It's kind of fascinating, having such a stark example of how Hall's writing has shifted and changed and the ways that it hasn't. In setting two related novellas together, written about 10 years apart, in addition to an epilogue that focuses on the first, earlier couple, you really get a sense of that shift.

I also didn't know from the blurb that it would be two novellas and some extras, which was a little jarring when the story seemed to be wrapping up at the 30% mark and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for the Flood is the earlier piece and it shows, in a way that really cements to me that I like Hall's earlier writing much more than their later. It is almost pretentiously overly lyrical, but it's in such a way as to actually be endearing, especially in audiobook format. You get that hesitant, fairy-tale-esque sense of waiting, of the liminal space of life during the flood, and it doesn't make the flowery prose feel out of place. The relationship between Adam and Edwin is warm and comforting in a way, but in typical Hall fashion, is almost entirely about addressing one party's trauma and the other partner is there because...idk...love at first sight I guess? There is also, as usual, a lot to say about life and worth and love and not closing yourself off from people and does this more successfully than many of their other works.

Chasing the Light is the follow-up and it's almost instantly obvious there's been a lot of time and writing in between the two. I understand the desire to put this novella next to its companion characters, but it really does make it clear that Hall had two very different angles on Marius (and that's fine, takes on characters change, especially over 10 years, but it's a little jarring to reconcile the Marius we see glimpses of through Edwin's eyes in Flood and the Marius whose head we're in for Light). Light trades in the lyrical descriptions for pithy jabs and sarcasm, which do fit Marius' sharp angles, but in doing so, we lose the sense of actually getting into Marius' issues and highlights the thing I like the least about Hall's writing - why do these characters like each other? Especially Leo; we get a little of his backstory but it is more for the sense of why he's on the narrowboat than a sense of why he's the sort of person to want to take in Marius' feral wet cat. It also slips into just eliding against a lot of reasons Marius is all sharp edges - eating disorders, oncoming blindness, artistic block - and not really going into any of them other than another reason he's prickly.

The epilogue shows all of this again - Edwin has gained the signature snark, and instead of showing how the couples have grown into each other and grown as characters through their time together, just feels like "oh we need a proposal" with added "wait look these two have more trauma we could see"

Anyway, it's fine and definitely exists as one of Hall's more tolerable works to me, and was eye-opening in how much more I could get into their stories through audio than in text. Tone works wonders, I guess.