The Merry Dredgers is a mystery-horroresque novel about a woman searching for answers to what happened to her sister that landed her unconscious in a hospital.

Seraphina infiltrates the cult her sister was involved with before she was injured. We get to meet some quirky characters and learn much more about the wacky, once-abandoned amusement park the cult uses as their compound. The world-building here was fantastic, with detailed descriptions of the remodeling of the goblin-themed park and how the cult functions inside it. I may be a little biased here since I worked at an amusement park for several years and have always been fascinated with creepy and odd theme parks.

The ending did feel a little rushed, or maybe it felt like it was tied up a little too neatly for my liking. But the writing, like the banter between Seraphina and the other characters, especially Nichelle, along with the world-building, kept me entertained and interested up until the very end.

"Well, picture me as a popped party balloon. Picture me as a stone made of foam, incapable of smashing a single window. That’s the sort of tired I am."

Seraphina feels the need to investigate after her sister, Eff, ends up in a coma after getting involved with what Seraphina is sure is a cult. She decides to leave her life of odd jobs (including pet sitter and princess for hire) and her rather demanding cat to try find answers, and hopefully not get sucked into the cult herself (she is less naive than her sister, afterall).

Ooh I absolutely loved the setting! An abandoned goblin amusement park is such a great idea and I'd love to explore such a place. Although I'm sure it would be very creepy (even without a probable cult that may or may not have tried to kill someone I care about). It very much gave me Night Circus vibes (although the style is very different) and was one of the strongest parts of the book. The mood shift between the earlier chapters and the main story were amazing. I mean, it went from princessy and pink and parties to rust, cults and a dark mystery. I found myself thinking about this a couple of times while reading and it was definitely well executed.

While I loved the wandering style of the story, I was a little annoyed by the ending. A lot of things happened very suddenly. It felt out of place and didn't answer a lot of questions. I would have appreciated the events building up a little more slowly with more time for answers. I also had a similar annoyance when Seraphina changed her mind what felt like too quickly about something (nothing major, but it felt odd). ( )

I liked the book very much. The heroine is not always a heroine: she is someone who struggles to earn her livelihood, a woman who sometimes flees away from her sister, who is In a coma.
But she is also someone who wants to find out what has happened to her sister and who will stop at almost nothing to reach that goal.
The abandoned amusement park is wonderful, creepy and weird, very weird. I would not say this is a book of horror, but sometimes there is horror in the book.
The last chapter is utterly satisfying. ( )

This was an interesting story that continued to change paths. I enjoyed the main character and her quirkiness in the beginning to her desire to find out what happened to her sister by diving into a creepy cult herself. It brilliantly shows how easy it is to fall prey to a group of people who make you feel good. Loved the amusement park scenes as they were described so vividly. The writing was a unique style that I would be interested to try other books by this author.

If you like neat plots with no loose ends and perfectly sensible people and activities, you might want to take a pass on this one. If, on the other hand, you appreciate the absurdities of weird people and delight in bizarre locations and happenings, you may just find your niche with this odd cross between a mystery, a romance and a horror story.

Sisterly love provides the motivation for our heroine, Seraphina, to infiltrate a cult to attempt to discover how her sister, lying in a coma in the hospital, was injured. Once there she struggles to make sense of this group of odd, yet friendly people living in a deserted amusement park and creating their own somewhat disturbing and incomprehensible community filled with fantasy and curiosities. She finds herself liking these people and even considering love. She seems to fall right in with their plays and fun. In this place, reality is a concept of minimal importance. Soon she makes friends and may be finding love, as well. But which one of these people hurt her sister? She can't rest until she knows.

This was an amusing read, but the story line was weak. It stimulated my imagination with some of the scenes and people described, but the plot wasn't all that compelling to me. ( )