Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments

Edinburgh Nights, Book 2

By: T. L. Huchu

Narrated by: Kimberly Mandindo

Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award - Finalist, Short-listed

Opening up a world of magic and adventure, Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by T. L. Huchu is the second audiobook in the Edinburgh Nights series.

Ropa Moyo’s ghost-talking practice has tanked. Desperate for money to pay bills and look after her family, she reluctantly accepts a job to look into the history of a coma patient receiving treatment at the magical private hospital Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments. The patient is a teenage schoolboy called Max Wu, and healers at the hospital are baffled by the illness which has confounded medicine and magic.

Ropa’s investigation leads her to the Edinburgh Ordinary School for Boys, one of only the four registered schools for magic in the whole of Scotland (the oldest and only one that remains closed to female students).

But the headmaster there is hiding something and as more students succumb, Ropa learns that a long-dormant and malevolent entity has once again taken hold in this world.

She sets off to track the current host for this spirit and try to stop it before other lives are endangered.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 T. L. Huchu (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Mad the original narrator

But the new one was equally fantastic! I need to add more words to post so here they are

The Plot Thickens

What a worthy sequel to LIBRARY OF THE DEAD! New twists and turns, and fabulous character development. Excited for Book !
Very well narrated as well (audio book).

Impressive read!

Enjoyed this second installment to the series. Can not wait for the next. Amazing!

Great series so far!

Really good series, contemporary without being annoying. Excellent mix of fantastic and mundane. Definitely going to get the next one when it comes out!

Characters you care about and subtle depth

This may be marketed as a YA story, but it is far more than that. The heroine listens to podcasts while tooling about, philosophy and history. The grammar may be that of the Edinburgh slums, but it’s magic in content. Poverty isn’t whitewashed but adds another layer to the story, it’s always there but not the story. Or not the only story. We get the African diaspora, specifically Zimbabwe. There’s girl/boy stuff and getting a first job as an outsider. The plot is, well, it’s not to worry about, less contorted than the detective novels I’ve listened to of late.

One warning: if you’re not comfortable with Scots, this will be a hard listen - I won’t recommend this to my wife, who has a hard time with Appalachian accents. I for one thought the reading added value, even if some of the slang is outside my kenning.

Loved it

Enjoyed it even more than the first book! Can’t wait for the next book in the series!

An author to follow and a perfect narrator to boot

There are times I purposefully choose the audio format for a more immersive experience. I would never have been able to replicate the Scottish/Zimbabwean accent on my own while reading. The narrator Kimberly Mandindo just grabbed me by the collar and dragged me across the world. Her performance was nothing short of Audie award status. She took T.L. Huchu's book and made the pages come alive.

The book itself was fantastic with the unexpected twists that captivated me in book one. I found myself searching maps for the areas mentioned in the book. When the word winklepickers was tossed in the word geek in me did a little happy dance. I am always in awe of authors but there are some authors that stand out for the power they possess to transport the reader. They are the real magicians. T.L. Huchu is one such author.

Great characters

Intriguing plot lines; author doing a great job of world building in a post apocalyptic Scotland. Love the relationships of the characters with magical books (all books are magical but these are next level texts). Can’t wait to get the next!

so... (an addendum)

I looked up the narrator. She is on a site for what seems to be a Scottish voice-talent agency. Their website had multiple voice clips for each performer. I listened to her sounding natural and compelling in multiple dialects including Scottish, so it's not the performer herself, but something about this character or the direction chosen (director? producer? author?). still frustrating, but I dislike sounding mean due to my own ignorance.