I count myself amongst the fortunate to have discovered Olivia Atwater's work a few short years ago and she remains with each new tale, one of my favorite modern authors. Whether the story is framed in darkness or light, her signature whimsical tone never allows it to drift too far into either direction. The narrative is always fun, even when danger is at hand. The book shares DNA with Good Omens and The Good Place, so it shares the flaws of those works as well. I’m not going to critique the point system and Christian-centric ideology, though I did like Gadriel’s exasperation/cynicism with the system. If you analyze the worldbuilding too much, it’s easy to find cringe aspects but I wasn’t too bothered by the Celestial Bureaucracy structure.

There are numerous witty footnotes spread throughout the book, again like Pratchett, that amusingly prompt the reader to keep their own personal tally of the sin lost or virtue gained on the balance books. I loved this feature of the worldbuilding, and laughed out loud at some of the footnotes. Holly’s gruff niece Ella was also a fabulous character, and her teenaged life at school provided more exceptional opportunities for character development for all three: Gadriel, Holly, and Ella. Both Holly and Ella are dealing with emotional and psychological pain, and the bond between the three becomes one of catharsis and healing, in unintended ways for all of them.Overall, I’m surprised and pleased that such an upbeat book won SPFBO. It’s nice to have a variety in your reading and this has set me up nicely for a return to the more apocalyptic themes I often read! Whimsy and satire is employed in highly effective fashion by Atwater to convey some fairly stark and challenging themes in the book. Love, loss, grief, death, forgiveness, redemption, family. Atwater shows a very deft hand in handling these issues. What I really like about writing Gadriel is that while she isn’t a bad person, she’s definitely a petty person, in all possible respects. After thousands of years, she doesn’t see the problem with things like casual thievery or causing someone a bad day just because they annoyed her. But at the end of the day, she doesn’t want to hurt people deeply. In fact, she’d really like to see most people happier than they are. Utz, Judith (June 30, 2022). "Ten Thousand Stitches". Booklist. Archived from the original on March 5, 2023 . Retrieved March 5, 2023. Waite, Olivia (June 26, 2022). "Happy Marriages, Petty Temptations and Angel Sex". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022 . Retrieved March 3, 2023.

You also have a trilogy of Regency faerie tales beginning with Half a Soul . What can you tell us about this trilogy? Oh, goodness, you had to make me choose. Well, I think Gadriel is probably my favourite character. Gadriel is the Fallen Angel of Petty Temptations. She’s not really out to damn humanity—she just thinks people need to enjoy the little pleasures and stop being so hard on themselves. She’s also got lots of questions about the Rules, and the more straight-laced angels really don’t like that. For a while, I had a job as a historical re-enactor. I actually learned a lot about Tudor England, specifically, but I also gained an accidental education in English history as a whole. I was surrounded, actually, by people with Masters degrees and PhDs in different English eras, and they loved telling me all about how the lower classes lived, because it’s so rarely discussed in mainstream media. If you’ve ever been around people who rant about their passions, you’ll know it can be very contagious. So I think on some level, I was always thinking about how I could work some of these interesting, lesser-known historical facts into a book.

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Cozy fantasy, hot cocoa, knit vests. Yes, there are problems that can be blown out of proportion and tipped toward a more cosmic scale, but they can also be resolved through heart-to-hearts and cupcakes. I fell head over heels for Gadriel, Holly, and the characters in this book. Since for me, every great book begins with great characters and great characterization by the author, I was, pardon the shameless pun, in Heaven here.