Another Mercy Thompson book is coming! And can I just say, MAJOR props to Patty Briggs for coming out with new books on such a regular basis and havinAnother Mercy Thompson book is coming! And can I just say, MAJOR props to Patty Briggs for coming out with new books on such a regular basis and having them all be great reads. She and Brandon Sanderson are superstars....more
3.5 stars. I was chatting with one of my Goodreads friends the other day about Charlaine Harris's older books, which led me to Sookie Stackhouse #1 he3.5 stars. I was chatting with one of my Goodreads friends the other day about Charlaine Harris's older books, which led me to Sookie Stackhouse #1 here. When I realized the Kindle version of this book was only $2.99, I couldn't resist. This urban fantasy series features Sookie, a rural southern gal who waits tables in a bar for a living and considers her telepathy talent a "disability." In fairness, hearing people's thoughts does makes life tougher for her, and forget about romantic relationships.
Sookie is thrilled to meet a real vampire in the bar one night (they're recently come out to the public), and even more excited when she starts talking to Bill (Bill the Vampire? Okayyy...) and realizes that she can't read his mind. But she can see when he's about to run into some possibly deadly trouble, and takes it upon herself to save Bill ... which gets her into trouble herself, so Bill has to save her in turn, and so it starts. In the meantime, someone is killing women who sleep with vampires, and unfortunately Sookie's telepathy isn't doing her any good here. Also all of a sudden Sookie's boss Sam is acting interested in her ("Why now after all this time?" she insightfully asks him). There's something different about Sam too, and it's not just the bedroom eyes he's giving her.
It's kind of similar to Twilight (this book does predate that one by about three years), but with a lot more steam and a much less silly heroine. There are some pretty good scenes in it: "Bubba" the vampire was amusing, and Eric the Viking vampire was appropriately alarming. Sookie was a real character to me, but Bill felt rather flat.
Basically this is kind of an urban fantasy beach book, a supernatural southern murder mystery with a large side of romance. I prefer Kate Daniels and Mercy Thompson, but if this kind of thing is your literary jam, you could do a lot worse. I think I'll pass on the rest of the series, though....more
This review is part of the Blood Heir blog tour (#BloodHeirKD). Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Julie is returning home to Atlanta after This review is part of the Blood Heir blog tour (#BloodHeirKD). Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Julie is returning home to Atlanta after a long eight-year absence. Kate Daniels’ adopted daughter is now twenty-six, and she’s been busy the past eight years: fighting with the Canaanite god Moloch, the Child Eater, stealing one of his eyes for herself after he ripped out one of hers, being remade inside and out by the magical eye, learning about ancient powers and civilizations from her adoptive relatives … and still pining for Derek, the shapeshifter wolf she’s had a crush on since she was thirteen. But now she’s moved on. For sure. Definitely.
But it’s not the hope of seeing Derek again that brings Julie (now going by Aurelia Ryder) back to Atlanta, or even of seeing Kate. In fact, Julie most definitely does NOT want to see Kate. The oracle Sienna has seen a vision of the future, and Moloch is going to kill Kate if they meet, or even if Kate sees Julie, and all of Atlanta will then fall to Moloch. Julie is the wild card, the only chance of changing that horrendous future. And it’s probably a very good thing that Julie’s name, face, voice and even her scent have completely changed.
The immediate crisis is precipitated by the killing of a holy man in Atlanta, Nathan Haywood. Moloch’s priests are now in the city, searching for something unknown but powerful that is connected to the pastor’s murder. Sienna tells Julie that she needs to find this item before Moloch does, or all is lost. So Julie uses her connections to take over the official investigation into Pastor Haywood’s murder, but she’s competing not just with Moloch but with certain shapeshifters to solve the murder and find this mystery item.
For any Ilona Andrews fan, it’s definitely a treat to return to the KATE DANIELS world! Kate has moved off center stage for a well-deserved retirement (or at least a long break) after a ten-book run. But her world and its beloved characters continue to live on in two (so far) spin-off series, Hugh d’Ambrey’s IRON COVENANT series (beginning with Iron and Magic) and now Julie’s new AURELIA RYDER series, beginning here with Blood Heir.
Julie has grown up and become a tougher person with impressive skills and the will to wield them. She still has the power to discern different types of magic, but can now also wield many of the magical powers of Kate and her adoptive family, like blood armor, courtesy of Moloch’s eye and Kate’s blood in Julie’s system. Some other familiar characters, it turns out, have also been doing some significant changing. Not to mention the whole Atlanta pack and their internal politics, which are in turmoil. Jim, the Beast Lord, wants to retire, but there’s no clear heir apparent. Conlan, Kate and Curran’s son, has tremendous powers for his age, but he’s only ten. Ascanio, the beta of Clan Bouda (the hyenas), is gunning for the spot, but not everyone in the Pack supports him.
Blood Heir glosses over some complicated back history about Julie’s interactions with Kate’s father Roland, her aunt Erra, and Erra’s new kingdom that she’s been busy building on the west coast of America, where Julie is her heir and a princess. I would love to get a few more of those stories in more detail at some point. The story of Julie and Moloch’s eye, though, has been told in “The King of Fire,” which is attached at the end of Blood Heir and also appears on the Andrews’ website.
As always in Ilona Andrews’ novels, there’s a magical mystery with an exotic element, a slow-burning romantic subplot, great character interactions and humorous dialogue:
“The Witch Oracle had a vision.”
“Oh goodie. They always have visions. It’s always vague and it’s always bad. Just once I’d like a prophecy proclaiming that, without a doubt, everything is going to be fine.”
Blood Heir has many familiar characters from the KATE DANIELS series, a few new ones, and one or two real surprises. A few intriguing open-ended mysteries are raised — How did a certain werewolf get an entirely new appearance? How does Christopher’s and Barabas’s daughter Sophia exist? And what’s up with the alpha wolf Desandra and her son Desimir? — that, hopefully, will be answered (soon, please!) in a later book.
Dedicated Ilona Andrews fans will have seen some chapters of Blood Heir on their website before (most are gone now), but the final book includes the previously unseen last half of the story, as well as several new scenes and a lot of additional details that add depth and color to the story. It’s an entertaining read and a solid start to a new spin-off series.
This review is part of the Blood Heir blog tour (#BloodHeirKD). Here are links to the previous reviews if you’ve missed them:
The next Blood Heir review will be posted on Novel Notions. Thanks to Mihir at Fantasy Book Critic for organizing the tour! And thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!...more
3.5ish stars. Kitty Norville is a werewolf radio disk jockey who is, in my mind at least, kind of like Mercy Thompson's and Kate Daniels' less well-kn3.5ish stars. Kitty Norville is a werewolf radio disk jockey who is, in my mind at least, kind of like Mercy Thompson's and Kate Daniels' less well-known little sister, which is a little unfair to Kitty since her first book predates both of the others'. But they all inhabit comparable urban fantasy worlds with werewolves, vampires and other magical goings-on. Kitty's world just never grabbed me quite as much as the others.
Kitty's Mix Tape is a collection of short stories set in this world, Carrie Vaughn's way of wrapping up the 16- book Kitty Norville series. Some of the stories are odd and ends (the two blue moon short shorts were kind of head-scratchers) or slice-of-life types of stories. Several of them star secondary characters from the series, like Rick the vampire master. There are some definite 4-star level stories in the mix here: I especially enjoyed "The Beaux Wilde," a Regency-era tale about a lonely young woman who's an empath and three "Wilde" brothers who unexpectedly move into the neighborhood, and "Defining Shadows," about Detective Jessi Hardin's efforts to solve a gruesome magical crime.
Full review to come. Thanks to Tachyon and NetGalley for the ARC!...more
A woman goes hiking with her dog in th4.5 stars. On sale this week! Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
The Call of the Wild (Singer):
A woman goes hiking with her dog in the northern California mountains, searching for the hidden settlement her father calls home. After a long search she finds the encampment — really a small town — but her father is gone, along with every other person who lived in Wild Sign. Some time later, two FBI agents pay a surprise visit to Anna and Charles Cornick in Aspen Creek, Montana. The agents lay their cards on the table: The FBI is looking for an alliance with the werewolves, and because of past interactions they’ve concluded that Anna is likely the Marrok, the werewolf who rules them all (which leads to an amusing scene with Bran Cornick, who is).
The agents suggest that the werewolves might be interested in helping to investigate the disappearance of the town of Wild Sign, especially since part of the town was located on land now owned by the Marrok’s pack, and originally owned by Leah Cornick, Bran’s mate. What the FBI agents don’t know, but Bran does, is that Leah has been singing disturbing music ever since April, the time of the last communication from someone living in Wild Sign.
Some type of great power is in the area of Wild Sign, and has been for at least two hundred years, Bran explains to Charles, bringing death and misery to the humans it meets. And now it’s waking up again.
So Anna and Charles, along with a third werewolf named Tag, who has some barely-controlled berserker tendencies but also a useful resistance to magic, take a road trip to the northern California wilderness to investigate the mass disappearance of the inhabitants of Wild Sign, and find out what it has to do with the long-ago, dark history of their alpha’s mate, Leah, and the mysterious werewolf Sherwood Post, who’s been haunting the pages of the last several books in this series.
Wild Sign is the sixth novel in Patricia Briggs’ ALPHA AND OMEGA fantasy series, or the seventh if you count the 2007 introductory novella, Alpha & Omega (which you should) … or the eighteenth if you include the closely-intertwined MERCY THOMPSON series (which you also should). It’s a pleasure to see the way Charles and Anna have grown and changed, individually and as a couple, over the course of this series. Anna has grown far more confident, and she plays a vital role in increasing not just the peacefulness, but the happiness, of Bran’s entire wolf pack. Even when events occur in California that almost literally take her back to her time with the abusive werewolf pack in Chicago, where we first met Anna in "Alpha and Omega," the set-back is temporary. Charles has always been Anna’s protector, but he’s able to watch Anna take the initiative and take pride in her strength.
Tag is an interesting character in his own right, though I didn’t feel that we really got to know him all that well in Wild Sign. The real illumination for readers is in Leah’s newly-disclosed backstory and the insights given into her thoughts and personality. Leah, who’s always been defined by her selfishness and harsh coldness, is clearly in the process of getting a redemption arc here which, well, Briggs has bitten off a lot there. But it’s working for me. Leah’s story is both painful and humanizing for her character.
There’s also a cameo appearance or two by a new magical race in California that (I’m slightly embarrassed to admit) made me squee out loud. They’re a delightful addition to this series, and I hope we meet them again. Less pleasant, but equally compelling, are the black witches, including more of the Hardesty clan that has caused so much trouble for the werewolves in the last few books. They are truly, irredeemably evil … even to their own.
Wild Sign is a fascinating story, hard to put down. But, fair warning, the darkness and horror vibes are especially strong with this novel. The horror includes trigger-warning types of events, like (minor spoilers here) (view spoiler)[scenes with a mind-controlling rapist and with another old enemy of Charles whose backstory includes horrible crimes against children, incest is implied at another point, and something happens offscreen that I can best describe as tentacle sex (hide spoiler)]. Briggs grapples with serious issues in this series and this book in particular, and she never lets favorite characters off the hook. Still, there’s an underlying optimism and hopefulness that ultimately carries the day in Briggs’ books.
Some highly interesting events happen at the end of Wild Sign, especially with the epilogue, that open up all sorts of intriguing options for later books. I’m glad Briggs comes out with these MERCY THOMPSON and ALPHA AND OMEGA books about once a year! They make up one — or maybe two, depending on how you slice it — of my very favorite urban fantasy series.
Initial post: I've been approved for a NetGalley ARC, cheers!! I always get so unreasonably excited when I get a new Patricia Briggs book. Or maybe it's reasonably excited. :)...more
4+ stars - highly recommended if you like fairy tale retellings! This review is for a short story in this issue, "A Country Called Winter." It's free 4+ stars - highly recommended if you like fairy tale retellings! This review is for a short story in this issue, "A Country Called Winter." It's free online here at Lightspeed magazine, and is a Locus award nominee. Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
This is a lovely, atmospheric retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” (not really a spoiler, IMO; the names Kay and Gerda are a dead giveaway). Vera, who narrates the story, emigrated to America with her mother as a child, from a cold European country they call, in English, Winter. Very is studying for her masters in Boston when she meets and falls in love with Kay, a wealthy and handsome European undergrad who’s a couple of years her junior.
This retelling has a very different take on the characters, subverting the original story — none of them, except perhaps Kay, is what I might have expected, even allowing for the modern setting. Gerda is an edgy TA who teaches a college literature class and is a member of a band called “Robber Girl” (nice touch). But the relationship conflicts between Vera, Gerda and Kay are only part of this tale; there’s a whole separate part of the plot dealing with Vera’s background and how her long-lost past begins to pull her in a direction she never expected.
It’s not the most earth-shattering story in the world but I found it truly delightful. The story ended a bit too soon for me, though; I’d love to know what happens next. I’m rooting for the ice troll prince!...more
The violence between Houston’s powerful magical families breaks out again4.5 stars. Loads of fun! Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
The violence between Houston’s powerful magical families breaks out again when Felix Morton is mysteriously murdered. Felix was involved in a private contract project involving an alliance between five magical Houses who are attempting to reclaim the Jersey Village suburb of Houston, which has become a pit for wild arcane magical creatures. If the reclamation succeeds, the land is worth a fortune, but Felix’s murder at the site puts a definite damper on the project.
Catalina Baylor — still recuperating from her broken heart when Alessandro Sagredo abruptly left her at the end of Sapphire Flames, six months ago — is told by her boss Linus Duncan to take over the investigation into Felix Morton’s death. The primary suspects are the four Prime magic users who were Felix’s business partners in the reclamation project. Difficult enough for Catalina, but she’s stunned to find out that Felix’s father has hired Alessandro to take Felix’s place on the project … and, though the other Primes don’t know it, Alessandro has also been hired to take down and kill whoever murdered Felix.
Catalina wants to keep her heart walled off from Alessandro so he can’t hurt her again. Alessandro is determined to protect Catalina from a Russian assassin called Arkan who, Alessandro says, is targeting Catalina in order to disrupt Linus’s ongoing investigation into the theft of several vials of the Osiris serum, which can confer strong magical powers on — or kill — the person who takes it. As Catalina and others in her family are attacked in various ways, it’s not clear who’s behind it: Arkan, Felix’s unknown murderer, or someone (or something) else?
Emerald Blaze is lots of fun, a fast-paced urban fantasy with a compelling romantic subplot, guaranteed to please Ilona Andrews fans. The Baylor clan, from Grandma Frida down to Catalina’s younger sister Arabella (who is clearly waiting for her chance to take the spotlight in a later book), is as wild and lovable as ever. As usual with Andrews novels, there’s plenty of witty dialogue and humor along with the danger, magic and romance.
The mystery is an intriguing one. Alessandro has his own reasons for wanting to get involved in the case, and it’s not just an excuse to get close to Catalina again. Catalina has become a stronger woman, and she’s not willing to immediately trust Alessandro. But Alessandro’s been through some rough experiences in the past six months that have changed him as well, and led him to adjust his priorities. It need hardly be said that the romantic tension gets ratcheted way up here.
The other big selling point for me in Emerald Blaze is the disclosure of several facts that shed a whole new light on some key events in past books. Among them: why did Catalina’s sister Nevada abruptly resign as head of Baylor House a few years earlier, leaving the rest of the family in the lurch? It seemed out of character at the time. Catalina’s relationship with their other grandmother, Victoria Tremaine, and Victoria’s role in the Baylors’ lives, also are revealed to be more complex than readers may have guessed. Either the Andrews team was plotting some things out far in advance or the authors are engaging in a little retconning, but in either case it’s adding depth and believability to the series, so I’m completely on board with it. On the other hand, Linus Duncan’s role in the series has taken a sharp turn from where it appeared to be headed at the end of the third book, Wildfire. I’m confused about his underlying motives at this point, but I trust the final answer will be good.
Emerald Blaze is a strong entry in the HIDDEN LEGACY series. It’s got a somewhat different vibe than the KATE DANIELS series, but overall I’ve enjoyed this one just as much.
Initial post: I've been grumping around this whole month because my review request for this one got ignored.
Ilona Andrews is having a “Plague Sale”: this collection of the first three books in the Innkeeper Chronicles series is on sale for 99 cents for all tIlona Andrews is having a “Plague Sale”: this collection of the first three books in the Innkeeper Chronicles series is on sale for 99 cents for all three! Great fun for urban fantasy fans. Proceeds will be donated to CDP Covid-19 Response Fund....more
3.5 stars. It's a shorter, quicker and less meaty read than the prior novels in this series, but still good fun. Review first posted on Fantasy Litera3.5 stars. It's a shorter, quicker and less meaty read than the prior novels in this series, but still good fun. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Sweep with Me, the fifth book in Ilona Andrews’s INNKEEPER CHRONICLES series, finds Dina DeMille fretting with her boyfriend Sean about an upcoming official review of Dina and the Gertrude Hunt, her magical inn for interstellar travelers. The innkeepers’ Assembly is concerned about some of the goings-on at the Gertrude Hunt and whether Dina and Sean have been keeping their rules, like, say, not letting anyone on Earth know that their inn isn’t an ordinary one. Or maybe the "no crazy stuff that will draw the attention of otherwise unsuspecting natives" rule. Or possibly the "no nukes" rule. (Actually, that one wasn't their fault.)
In the meantime, though, it’s the annual Treaty Stay holiday for earth’s galactic inns, and the tradition is that no innkeeper may turn away a guest during Treaty Stay. So, naturally, Dina and her inn are asked to host a set of particularly troublesome guests: the Drífan liege lord of Green Mountain, originally an Earth woman who’s now the powerful leader of a mysterious and highly magical people, and who is being harassed by her unscrupulous multi-millionaire uncle; two feuding groups of koo-ko, who consider themselves philosophers and look like oversized chickens with hands under their wings; and a Medamoth, a wily hunter and natural predator who ostensibly just wants to visit the Alamo, but makes Dina nervous about whether the plump and presumably delicious koo-ko are safe from him.
This volatile combination of guests causes all sorts of trouble, but it’s fun to watch Dina and Sean (a particularly powerful werewolf) and the magical semi-sentient Gertrude Hunt inn rise to the occasion. The most interesting of the subplots involves the Drífan, a magically-talented ruler who is not entirely happy with her life: she’s hemmed about by well-meaning but strict advisors, she’s homesick for a lot of things about her Earth life (including fast-food burgers and fries, which is making chef Orro's brain explode) and she’s concerned about her upcoming meeting with her ambitious uncle, a man who’s made a living out of ruthless corporate takeovers. And Uncle Rudolph’s actions, like sending mercenaries to attack the inn where his niece is staying, certainly show that the Drífan has good cause for concern.
On the other hand, it seems clear that the koo-ko — or as Sean calls them, the “space chickens” — are there for comic relief, but I never really connected with these chicken-based philosophers who spend far more time squabbling than philosophizing. Apparently my brain is fine with space werewolves and vampires but balks at accepting space chickens.
Sweep with Me is a novella-length book, quite a bit shorter than the prior books in this series: it clocks in at about 140 pages. All of these INNKEEPER CHRONICLES books are light sci-fi/fantasy mixes, but the first three books still had a sense of emotional depth and intricacy that I didn’t get with Sweep with Me (or, for that matter, with the prior book, Sweep of the Blade). There are several ongoing story arcs in this series, like Dina’s search for her missing parents, but none of those progressed in Sweep with Me. It’s still an engaging and fun read, though, and I’d certainly recommend it to fans of Ilona Andrews.
Initial post: WHAT?! An Innkeeper novella by Ilona Andrews that I haven't read? How did I miss this? I'm on it tonight....more
Huh. I think I get why Ilona Andrews abandoned this starter to a new series. It has some pretty disturbing elements, and it’s got about a million surfHuh. I think I get why Ilona Andrews abandoned this starter to a new series. It has some pretty disturbing elements, and it’s got about a million surface details but nothing that really sticks. It’s like the proverbial river that’s a mile wide and an inch deep.
Karina Tucker is a widowed mother of a young daughter, Emily. While driving Emily and a few other kids home from from a field trip they make a quick stop at a building because Jacob HAS to use the restroom. It's an ugly, somehow menacing building (Karina! just send Jacob into the bushes with some tissues!).
And from there Karina (and Emily) are involuntarily pulled into a weird, deadly dimension. With lots of men - also menacing, but hot, so ... The few women are just there for backdrop. It's all about the alpha guys here.
Will Karina be able to overcome a bad start (seriously, a really, REALLY bad start) and control her density destiny? (view spoiler)[C'mon, it's an Ilona Andrews book! (hide spoiler)] Will the rapey man have a good heart and Reasons for how he acts? Who cares?
I’d only recommend it if you’re an Ilona Andrews completist and not too picky about your urban fantasy.
Full review to come.
Content notes: Lots of language, violence, kidnapping, assault ... but no sex....more
On sale now! 3.75 stars for this twelfth book in the UF Mercy Thompson series, and that's not counting the five closely-related Alpha and Omega books.On sale now! 3.75 stars for this twelfth book in the UF Mercy Thompson series, and that's not counting the five closely-related Alpha and Omega books. :) Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Fresh off her clash with black witches in Storm Cursed, Mercy Thompson — the coyote shapeshifter and Volkswagen mechanic whose urban fantasy series follows her adventures with vampires, werewolves, fae, witches and various monsters — is fretting about the distance that has built up between her and her husband, Adam, alpha of the local werewolf pack. Their mating bond has been shut down for weeks, keeping her from knowing his thoughts and feelings.
But other troubles raise their heads, distracting Mercy (at least temporarily) from the problems with Adam. The ancient power that is Underhill, the underground world of the fae, manifests in their home as Tilly, a creepy young girl (“I love battles. Blood and death followed by tears and mourning.”). Tilly has opened a door from Underhill into Mercy’s backyard, allowing a particularly dangerous creature to escape from Underhill. (view spoiler)[This smoke weaver can magically control whatever or whoever it bites, forcing them to attack and kill others, even those they are closest to. (hide spoiler)] The vampire Wulfe has developed a disturbing fascination with Mercy, stalking and spying on her. And a rogue werewolf pack has moved into the Tri-Cities area, (view spoiler)[led by a werewolf that’s a stone-cold killer, (hide spoiler)]and is challenging Adam’s pack for control of their territory.
Patricia Briggs packs a lot into Smoke Bitten, juggling all of these subplots and making them fit together. It makes this installment in the MERCY THOMPSON series more convoluted than usual. Briggs has a habit of raising new plots from the semi-cold ashes of older ones from previous books in the series. To a greater or lesser degree, most of the plotlines in Smoke Bitten have their genesis in events from earlier books. It adds continuity to the series and allows Briggs to build a more complex world, but also makes it imperative that readers have read and recall events and characters from the prior books in the series.
As a corollary, the reader never knows when an issue that seemed to be comfortably resolved at the end of one book might lead to a related problem in the next. Some of the plotlines in Smoke Bitten are even more unresolved than usual; Briggs is clearly building toward a major conflict — or two — in a future novel. It leads to a bit of a “middle book syndrome” feeling, but Briggs is a talented author, and the explanation underlying the smoke weaver plotline, and how it played out, was a particularly smart bit of plotting. Readers can deduce who the creature from Underhill is if they know their folklore and are paying attention, but Briggs gives the traditional fairy tale an unexpected and intriguing twist.
Great stories usually contain themes of love and redemption, and both of those play a key role in Smoke Bitten. Adam, facing a new problem that he doesn’t know how to solve, shows unexpected vulnerability. As Mercy comments, “Adam was good at saving people other than himself.” He’s making it difficult for Mercy to help him, though, closing her out in an effort to save her from his troubles. There are several poignant moments as this married couple navigates new and problematic shoals in their lives.
Smoke Bitten is a suspense-filled tale and a solid installment in the MERCY THOMPSON series. It leaves me anxious to see what happens next.
Initial post: I've been trying to figure out how I can get hold of the ARC for this book and LOOK WHAT JUST BARELY LANDED ON MY DOORSTEP. I yelled "YES!" out loud and probably scared the cat and dog. :D Thanks to the publicists at Ace/Penguin Random House for the ARC!
Murderous fae trouble for Mercy Thompson again. I CAN HARDLY WAIT....more
Sapphire Flames is the fourth novel in Ilona Andrews‘ H2020 quick reread before diving into Emerald Blaze! Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Sapphire Flames is the fourth novel in Ilona Andrews‘ HIDDEN LEGACY urban fantasy/romance series, in which powerful magical families control most of society. (Note: You really do have to start at the beginning of this series, with Burn for Me; each book builds on what came before.) Having wrapped up the romance of Nevada Baylor and Connor Rogan in the first three books in this series, Sapphire Flames and the interim novella that precedes it, Diamond Fire, shift the focus of the series to a new main character, Nevada’s younger sister Catalina Baylor, a so-called “siren” with powerful persuasive magic. (By the way, the reasons given for Nevada and Rogan being out of the picture ― out of the country, in fact ― and unavailable to help with the latest life-and-death crisis, are a stretch, but a necessary one for the sake of this novel and the series).
Catalina’s ability to convince others to adore her and cooperate with her every request has always been a heavy burden for her: it’s a brainwashing type of power, and people affected by it love her beyond all reason after a few minutes in her presence, even to the point of wanting to crush her to pieces in an effort to get closer to her. As a result, Catalina was a terribly shy teen who avoided everyone outside of her family, the only ones who are unaffected by her power … aside from, inexplicably, the family doctor.
At the end of Diamond Fire Catalina came to the conclusion that she needed to step out of the shadows, and Nevada’s mother-in-law was happy to help. Sapphire Flames picks up three years later. Catalina is now 21 and the head of House Baylor and their private investigation business. A murder case drops into Catalina’s lap, involving the family of Runa Etterson, the delightful poison mage from Diamond Fire. Runa’s mother and sister have been mysteriously murdered, and Catalina wants to take the case … even though a couple of major players CLEARLY warn her not to get involved (“Sometimes when you search the night, you’ll find monsters in the dark. You’re not ready”). Those warnings, of course, not only fail to deter Catalina, but only make her more determined.
One of those who tries to warn Catalina off is her former teenage crush Alessandro Sagredo, an Italian young man with “Prime” magic: he can nullify others’ magical powers, and also has some particularly interesting if apparently unrelated powers involving weapons. Alessandro has his own interest in the Etterson murder case, and he and Catalina reluctantly (haha) team up when it becomes clear that neither is going to go away. Their investigation leads them to things like assassin firms and crazed people with warped magic. Good times!
It’s fun to see Catalina step up her game … not just a notch or two, but some major leaps forward for our shy young woman. And, holy cow, Alessandro’s character is NOT what I expected given the brief glimpses we had of him in previous depths. Hidden depths, y’all. While their new aspects of their personalities did make the plot much more exciting, both Catalina and Alessandro are now much more standard urban fantasy characters, and less distinguishable from Nevada and Rogan. It’s different magical powers but the same basic formula. Hard to knock what works, though.
On the other hand, Runa Etterson, the poison mage whose family was murdered, has almost the opposite problem: Her ebullient personality was a scene-stealer in Diamond Fire, but in Sapphire Flames she’s a shadow of her former self, ruled by her anger and distress.
Runa’s emotions had clubbed her rational thinking over the head, dumped its body on the side of the road, and took my friend for a joy ride. Just what we needed.
It’s understandable in the circumstances, but I hope we’ll meet up with her again when she’s feeling more herself.
Sapphire Flames is a solid entry in the HIDDEN LEGACY series, with the Andrews’ typically witty banter, imaginative magic, action-driven plot and (let’s not forget) hot romance. I got sucked into it the minute it hit my Kindle and finished it off in one day. It’ll be fun to see what happens next.
3.25 stars for this zombie fantasy set in Seattle, Washington. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Kincaid Strange is one of only two kno3.25 stars for this zombie fantasy set in Seattle, Washington. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Kincaid Strange is one of only two known remaining voodoo practitioners in Seattle. She’s had a hard time making end meet, ever since new laws went into effect restricting the raising of zombies. Permanent zombies ― called five-line zombies for the magical lines that anchor their four limbs and head to life ― are outlawed entirely; four-line temporary zombies (who are missing the magical line to the head) may be raised only under severely restricted circumstances. Temporary zombies are actually quite useful in resolving issues like murders and last will and testament disputes, but under the new laws that’s mostly forbidden as well.
Kincaid’s prior job as an independent consultant for the Seattle police department has ended as well; the new police chief is adamantly anti everything paranormal. So Kincaid gets by with the help of her roommate Nathan Cade, the ghost of a grunge rocker who still gives concerts when he’s in the mood, and who can down a surprising amount of beer. (Nate manages to run up quite the beer tab on Kincaid.)
Matters get more complicated when Kincaid gets a phone call from a brand new zombie, Cameron Wight, who was a local artist. Cameron has no memory of how he died or why he’s been raised as an illegal zombie ― an impossible mix between a four-line and five-line zombie. As Kincaid tries to help Cameron, her investigation of his situation seems to tie in to people ― and zombies ― who are starting to die (or die again) at some unknown murderer’s hand. Not to mention that there’s an extremely hostile and powerful ghost who’s beginning to haunt Kincaid, wanting something from her that she has no idea how to give him.
The Voodoo Killings is an urban fantasy focused on zombies, but mixes in ghosts, ghouls and some other supernatural doings along with its murder mystery plot. In this world, zombies will stay intelligent and rational ― and will refrain from attacking and eating people ― as long as they get enough human brains in their diet … so there’s a black market in brains. It’s amusing, if a little gross, to see Kincaid trying to convince Cameron to drink his brains milkshake. Kristi Charish creates an entire underground (literally) city of zombies, hidden underneath Seattle. It’s an interesting concept, but I couldn’t help but wonder how they found enough human brains to feed the zombies there and keep them from going on a zombie rampage.
Charish’s writing style is straightforward, without any literary frills or pretensions, but some humor. Charish does have the habit of dropping odd facts into Kincaid’s narrative, like the fact that she has a ghost for a roommate, her rocky family history, or her issues with her ex-boyfriend Aaron, a Seattle homicide detective whose phone calls she’s assiduously avoiding, without much, if any, context. Much later on, the background information shows up in the narrative. I suppose it’s a way to avoid too much info-dumping early on, but I found it rather distracting.
The Voodoo Killings is a reasonably good urban fantasy, not quite up to Ilona Andrews’ standards of imagination and humor (not to mention romance, which is almost an afterthought in Voodoo Killings), but ― in my mind at least ― comparable to Faith Hunter’s JANE YELLOWROCK series. If you’re a Jane Yellowrock fan, I’d suggest giving Kincaid Strange a shot. The murder plot is resolved in the end, but there’s an unexpected twist in the final pages as a teaser for the second book in the KINCAID STRANGE series, the just-published Lipstick Voodoo. I found the world of Kincaid Strange engaging enough that I jumped right into Lipstick Voodoo when I was finished with this one.
Initial Post: I got about 100 pages into the just-published sequel to this book, Lipstick Voodoo, and realized that its plot really hangs off on a lot of the events in this first book. The publicist was kind enough to shoot me a PDF of this first book yesterday, and I downed it in one evening (it kept me up until about 2 am).
Content notes: Scattered F-bombs and a fair amount of violence. Also, eating (and drinking!) of brains....more
Kincaid Strange is a 27-year-old woman who’s one of the only “zombie practitioners” in th3.75 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Kincaid Strange is a 27-year-old woman who’s one of the only “zombie practitioners” in the Seattle area. She can temporarily (or permanently, for that matter) raise people from the dead, which is clearly handy when you want to temporarily raise a rich old man and ask him to amend his will in order to avoid a family lawsuit. Lipstick Voodoo opens with just such a scene, with a crotchety old man who’s not impressed with his family’s reasons for raising him from the dead, and an impressively sleazy lawyer.
The laws against paranormal dealings have been relaxed somewhat due to the fallout from the events of The Voodoo Killings, the first book in this KINCAID STRANGE urban fantasy series (obligatory spoiler warning here for that book). Unfortunately Kincaid still has a boatload of problems, many of which resulted from the events in that prior book. She has an on-again-off-again boyfriend, Aaron, a police detective whose new chief hates the paranormal division. So Kincaid’s best client, the police force, won’t hire her as a consultant any more, and Aaron is caught between his boss and his former girlfriend. The vengeful ghost of a powerful sorcerer, Gideon Lawrence, is massively unhappy with Kincaid, particularly since she burned a body that Gideon was planning on taking over and inhabiting.
What Gideon doesn’t yet know ― and Kincaid is afraid he’ll find out, since Gideon is entirely capable of choking her to death with a hair dryer cord or some other household object ― is that the body in question was accidentally taken over by another ghost, Kincaid’s roommate Nathan Cade, a grunge rocker who’s been dead (but not gone) for twenty years. Now instead of a ghost for a roommate Kincaid has a zombie, and one whose body is starting to rapidly deteriorate. Even the brain Slurpees (YUM) aren’t helping Nate’s body much. Despite her magical power and expertise in All Things Zombie, Kincaid can’t figure out how to untie Nate from this gradually decaying body.
In the middle of this, Aaron unexpectedly offers Kincaid a job helping him investigate a cold case, the apparent murder of a musician, Damien Fell, which occurred over twenty years ago. Nate once knew Damien; he claims not to know anything about Damien’s death, but he’s clearly hiding something important from Kincaid. As Kincaid digs deeper into the case, interviewing Nate’s old girlfriend Mindy and his bandmate and drummer Cole, people start dying in gruesome ways.
It’s always exciting when the sequel is better than the first book in a series, and that’s how I felt about Lipstick Voodoo. This one gets points for really sucking me into the story, much more than The Voodoo Killings. I had a couple of issues with the underlying logic of the mystery. For one thing, Damien Fell is described as a “devout Mormon” who never drank alcohol or even coffee or tea ― one of the reasons his death from a heroin overdose is suspicious. Yet Damien is also supposed to have been “hooking up” with Mindy before his death, which would contradict his character as a devout Mormon. There’s also an undeniably creepy demon-like power from the Otherside (the spiritual dimension) called Eloch, with black, smoky tendrils that reach out and freeze their victim, but the powers it displays didn’t seem to mesh very well when the answer to the mystery of Eloch was finally revealed.
These quibbles aside, Lipstick Voodoo wove a compelling mystery that kept me glued to its pages. It’s interesting reading a zombie fantasy where the zombies are the more sympathetic characters; it’s mostly the humans and the odd wraith and ghoul that cause the real trouble. As I mentioned in my review of The Voodoo Killings, Kristi Charish‘s writing is reasonably good. She’s not using any poetic language, evocative imagery or other literary tricks, just straightforwardly telling a story. So this is a fairly light, quick read.
Which brings me to my final quibble: reading the two books in this series back-to-back, I noticed a couple of places where Charish uses almost word-for-word the same language in both books to describe some secondary characters, including entire paragraphs. It struck me as a bit lazy or sloppy.
Several elements of the plot in Lipstick Voodoo hang heavily off of events from The Voodoo Killings, and there’s a lot of significant character development that carries over from that first book as well. In fact, I started reading this book before I’d read the first one, but called a halt about 100 pages in because so much of the plot here relies on understanding events and characters from The Voodoo Killings. So I went and read that book and then started this one over again. Hence, I’d very strongly recommend reading the books in this KINCAID STRANGE series in order.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review. Thanks!!...more
99c Kindle sale, June 15, 2020. 3.5ish stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
With Sweep of the Blade, the fourth installment in Ilon99c Kindle sale, June 15, 2020. 3.5ish stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
With Sweep of the Blade, the fourth installment in Ilona Andrews’ INNKEEPER CHRONICLES series, there is a new main character: Maud, sister of Dina, the previous main character and the innkeeper of this light SF series. We met Maud in the prior book in this series, One Fell Sweep, when Dina convinced Sean the werewolf and Arland the vampire — these are both alien races, by the way, though distantly related to humans — to help her rescue Maud and her five-year-old half-vampire daughter Helen from the desert prison planet Karhari. In the first few chapters of Sweep of the Blade, Andrews retells these scenes from Maud’s point of view.
Arland has fallen head over heels for Maud — her sword-fighting skills are as good as any vampire’s, which is a major turn-on for Arland — and after just a few weeks at Dina’s inn he asks her to go to his planet Daesyn, marry him, and live with him there and help him lead his vampire clan, House Krahr. Maud is a widow who was previously married to another vampire, however, and she’s completely soured on vampire society and afraid of what the likely rejection from Arland’s family will do to Helen. But Arland is tremendously attractive (think “Thor with fangs”), deeply in love with Maud, and a good guy in spite of being, you know, a vampire, so Maud agrees to go to Daesyn with Arland and see how things go with him and his extended family, without making any formal commitment yet.
When they reach Daesyn, House Krahr is in turmoil: they’ve been asked to host a large wedding featuring a couple from two other hostile vampire clans. House Krahr’s leaders suspect a trap, but vampire clans are big on honor, and there’s no graceful way to refuse the request. Luckily Maud is not only a kickass warrior, able to hold her own with almost any vampire, but also a highly intelligent, well-informed woman with a vast knowledge of galactic society generally and vampire society in particular. She soon gets ample opportunity to prove her value (and Helen’s) to House Krahr.
Sweep of the Blade, originally published on the Andrews’ website in serial form, is a fast-paced adventure spiced with a little romance. Helen is delightful, it’s fun to be in Maud’s head as she figures everything out and shows those vampires her own chops, and Arland is satisfyingly tough and adoring of Maud. There are several great scenes; one of my favorites was a banquet where Maud realizes that the vampires are unintentionally insulting the tachi, a giant insect-like alien race, by feeding them the wrong type of food with no artistic presentation whatsoever (the horror!), and immediately sets about making things right.
Maud plucked the blue kora fruit from the bowl, peeled the thin skin and carefully cut the fruit into even round slices. She managed eight slices, seven perfectly even and one slightly thicker. She placed the seven slices around the cubes. The eighth was a hair too thick. She pondered it.
The tachi pondered it with her.
Better safe than sorry. She reached for another kora.
The tachi to her left emitted an audible sigh of relief and then crunched his mouth shut, embarrassed.
There are some weak parts to Sweep of the Blade. This novel’s genesis as a weekly serial is apparent. While the Andrews team has added more detail and backstory to the final published version of Sweep of the Blade, it still feels episodic, with the scenes pieced together in a way that the seams still show, and the plot doesn’t quite have the depth of the best books in this series. Maud herself is so improbably accomplished and wonderful at Every. Single. Thing (except relationship commitment, which is understandable). She speaks numberless languages, including “more Ancestor Vampiric dialects than most vampire scholars.” She’s a devoted parent, an excellent diplomat, peerless fighter, highly intelligent, and even diligent about keeping her vampire armor in top shape. It all makes her a little hard to believe in and fully sympathize with.
The vampires in the INNKEEPER CHRONICLES series aren’t at all bloodsuckers in the traditional sense. They’re more like Vikings or Samurai warriors who very occasionally take a bite out of their enemies. No sensitivity to sunlight or aversions to garlic or crosses here. At least the werewolves in this series actually shapeshift into wolves.
Sweep of the Blade is fun reading if you like the Andrews’ brand of urban fantasy-flavored science fiction. It’s a light space opera romance that goes down easy, with lots of gory fighting to spice it up, but doesn’t really stick with you....more
This creepy short story, free online here at Tor.com, originally came from an anthology called Robots vs. Fairies. It does, in fact, contain both roboThis creepy short story, free online here at Tor.com, originally came from an anthology called Robots vs. Fairies. It does, in fact, contain both robots and (a) fairy. The fairy, who narrates this story, is of the whimsically cruel type who will kill you just for the fun of it. But just possibly this fairy has met their match in Peter, a human that the fairy has taken a deep, long-term interest in.
The fairy first sets eyes on Peter at a lake, when Peter is a toddler and the fairy is in the form of a duck. (Why? Who knows?) Peter's parents are arguing - clearly in the process of divorce - and not paying as much attention to Peter as they should. The fairy contemplates what they'd like to do to Peter (replace his heart with a mushroom) but it doesn't work out.
When I poked my head out from under a lily pad, the proper ducks were shoving their beaks into the grass to get the last of the bread, and the man and the boy were gone, and the woman was sitting in the grass with her arms wrapped around her knees and a hollowed-out kind of face. I would have taken her, but there wouldn’t have been any sport in it. She was desperate to be taken, to vanish under the water and breathe deeply until silt settled in the bottoms of her lungs.
Besides. I wanted the boy.
Chills!
The next time they meet, the fairy is a cat ....
This story really didn't go in the direction I thought it would, but I recommend it if you don't mind a horror type of tale and dealing with two extremely unpleasant main characters. Kudos to Sarah Gailey for setting up the shift in sympathies and perceptions so well!...more
Nevada Baylor is getting married to Connor Rogan, and when Rogan’s mother Arrosa shuts down3.5 stars. Final review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Nevada Baylor is getting married to Connor Rogan, and when Rogan’s mother Arrosa shuts down their plans for a small and simple wedding, insisting on a full-scale formal wedding, a couple of things happen.
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Nevada inexplicably gets incredibly fussy and controlling about the wedding details, firing two wedding planners, and her beleaguered 18 and 16 year old sisters Catalina and Arabella decide that the only feasible option is to handle the wedding planning themselves. And a large crowd of Rogan’s Spanish relatives on his mother’s side descends on Mrs. Rogan’s Texas mansion for a few weeks’ stay before the wedding. The half of those relatives who descend from her father’s second wife are already hostile, and matters only get worse when everyone is cooped up together in the same home, however large and luxurious.
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Now the Rogan family’s valuable heirloom wedding tiara has disappeared from the vault, a kokoshnik (Russian crown) with a large heart-shaped aquamarine as its centerpiece. An embedded sensor indicates that the Sealight Crown is still on the Rogan mansion’s premises. Arrosa Rogan, not wanting to involve the police in a family problem (since it’s almost certain that a relative stole it from their vault using telekinetic powers), asks Catalina to find the Sealight Crown and, by the way, get it back before the wedding in two weeks. But that’s only the beginning of the family problems that Catalina gets hit with before the wedding!
Diamond Fire is an interim novella in Ilona Andrews’ HIDDEN LEGACY urban fantasy series, set in an alternative history of our world in which some families ― typically wealthy and powerful ones ― have inheritable magical powers. The Baylor clan is neither wealthy nor politically powerful, but does have several family members with powerful magic. The first three novels in this series, beginning with Burn for Me, featured Nevada Baylor as the main character. Diamond Fire marks a turning point, as the focus of the series now shifts to Nevada’s younger sister Catalina.
Catalina has “siren” powers, the ability to make people immediately adore her and do whatever she asks, but it’s resulted in Catalina being shy and unwilling to trust that people really like her for herself, not just because of her magic. The case of the stolen Sealight Crown forces Catalina to begin breaking out of her shell and to experiment with her magical talent, finding interesting new ways to use it in her investigations.
Andrews provides a handy Rogan family tree at the beginning of Diamond Fire; it’s worth studying. Trust me on this. There are a lot of underhanded dealings and resentments brewing in Mrs. Rogan’s mother’s side of the family, and it devolves into a near-farcical soap opera in the end, with the disclosure of several embarrassing secrets. The plot of Diamond Fire, though it never bored me, isn’t one of the more memorable or creative ones that Andrews has come up with, and contains no romance and limited use of magic to spice it up. The storytelling probably also was hampered somewhat by the novella length of Diamond Fire, especially given the large number of new and unfamiliar characters in its pages. The story seems quite tame after the pyrotechnics of the first three books in the HIDDEN LEGACY series.
I enjoyed getting to know Catalina better, a talented young woman who’s unusually withdrawn and uncertain for an Andrews heroine. Wedding planning and jewelry theft investigation are a rather unlikely and hefty responsibility to dump on the eighteen-year-old sister of the bride, but Catalina rises to the occasion, and makes a new and useful friend in Mrs. Rogan in the process.
Diamond Fire is for readers who are already invested in the HIDDEN LEGACY series. It’s a somewhat slight novella, but it has several good scenes and interactions (a quirky poison mage is a scene stealer!) and achieves the task of shifting focus to a new main character to carry the series forward. At just a $1.99 ebook cost, it’s definitely worth the price for fans of this series. I’m anxious to read the next Catalina book!
I received a free eARC, courtesy of Edelweiss and Harper Collins. Thanks so much!!...more
4.5 stars! 2021 reread, just for fun, since I just picked this up on a Kindle deal. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Kate Daniels, after nine4.5 stars! 2021 reread, just for fun, since I just picked this up on a Kindle deal. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Kate Daniels, after nine novels’ worth of fighting magical villains, romancing Curran the Beast Lord, developing her own über-magical powers and preternatural sword-fighting abilities, and magically claiming all of Atlanta as her territory (and that’s only a start), gets an ending to her story in Magic Triumphs, the tenth and final book in Ilona Andrews’ popular KATE DANIELS series. Well, kind of.
Kate is married to Curran now, who’s passed his title as Beast Lord on to Jim. After a very brief prologue in which Kate gives birth, the story jumps forward in time thirteen months, when their son Conlan is a precocious one year old whose antics keep his parents hopping. He still hasn’t started shapeshifting, which is causing Atlanta’s Pack to fret, but Kate is nevertheless something of a helicopter parent, anxious to protect Conlan from any threat … of which there are plenty, so her concerns aren’t without a basis.
The threat level gets amped up when Kate’s power-hungry father Roland ― after a fairly lengthy period of non-aggression ― starts to manufacture confrontations in Atlanta again, aiming at disrupting Kate’s claim to Atlanta and gaining power over her children, Conlan and her adopted daughter Julie. Meanwhile, something or someone is mysteriously murdering entire communities of people in the Atlanta area in a particularly gruesome way, for some unknown but doubtless malicious purpose. An ominous, evil-smelling box is left on Kate’s doorstep, causing thirteen-month-old Conlan to suddenly erupt into a new shape (or two), making Kate even more nervous, Curran joyful, and life exponentially more difficult.
Magic Triumphs is actually one of my favorite books in the KATE DANIELS series, and a great wrap-up to the series. It has a fun, exciting and delightfully complex plot, this time with an ancient Irish mythology spin to it. Lots of old friends from earlier books in the series play a role in the story, and much of the impact of those appearances will be lost on the reader who hasn’t read all of the prior KATE DANIELS books. What one might not expect is that it’s also fairly important to plot understanding and continuity to have also read Iron and Magic, the recently published spin-off novel featuring Hugh D’Ambrey, Kate’s old enemy.
Conlan is an amusing and adorable addition to the cast of characters, and Kate manages fairly well in combining her ass-kicking magical investigator and problem-solver ways with capable parenting, though her spin on it ends up being, well, different than most parents’.
"Look, Daddy killed him dead. All dead.”
Conlan giggled.
Dali was staring at me with a look of pure horror.
“I don’t want him to have nightmares that the bad man is going to get him,” I told her. “This way he knows that his daddy killed him … We are a family of monsters and he’s our child. People will always try to kill him and we will always protect him. He better get used to it.”
Along with the family bonding, there are a few heartbreaking moments in Magic Triumphs, so the Andrews don’t pull all of their punches here. After fudging a little with the ongoing, high-stakes conflict with Roland in Magic Binds, there is an ingenious resolution to the Roland Problem in this novel, which satisfies the need for a wrap-up but still leaves room for possible adventures to come. As Iron and Magic evidences (not to mention the epilogue in Magic Triumphs), Ilona Andrews isn’t yet finished with Kate’s world. Kate is probably happy to take a back seat at this point and let some other characters do most of the driving and monster-slaying. Though I’ll certainly miss Kate’s point of view, I’ll always be deeply interested in whatever adventures in this world may come from the fertile imaginations of the Andrews team....more
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day is a beautifully-told but slightly illogical novella about ghosts who can’t ― or won’t ― yet pass on, some of the surprising powers ghosts have over humans, and the fearful powers that human witches have over the ghosts. But on a deeper level it’s about those who are unseen and homeless, and about the power of love and of finding inner peace.
In 1972, Jenna dies in Mill Hollow, Kentucky as a young woman. Distraught over the suicide of her sister Patty, she runs into a stormy night in her nightgown and straight into a tragedy. Because Jenna died before her time, her spirit lingers on earth, eventually making its way to New York City where Patty had died. Since in this world, as imagined by Seanan McGuire, ghosts can be tangible at will during the day and pass as human, Jenna spends her days waitressing in a coffee shop and her nights as a suicide hotline volunteer.
Ghosts who die before their time are able to catch up to their fated time of death by touching living people and taking some of their time, leaving the human younger and fresher and the ghost closer to its fated time of death, when it can pass on to the other side. But Jenna feels such a huge burden of guilt over her failure to prevent Patty’s suicide that she’s not willing to take time from humans unless she’s “earned” it by helping suicidal people regain the will to live. Then one day Jenna realizes that almost all of the other ghosts in NYC have disappeared, and her home town of Mill Hollow seems to hold the answer.
Seanan McGuire does some nice world-building in this novel. In addition to the ghosts and the rules that both empower and bind them, there are humans with the power to see and even control ghosts: street witches, corn witches, water witches, and more. McGuire also weaves in some old superstitions about ghosts, like the need to cover a mirror used by a person who has died, lest their spirit kill the next person who looks in the mirror.
My biggest problem with Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day is that the internal logic of the story doesn’t hold water for me. There are too many coincidences and events that don’t really make sense to me, even within the context of the tale. The stealing and giving of time by ghosts never made logical sense to me, particularly in the way it works at the end of the story. And more questions: why would someone purposely kill another person before his or her time if they aren’t then taking steps to capture the ghost? I never saw an answer to this; it’s a stray plot thread that raises what seems to be a significant question, but then never leads anywhere. (view spoiler)[Why would the witch who captured the ghosts of New York City go to Mill Hollow? And how on earth could that one witch find the right mirrors to capture almost every single ghost in NYC? (hide spoiler)] That last item really made no sense to me at all, and was important enough to the plot to create a major needle scratch in my reading enjoyment.
If you’re not overly fussy about the internal logic of a fantasy tale, there’s much to appreciate in Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day. Though this novella lacks the wry humor of what I view as her best work, McGuire’s writing here is evocative ― even poetic at times ― and insightful. She appreciates the people who go unnoticed and unappreciated by the masses, and that’s a needed reminder to our sometimes thoughtless world....more
Abernathy’s Bookstore is a powerful oracle, used by the community of mages to answer important questions andReview first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Abernathy’s Bookstore is a powerful oracle, used by the community of mages to answer important questions and foretell the future. Its proprietor, Helena Davies, is a critical part of the bookstore’s oracular function: she takes augury slips of paper with questions on them from customers, wanders among the bookshelves until she finds a book that glows to her eyes, and sells the book to the customer as the answer to their question. The price for the augury is conveniently and magically printed inside the book on the title page, along with the customer’s name. It works great … until suddenly it doesn’t.
The trouble begins when the book that glows for a particular customer’s question has the wrong customer’s name magically printed inside of it. When the next request for an augury comes in, Helena finds three glowing books on the shelves ― something that has never happened before. And the false auguries continue, making Helena seem unreliable to magical society. But Helena isn’t without resources: she has the magical ability to see through illusions that would confuse the eyes and mind of almost everyone else. And she has the ability to consult the Athenaeum, a vast library that’s the magical world’s successor to the ancient Library of Alexandria.
Meanwhile, Helena’s ex-boyfriend Chet is hanging around, hoping to reconnect with her, and worryingly unwilling to take no for an answer. Malcolm Campbell, a magus who shares a fondness for old films with Helena, is willing to protect her, but Helena (despite a fairly major crush on Malcolm) is concerned about letting him get too close to her. The Accords, the rules that govern the magical world, require the custodian of an oracular bookstore to stay strictly neutral, not favoring either of the two major factions among the magi.
The Book of Peril is the second book in Melissa McShane’s new THE LAST ORACLE series, which began with The Book of Secrets. It���s an enjoyable and fairly light urban fantasy, despite some grave dangers for our heroine and for Abernathy’s itself. With much of the world-building behind us, I found The Book of Peril much more engaging than the first book. Helena is beginning to find her footing in magical society as the custodian of Abernathy’s, the "greatest oracle since Delphi." Some of the types of magic that were briefly introduced in The Book of Secrets get a chance to show their powers here. There’s a fascinating development with origami being used as a powerful tool to create illusions, and it turns out to be a major benefit that bone mages can quickly heal most types of bodily injuries.
Helena has a deepening relationship with not only Malcolm, but also Abernathy’s itself. The oracle demands respect, but Helena feels a deeper connection than that. She tells the oracle:
“I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with whoever is doing this. Because I’m convinced there’s someone behind it, and we have to figure out who. And then … then I will make that person pay for corrupting you. Because you deserve better.”
The oracle’s silence filled me. It wasn’t active, but I felt as if something were listening to me, and if I only knew the right language, I could speak with it, and everything would be all right.
The Book of Peril ends with somewhat of a cliffhanger on a personal matter for Helena, which was a little frustrating but understandable given the intended ten-book length of this series. But the central mystery posed in The Book of Peril is answered at the end … or is it? I have my doubts. We’ll have to see what happens in the next book!
P.S. I love the book covers of this series.
I received a free copy of this ebook from the author for review. Thank you!!
Content note: There's a brief scene of severe violence toward the main character....more
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