressors (there’s some chance they were sold as dampeners, but because they’re short range and only likely to affect the wearer, Ollie suspects Jav is an empath).

For the most part, things are quiet as everyone falls into their domestic routines. Jav and Ethan still continue to date– they meet each other’s parents, meet Jav’s friends at the ballet, attend a wedding together, disclose Jav’s empathy, and generally progress their relationship. Charles Langley makes a public proposal that Rina can’t refuse and she’s furious about it, but she also finds out Ethan knows about Jav’s empathy and threatens to kill him to eliminate the threat to her brother’s secret.

Corinna's behaviour also escalates as her sociopathy becomes more apparent. Before a date with Ethan, she casually drops sleeping pills in her brother's drink so he'll be knocked out while she has unscrupulous company over. Unaware that Ethan had suggested he try new pain meds, the sleeping pills have a bad interaction and he immediately has a reaction. Ethan comes in and is able to call emergency services and manages to correctly diagnose and treat Javier so he resuscitates while Corinna is completely unbothered by the life-threatening situation she introduced. She only reacts when she furiously finds out Ethan knows Jav's secret. Rina wants to kill him or at least threaten his loved ones, tries to emotionally manipulate Javier, and ultimately Jav ends up moving out temporarily to live with their older siter.

Things come to a head when Javier is at the twins' residence home alone and receives an unsolicited visit from Charles. Charles doesn't like that Rina has been giving him the slip and has grown tired of pretending to be a simpleton. He has knowledge of the underworld dealings the Ardens have been involved with, and wants to use his leverage to blackmail Rina. Charles starts threatening Javier -who had taken the meeting without his suppressors- and starts to physically assault him. Jav tries to protect himself by projecting emotions at Charles to make him go away, but only ends up both infuriating Charles and outing himself. In a panic, he makes an even bigger attempt which results in Charles tripping and falling backward down the stairs (apparently dead).

Javier calls Ethan to warn him about the goons Charles said were watching him at the hospital, but Ethan is just concerned about Jav and immediately races to his side. He tries to get through to call Nick but is blocked, so he calls Ollie as a proxy. Ollie gets a hold of Nick who immediately rushes to the scene, and starts mobilizing Vegas and Ian to make sure they're safe and aware of what's happening. As soon as Nick arrives and gets into the Arden twins' residence, there's a gunshot and then his call disconnects.

Because of Charles's threats and his knowledge of Jav's secret, he's now a liability. Rina arrived home shortly before Ethan and she's most interested in getting information from Charles, then disposing of him. Ethan is just concerned about Jav and ends up grabbing Charles's gun and shooting him between the eyes (even if his body can be revived, his brain can't be reanimated). Nick arrives just as the gun goes off and decides to take the blame since his position as a cop will better protect him from both a jail sentence and retaliation from the Langleys.

After everything that transpired and Rina's outbursts and some information coming to light, Ethan and Javier have an honest conversation about their relationship and everything that happened. They ultimately decide that regardless of how they were brought together and how much influence Jav's empathy has on their feelings, they love each other and want to stay together.

The novel ends with an Ollie POV chapter in which he finally publishes his article that he first started working on when Tim Hersch died. Though possibly ill-advised and likely to burn bridges and destroy relationships, it's implied that he's going to publish an exposé that Javier Arden is an unregistered, undisclosed empath.

The three POV characters–

Ethan Faulkner: Ethan is an overworked healer at a public hospital. He’s estranged from his father but putting in a tiny effort toward repairing the relationship, is a mess with romantic relationships and uses his busy doctor schedule to avoid getting his heart invested (and broken). He can be cynical and apathetic, especially with his high exposure to pain and death. Loves eggs.

Javier “Jav” Arden: Javier wears expensive clothing: silk shirts, pressed slacks, leather shoes, no socks. He can project emotions at others as an empath but isn’t a known/registered aptee and uses suppressors. He also takes a lot of painkillers which he has grown a tolerance to. 

Oliver “Ollie” Roskopf: Ollie is the on-again, off-again long-term boyfriend of Vegas and also a journalist who mostly reports on stories around CM15. He has destructive tendencies when chasing a story as he becomes single-minded and ends up burning bridges while digging for the truth.

Other persons and terms of interest– 

Corinna “Rina” Arden: Corinna is Javier’s twin and a firestarter. She’s cold, controlling, and manipulative. Corinna’s deeply involved in the shady side of the family’s business and works to both maintain their financial standing as well as control the narrative of their public image.

Vegas Kelsey: Vegas is the best friend and housemate and adopted sibling to Ethan. She befriended him in med school and was adopted by his father.

Ian Garner: Ian is a high ranking police officer who’s worked many years on the CM15 beat. HE is father to Ethan and adopted father to Vegas.

Nick Holt: Nick is a police officer and has been in a two year relationship with Ethan at the start of the book. However, due to Ethan’s job and relationship tendencies, they rarely do more than the occasional hook-up or text.

Arden family: Their parents are a watercaller (dad) and firestarter (mom) who specializes in editing (she really wanted a healer child). The eldest child, Giulia, is not an aptee. The twins were born with their births timed to align with Stephen Mansfield’s birth (a boy and a girl because Mansfield’s mom wouldn’t say what sex her child would be). And the youngest by an additional twelve years is Maddy; she’s a telekinetic. They own Arden Pharmaceuticals and control most of the CM15 in Britain.

Mansfield family: The Mansfields are another wealthy family that has similar and entangled business interests with the Ardens (their company is Ascenda). The parents of both families grew up as friends and intended the same for their children. Nathaniel (“Nath”) is the eldest and is a cold and suspicious person. Stephen is his effervescent younger brother who is also the best friend of Javier Arden and marrying a Chinese heiress to a fusive tech company.

Sixty Fourthers: An activist group that often stockpiles CM15 for altruism, though conservatives like to frame them as being glass traffickers. They emerged from the political fringe in recent years and their name is a reference to the 64th UN resolution on the right to safe drinking water. They have anti-CM15 and anti-Arden rhetoric that’s gaining steam.  They’ve been petitioning to lower the subsidy. 

Saint-Ophie’s Hospital/St Ophie’s Hospital: Is a level one trauma center located on Level 9. It’s where Ethan and Vegas work. When Ethan was about six years old, his mother died while working there as a healer. 

CM15: Is the compound most ubiquitously used for creating clean drinking water but also used to make glass (an addictive drug used for both therapeutic and recreational use). It’s a British invention and heavily subsidized by the government. It requires less energy than other methods of water purification, which is good since too much stored energy has the chance of triggering every firestarter in a mile radius.

Project Earthflown: A tender issued by the government that they want to retrofit Lower Levels, spruce up public services, and wean their infrastructure off of CM15 and switch to something fusive powered instead.

“Aptees”

Xu’s Scale measures the destructive risk of firestarters and telekinetics but is sometimes misapplied to other aptitudes. 

Suppressors are normally worn by people with abilities while dampeners are worn to block other people with abilities.

Firestarters: People tend to believe that firestarters are immune to any type of fire, but they’re not. Usually they can reflexively control the flames before it burns them, but they’re not invincible to it especially if caught unawares. They can feel heat (it seems that different heats feel different, eg combustion vs body heat) and taking control of it can be described as a yank.

Healers: Healers use their bare hands and use their ability to pull. Healing is instinctual and medical training is about refining those instincts. Because of the nature of their gift they can over exert themselves and become ill or even die, so they tend to wear monitors to show the danger level. Most healers are women, male healers are rare. Their healing is automatic on themselves, but a choice when they apply it to others; it’s not common etiquette for Healers to offer skin contact. 

Ghosts: They’re able to become invisible (but still have mass) and to materialize at will.

Telekinetics: Oops, none of them are really present in this book! But you can imagine what they do, I’m sure.

Notable Differences (Society): Everyone lives past 100 these days. eg Robert Langley (the head of a company that runs logistics for Arden Pharmaceuticals) is nearing his 150th birthday. Ehler-Danlos Syndrome is on the mandatory prenatal editing list in the UK (not America). Implying they live in a post-eugenics society, at least in the UK, and it’s not just the rich making designer babies but certain conditions are forcibly removed from the population.

London: A stratified city. The older the Level, the more it has CM15 infrastructure (non-chemical purification requires more energy than the Lower grids can produce). The Level numbers are related to how close to sea-level that section of the city is, with lower numbers therefore more in danger of floods.