Picasso, speaking to a room of his contemporaries, once said of Frida Kahlo, "No one can draw a face like Frida can." Frida's paintings sometimes lacked dimension and texture. However, when you look at her searing self portraits, with their wide eyes, upturned lips, and unibrows, you feel as though she is in the room with you. Watching you. Sensing your pain, perhaps. Wondering if she can invade your body and finally be rid of her ailments. Draco's gift is much like Frida Kahlo's, in that they seem to be able to summon their characters into whatever space you're in.

To Our Own Devices sheds many nasty fantasy cliches right out the gate. No farmboy with a special destiny. No princess in peril. No tyrannical king. (Although one antagonist is a mayor who is attempting to consolidate his power in order to begin a second holocaust of sorts.) Instead of a disgraced prince or a hypertrophied dragon slayer, Draco gives us two gender nonbinary protagonists-- a couple whose names are Quinn and Lorne. Readers looking for books with queer representation will find plenty to be happy about here. Also refreshing is the fact that Quinn and Lorne are in a very healthy, very domestic, and very kinky relationship.

Quinn and Lorne's sweet, home-loving existence in the port town of Latuka is soon jeopardized. Quinn refuses to sign a contract that would enlist them in nefarious Mayor Elias's private army. Mayor Elias does not suffer treachery lightly. He dispatches an assassin who invades Quinn and Lorne's home and nearly kills them. So begins our grand adventure. Our heroes must covertly gather allies to defeat the looming tyrant Elias, and to stop the resurgence of the Nazi-esque Coven-Nex regime.

To Our Own Devices takes a surprising turn about half way through. Hiding from a group of Coven-Nex goons, Quinn and Lorne enter a pub where they meet a man named B-82. (He asked me to call him B-82. If I use his real name, he threatens to hurt me.) B-82 convinces Quinn and Lorne that the only way to permanently get rid of Elias and the Coven Nex army, is to find an orb that is buried 10 feet underground at the base of a mountain called Mountain B-95.

Surprisingly, Quinn and Lorne take up B-82's offer. They dig, and dig, and dig all over the base of this mountain. As they dig, exhausted, covered in blood and sweat and mud, so too does the reader begin to dig into himself. And just like Quinn and Lorne find nothing under the mountain for 50,000 or so words, so too does the reader find nothing in himself. B-82 begins to appear to Quinn and Lorne in their dreams, taunting them with visions of Latuka burning to the ground. And B-82 shows up in the reader's dreams too, taunting him with images of his family and friends being set on fire.

That was a bit much for this reader!

I had to put To Our Own Devices down for a couple days. Thousands of words still waited for me whenever I turned on my computer, but I was scared to look at them. Quinn and Lorne's quest for the orb seemed like it might never end, and I started to wonder if maybe that was the point. Is that what Draco is getting at? Are they saying that we toil, we suffer, we crave resolution, we search for meaning and truth, only to find what? Dirt? Where is that fucking orb?

One day B-82 appeared before me. Describing him to you in detail would be difficult, because he seems to change his shape based on the weather in some obscure part of Eastern Europe. (Was it Lithuania? Latvia? Estonia? I honestly can't remember.)

He appeared at the foot of my bed, dressed like a soldier, a bullet wound leaking blood onto my bed-sheets. His mouth moved, but no words came out. I still don't know if he was playing a prank on me, or if this is one of the ways that he communicates with humans who exist outside of the world of To Our Own Devices. Regardless, he gave me a serious spook!

Now I see him everywhere, and I've learned to talk to him with him using a chess board. But he says these terrible things. And I can't get him out! I can't get him out of my head! I think he wants to live inside my body!! Help!! Help!! I am warning you, do not read this book! Don't open it!! This book will try to live inside you!! 0/10!! 0/10!! It summoned B-82!! Why did it bring him to me?! I can feel it squirming!! Stop!!

You can only stop the squirming by burning!

You can only stop the squirming by burning!

You can only stop the squirming by burning!

You can only stop the squirming by burning!