Pearly Gates - Bonnie Solomon - ★★★.½

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: Bonnie Solomon

SERIES: Pearly Gates, #1

GENRE: Fantasy

PUBLICATION DATE: May 19, 2025

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A fantasy spanning life and afterlife featuring a drag queen at the helm. Creative plot, great found-family vibes, vibrant characters but tough-to-like main character and a bit OTT in language and behaviour. Recommended but not to all.

Plot Preview:

Pearly Gates, a cosmic entity who was a drag queen in her earlier life, is facing two major issues: 1. Her job as cosmic sanitation worker is in the dumps. (Pun intended.); 2. Her soulmate Thunder has just ditched her for being emotionally backward. So when a burnt-out spirit guide hands over to Pearly his pending caseload of three struggling humans, she hopes to solve both the issues by helping the humans get their act together, and thus get a more fulfilling career and win Thunder back. Unfortunately, things are much more complicated than they initially appear, and Pearly finds herself battling a dilemma that she can resolve only by understanding her true priorities.

The story comes to us in Pearly's third-person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

💃 The plot idea, with the spirit world showing the interconnections between us, the varied jobs in the afterlife that take care of deceased humans, and a bumbling spirit guide trying to figure things out while on the job. Great concept!

💃 The secondary characters, whether living, dead or ageless. Most are intriguing, and not all are goody-goody. Pearly’s three human charges – Hannah, a widow unable to move beyond her grief; Sam a terminally-ill young man confronting his mortality; and Danielle a trans woman struggling to find acceptance after coming out – are so well written! Their interactions create a nice found-family vibe. I also loved Seraphina (IYKYK) in her limited appearance.

💃 The coming-of-age feel, despite the characters being far beyond the formative age and some even being ageless. Of course, some characters are yet to grow even until the end of the book (Looking at you, Pearly!) but at least they have started on the journey towards self-improvement.

💃 The flashbacks depicting Pearly’s earlier lives with Thunder – a creative way of seeing their dynamic across their various human lives.

💃 The LGBTQIA+ inclusivity – spot on! While there are many gender identities and exploration related to issues faced by gender minority (societal acceptance of gender identity, dysmorphia, gender transitioning,…), nothing feels forced into the plot, and it never seems like the story is ticking off a checklist.

💃 The humour, mostly created by Pearly’s ignorant shenanigans. Quite fun.

💃 The descriptions of the various places, whether in the cosmic world or the human one. The ambience feels very real even when surreal.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🌈 Pearly Gates. (What a fabulous name!) I love the idea of a drag queen character in the lead. However, some parts of Pearly’s behaviour feels a bit too stereotypical and OTT. This, combined with her atrocious self-centred behaviour in the initial chapters, made it slightly tough for me to root for her wholeheartedly despite wanting to. Plus, she doesn’t receive just comeuppance for the times she behaves inappropriately; rather, she seems to be rewarded for it. Not fair! (Some part of the drag content reminded me of Dominic Lim’s 'Karaoke Queen', which featured a human drag queen whose character was better handled.)

🌈 The ending. With so many characters, there are of course multiple ending arcs. Some of them break the genre norm, which I truly appreciate. The rest feel a bit too contrived. But it is a cozy book after all, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bookish Nays:

🌧️ This would have been a great cozy fantasy had it refrained from foul language. There is not just an abundance of cuss words but also religious blasphemy. This point might not bother all readers, but I do not prefer so many vulgarities in fiction, especially when the book is supposed to be a cozy read. Such language takes me out of complete immersion into the narrative. (This was worsened by the fact that I heard the book on audio, so I couldn’t even jump over the f-bombs.)

🌧️ Never a fan of ‘dumb’ and ‘spastic’ being used offensively.

🌧️ Not a fan of the entire subplot connected to the “dumb” character.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 9 hrs 47 min, is narrated by the author herself. I am wary of picking up books narrated by authors as my experience so far has been quite mixed. However, this author has a lovely voice that is perfect for reading. I mostly enjoyed her performance. I just wish there had been greater variation across the character voices. For a book with so many spoken interactions between the characters, it sometimes became confusing to keep track of who was speaking. Regardless, the audio version is a great way of experiencing this story.

All in all, I did enjoy a major chunk of this indie offering. If the profanity and the offensive subplots had been chucked out, this would have been an even better experience for me.

I am quite impressed that this is a debut novel. Of course, the author seems to have prior writing experience, but general writing and novel writing isn't the same ballgame. The writing in this book is structured and the themes, focussed.

Just a few days ago, the author posted on her Instagram page that Pearly Gates is now officially a trilogy, and books 2 and 3 will be out by the end of 2026. Despite my slight dissatisfaction with the language and a couple of the writing choices, I am still intrigued to see how Pearly’s journey continues. So… count me in!

Recommended to those looking for an offbeat narrative with a flamboyant lead character and are okay with profanity in cozy reads.

3.5 stars. (Rounding up wherever applicable for the novelty of the plot and the umbrella rep.)

My thanks to Bonsol Press for providing the ALC of “Pearly Gates” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.