Gather the Fortunes

By Bryan Camp

The exciting sequel to the stunning debut, The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp.

Renaissance Raines has found her place among the psychopomps – the guides who lead the souls of the recently departed through the Seven Gates of the Underworld – and done her best to avoid the notice of gods and mortals alike. But when a young boy named Ramses St. Cyr manages to escape his foretold death, Renaissance finds herself at the center of a deity-thick plot unfolding in New Orleans. Someone helped Ramses slip free of his destined end – someone willing to risk everything to steal a little slice of power for themselves.

Is it one of the storm gods that’s descended on the city? The death god who’s locked the Gates of the Underworld? Or the manipulative sorcerer who also cheated Death? When she finds the schemer, there’s gonna be all kinds of hell to pay, because there are scarier things than death in the Crescent City. Renaissance Raines is one of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Titan Books
• Release date: May 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789091236

Bryan Camp

BRYAN CAMP is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop and the University of New Orleans’s MFA program. He started his first novel, The City of Lost Fortunes, in the back seat of his parents’ car as they evacuated the Crescent City during Hurricane Katrina.

Reviews for Gather the Fortunes

[shrike58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Having finally gotten around to reading this novel, two thoughts come to mind. One, I regret not reading it sooner, as this is really excellent story, as one follows the destiny of Renaissance Raines, the young woman who was "fridged" in the author's first novel, only to be resurrected as a guide to the dead, and who now finds herself stuck with the problem of a person who has dodged their own destiny with death. Two, I hope that there's more from Camp in the future, as I found it very emotionally satisfying. About the only thing that I can mark this book down for is that there is a little too much misdirection, but without all the misdirection the story just wouldn't work.

[thegenreminx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Once again, this series transports the reader to a magical New Orleans that is vividly detailed and fully immersive. You can really lose yourself in the city that is described in this book. Not to mention all of the original characters that you will find between its pages, there is a lot to love about this novel. The main character, Renaissance Raines, was introduced in book one of the Crescent City series, The City of Lost Fortunes, and I would absolutely recommend that you read the first book in this series before jumping into this one. You could read Gather the Fortunes as a standalone but I wouldn’t suggest it.In this story, Renai has only vague memories of her life before she became a psychopomp, what she does know is that she feels confused and broken in her endless cycle of days. Regardless of her feelings, she has a job to do and that is to act as a guide who leads the dead to one of the underworld gates where they can truly start their journey. Although, before she is able to lead the recently departed to their starting destination, her biggest responsibility is to take apart their human life, dividing it into Fortune, Voice, and Essence so that parts could be used for their journey. I loved how this division is completed, it is both cool and kind of gross but definitely creative.Even though Renai should have been satisfied with her current duties, she felt like she wanted more. With the Hallows around the corner, Renai was going to be as busy as ever and that is where her mind should have been focused. Unfortunately, a run in with a mysterious man tantalizes her with a choice to make that hits a little too close to home for her to ignore. Renai finds that in order to unravel the mystery of not only her situation but also as to what was taking place in the underworld, she would need to find the one soul who got away and make sure that everything was made right before the Hallows ended otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable.The writing in Gather the Fortunes was as wonderful and descriptive as I had expected. Renai continued to be a great character and the part she had to play in this story was terrific. I liked that Jude Dubuisson, from book one, played a part in this story as well. What I wasn’t a fan of was that, although the story had many great and interesting elements, I felt like it dragged in sections. It had its moments of excitement but I did not feel compelled to stay in the story as I had in the first book which was not what I was expecting. Overall though, if you love New Orleans, magic, and mythology then Gather the Fortunes is a story that I would recommend to you.This review is based on a complimentary book I received from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is an honest and voluntary review. The complimentary receipt of it in no way affected my review or rating.