A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire

Posted on March 4, 2010 by janicu

A Local Habitation: An October Daye Novel

Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire may be my new favorite writer from last year. I have been anticipating A Local Habitation ever since I put down the first book in the series, Rosemary and Rue (which I reviewed here:

When I won a copy of the book at Book Love Affair (awesome blog), I was ecstatic. I read this book RIGHT after I received it.

The Premise: October (Toby) Daye is a Daoine Sidhe changeling. Her mother is well known for her ability to “ride the blood” and garner memories from it. Toby has a diluted ability which she uses in her PI practice, and in her investigations as a Knight under the Sylvester Torquill, the Duke of the Shadowed Hills. At the start of this book, she’s asked to check in on the county of Tamed Lightening by Sylvester. His niece, the current ruler has stopped calling him for five weeks and he wants to know that she is OK. Sylvester sends Toby along with a foster at his court, Quentin, so that Quentin can learn something. It looks to be a simple mission, but once they get there, Toby and Quentin find it’s anything but. People are dying one by one under mysterious circumstances.

My Thoughts: I am so easily sucked in by the writing of this book. I’ve seen comparisons to Patricia Briggs, Ann Aguirre, and Ilona Andrews and I would agree that if you like those authors you will probably like Seanan McGuire too. It has only been two books but I’m already on giddy auto-buy mode. I didn’t think Rosemary and Rue was perfect, but the world building was amazing, and I’ve been anticipating what would happen next for Toby. There are a lot of hints about unfinished business in her life in the first book which have me hooked to this series already.

Like a lot of urban fantasies, the books are narrated in first person by Toby. Her character is interesting in that she has some power – the ability to read blood and to do small magics that most fae can do, but she’s a lot weaker than the purebloods and there’s a high price for even simple tasks, often in the form of a killer headache from overexertion. So Toby straddles the line between human weakness and fae power, and this along with small reminders that she isn’t considered to be in the same league as purebloods are, makes her a sympathetic character.

Although Toby isn’t one to really dwell on her differences, she is aware of them, and we are aware as readers by how banged up Toby gets in her investigations, that she’s not without weakness. I like how her bit of humanity along with her Daoine Sidhe blood makes her more able to deal with death than the regular fae, who don’t die of old age. She spent some time in the Summerlands so she knows a lot about fae culture and thinking, and we don’t have a heroine who needs things explained to her. She explains things to us as the story moves along, and she’s only ignorant about things most fae don’t know about or who the murderer is. Otherwise she is a heroine who is respected for her experience, which is something I can appreciate.

In A Local Habitation, there’s a new cast of characters from the county of Tamed Lightening and we’re introduced to some new kinds of fae. As in the first book, I enjoyed learning through Toby about these new fae and what their abilities are, particularly the Bannick and the Dryad. We’re also treated to reappearances from the first book from Sylvester and Quentin, and from Tybalt and Connor. The reappearance of Quentin and Toby’s taking him under her wing reminds me of how I thought she had a soft spot for young people in Rosemary and Rue. And there is of course Sylvester, the Duke of Torquill who Toby never thinks is anything but the perfect ruler. I wonder if he will stay untarnished for the rest of this series. In my mind Toby is a bit of an unreliable narrator, and she doesn’t see things that the reader may notice. Anyway, I’m speculating out loud about where things may go, which is what this series makes you do (and I love that).

There’s not really any romance in this book. There were hints of possible interest in Rosemary and Rue from both Tybalt and Conner (Toby is more aware of Connor than Tybalt because of their past history) which continue in this book, as well as from a new character. I am really fond of Tybalt, and although there is a promising early scene in A Local Habitation, there’s very little interaction between them which made the situation hard to read into. On the other hand I thought Toby was getting herself into messy waters with Connor in this book, which you could have seen happening a mile away after Rosemary and Rue. The guy is married to an unhinged woman who hates Toby. You can’t expect anything good to come out of that.

In Rosemary and Rue, I thought the second part wasn’t as strong as the first, but in A Local Habitation I didn’t have this problem, so I liked this book more. If I were to look for problems, I’d say the mystery may be the weakest part. There’s a small pool of suspects and throughout the story, the pool dwindles as more characters become victims. There are some hints which point at someone who Toby kept discounting, so I had my suspect who turned out to be the murderer. On the other hand, I didn’t guess the whole thing, especially why the murders were taking place, and I don’t think most people would guess the Why, although they may have the Who.

Overall: I liked this one better than the first book. I love the heroine and the pacing of the story seems just right, although I wish there was a tad more romance (I hope there is in future releases). I highly recommend this series if you like Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs or Ann Aguirre. The author writes complete installments but threads each book with hints as to the ongoing drama of Toby’s life,and anticipating what could happen next is delicious. This is actually a series that I hope won’t end at three books.

The third book An Artificial Night comes out this September (I’m glad there isn’t a long wait).

Buy: Amazon | Powells

Other reviews:
Book Love Affair – “Seanan McGuire takes the best parts of mystery, the best parts of urban fantasy, mixes them up, and mixes everything up.”
The Book Pushers – positive review, 4 out of 5 stars
Lurv a la Mode – 4.5 out of 5
bookblather – Her enthusiastic review represents how I feel about this series. And I think Quentin is a favorite character of hers..

Wild Hunt by Margaret Ronald

Posted on February 20, 2010 by janicu

Wild Hunt

Margaret Ronald

I read the first book in this series, Spiral Hunt, last year, and I liked the story enough to get Wild Hunt when it came out this year.

My review of book 1: Spiral Hunt:

The Premise: This is an urban fantasy series set in Boston, where the protagonist is Genevieve (Evie) Scelan, a bike messenger who also has a side business finding things for people with her highly advanced sense of smell. A sense of smell that is a genetic gift from a famous ancestor, which is the reason for her nickname – Hound. In this installment of the series, Evie is called in for a special last request for a customer, and finds out about a foul family artifact and an ill-fated expedition to Boston. Another customer asks her to find out about some objects that their ancestor stole. As Evie tries to do her job, she discovers more connections between the two jobs, and strange goings on in the city, like a call to Hunt which Evie can’t help responding to.

Browse inside Wild Hunt here

My Thoughts: The main character in this series is a working class girl with a little bit of power and a lot of responsibility. She knows some things about magic but it’s what she’s learned on the street, and it’s not very much. She has a small group of friends, who make reappearances from the first book – Rena the cop, her friend Sarah, and Nate, a graduate student raising his younger sister. You need to read this book after reading the first book in the series, otherwise you will probably be very confused about what’s going on. I had some trouble remembering things myself, which made me wish I had the first book to flip through, but I remembered the ending at least which is referenced a lot in Wild Hunt.

In this book there isn’t really a clear objective for the protagonist other than to try to do a job or two and to do the right thing. We follow Evie in her day-to-day work, and like Evie, we know something is going on, but we don’t have an idea of the big picture until three quarters of the book is done. This is a urban fantasy where the heroine does a lot of catching up: she isn’t really investigating anything in particular, just doing a couple of jobs for customers and stumbling onto odd things, but eventually discovers connections. Despite being considered one of the big guys in Boston after her role in the last dust-up, Evie is fairly unschooled in magic. The other characters expect her to know more than she does, and then berate her when she shows her ignorance. This was an irritating thing for me – I’m not sure where people expect Evie to have gained this knowledge, and I’m not fond of this device. Fortunately for Evie, her tenacity counts for something, and she comes out stronger than before. It’s done without fanfare and a lot of work, but I think that through no plan of hers, Evie gets more knowledge and power each time she has one of her adventures.

One of the things I enjoy about this series is that the author integrates myths I hadn’t heard of before. There’s the Celtic mythology of the first book, and in this second one there’s mythology and magical lore from other places which combine well with what Evie has learned thus far.

Another thing I liked was the romantic relationship in this series. The love interest is a nice guy, and his relationship with Evie feels like real life. It reminded me a little of the relationship in the Kitty books by Carrie Vaughn. In fact, I would recommend this series for people who like Kitty Norville. There is interest in both sides but both people are too shy to admit it, and it’s sweet when they finally get together as we hope (thankfully the author doesn’t torture us)!

Overall: I enjoyed this one more for the characters than what Evie gets involved in. It has a more character driven feel despite the fast-paced plot, and the author left me curious as what would happen to Evie next. Not in a cliffhanger way, but I’m definitely interested in finding out more.

Buy: Amazon | Powells

Other reviews/links:
Calico Reaction – Worth the Cash

The Big Idea @ John Scalzi’s blog: Margaret Ronald – the author tells us about Boston as a setting

Child of Fire by Harry Connolly

Posted on January 13, 2010 by janicu

Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel

Harry Connolly

This was a book I won over at the lovely Book Love Affair which is one of my favorite blogs for urban fantasy recommendations.

The Premise: Ray Lilly is a newly released convict who drives around a powerful woman named Annalise. Annalise tracks down illegal spell users and other nasties associated with people using magic and fixes the problem (often without mercy and with a high bystander death rate). Ray is not fond of Annalise and her methods, and as for Annalise, she hates Ray. The only reason he’s still alive is that Annalise was instructed not to kill him by someone in the Twenty Palace Society, the community of Sorcerers that she works for, so Ray works with her in mutual dislike. Their current assignment is to track down the odd magic signature in the town of Hammer Bay.

Read an excerpt of Chapter 1

My Thoughts: It’s nice to have a male protagonist in an urban fantasy. Ray was an interesting character — he’s a very recent ex-con and he mentions things he did in his past which go from car theft to murder, but the particulars are unclear. I got the impression that his last stint in jail was somehow related to having his new job now. Clues about his past are slowly fed to the reader, and I hope more will be explained as the series continues about what really happened. From what we see of Ray, he has a conscience and the thought of killing people horrifies him. He’s also protective of innocents around him and gets very bitter when he thinks that someone is just standing around doing nothing. Annalise calls him too sentimental for the business, but he ultimately does what he has to for survival and to do his job. I also like that he’s got little magic compared to his boss so he has to rely on his quick thinking more than on his spelled tattoos and ‘ghostknife’ made out of paper wrapped up in tape and laminate. Ray has a lot of depth. Annalise on the other hand is someone who is very hard to read. Probably because we see her through Ray’s eyes. With him, she has two facets – impenetrable, and stoic. Every so often a little bit of emotion seems to seep through her but it’s enough for Ray and the reader to know she’s one of the good guys, but I think it will take more than one book to get a real reading on her.

The townspeople in Hammer Bay on the other hand did not much as big as impression on me. They were sketched with a quick hand – prominent features like a mustache or hair color and height would give you a general impression, but it would be enough to recognize them later on in the book. There are a lot of townspeople that Annalise and Ray meet, and I don’t think the reader is supposed to really get too attached to any one of them because they’re soon fodder for the evil and corruption going on in Hammer Bay. I mostly did not like the town, because sometimes the reactions of people were so extreme, such as going from having a pleasant conversation with Ray suddenly disliking a comment he makes so much that they’d let him walk into a beating by a band of Hee-haws. It was almost a cliche about small town suspicions and prejudice against strangers, and I’m not sure how much was supposed to be natural and how much was the influence of the evil presence in the town.

There’s a lot of violence in this story. Most of the time it didn’t get past vaguely uncomfortable, I think I was able to keep myself mentally separated enough not to get squicked, but there are some sad parts, especially when you discover what has been happening to the children. I would say this book has some elements of horror in it, which becomes apparent early on. I wasn’t expecting it so I was surprised by how the book started out.

Overall: The writing is good and there is plenty of action which meant I kept picking it up and reading it when I had the chance, but it has a lot of violent bits which left me with an unsettled feeling throughout. If you like gritty tales, you will be fine I think.

Buy: Amazon | Powells

Other reviews:
Book Love Affair – 7 out of 10
Lurv à la Mode – 2 out of 5
Fantasy Dreamers Ramblings – 2.5 out of 5 stars
Karrissa’s Reading Review – 4 out of 5

Must Love Hellhounds by Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews and Meljean Brook

Posted on October 17, 2009 by janicu

Must Love Hellhounds

Ilona Andrews

I preordered this one because this anthology of four paranormal stories featuring hellhounds has a couple authors I like in it.

Buy: Amazon | B&N

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1) Magic Mourns by Ilona Andrews: This is the third story in the anthology but I read it first. 🙂

The Premise: This is a story set in the same world as the Kate Daniel series, but this time the first person narrator is Kate’s best friend, Andrea. Andrea is filling in for Kate one day, when a call comes in about a member of the Atlanta Pack being chased after by a giant, three-headed hound. Andrea goes out to help and is dismayed to find Raphael, a were-hyena is the Pack member in trouble. Raphael has been pursuing Andrea for a while but Andrea is afraid he’s only interested in her for her novelty, not for herself.

Excerpt of Magic Mourns

My Thoughts: It’s probably better to have read the Kate Daniels series before reading this short story because much of the back story on Andrea’s origins and her relationship with Raphael is in those books, but that’s also reiterated in this story, so it’s not hard to understand what’s going on. I thought Andrea’s personality was similar to Kate’s (independent woman, hiding something, and doesn’t trust easily), but her voice was different enough from Kate’s (more wry humor I think) to make the story interesting. I enjoyed reading this one, because the pacing was just right to me, with a good balance of urban fantasy action and romance. I could savor it slowly. The reader already knows what will happen between Andrea and Raphael, especially if you’ve been following the Kate Daniels series, but it’s satisfying anyway. I also liked how well the story intersects with the Kate Daniels series and reveals a couple of things for people paying attention, but you don’t have to have read that series to follow this story (and there are no spoilers).

Overall: I’m a big fan of Ilona Andrews so no surprise: I liked this story a lot. A must read for Kate Daniel’s fans.

P.S. Is anyone else noticing some re-occurring themes in Andrews stories? Like the protection of children? Not that this is a complaint, I just find it interesting.

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2) The Britlingens Go to Hell by Charlaine Harris: This is the first story in Must Love Hellhounds, and by one of the two headlining authors (the other is Nalini Singh).

The Premise: Batanya and Clovache are both part of the Britlingen Collective, highly trained bodyguards for hire, who are assigned an unusual client. Crick wants Batanya and Clovache to protect him in Hell while he retrieves an item that he’d been hired to steal but he was caught the first time he was there.

My Thoughts: It’s a quirky, odd tale and not quite what I was expecting from Charlaine Harris. It takes some time to figure out who the Britlingens are and they use a combination of high tech and magic for their jobs, and hell is a bizarre place with a mixture of mythical creatures in it. Their client and others they run into are oddball people, and the whole tale uses a rather cheerful, matter of fact tone no matter what is happening. An example of bizarre is that someone has 2 penises. TWO PENISES!! It’s half-funny and half-I-don’t-know-what.

Overall: I’m not sure if this will appeal to everyone depending on their sense of humor or level of tolerance for the off-beat. I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t love it either. So I suppose it was in the “OK” to “good” range for me.

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3) Angels’ Judgment by Nalini Singh: Set in the same world as Singh’s Angel series, this story centers on vampire hunter Sara Haziz.

The Premise: Sara Haziz’s job is to bring back runaway vampires to their angel masters. Her latest retrieval is of a vampire whose head was almost cut off. Word is that a rogue hunter who has killed other vampires this way is responsible, and Deacon, the Slayer, is brought in.

Excerpt of Angel’s Judgment

My Thoughts: This was a straightforward whodunit with two ass-kicking characters and romance between them. The world building was interesting, and I didn’t have any problems following what was going on even though I haven’t read any of the novels set in this world yet. I couldn’t tell where this novella fit in the timeline of the Angels’ series though. At first I thought it was after Angel’s Blood, the first book, and was concerned that I was being spoiled, but then later on it sounded like Elena, Sara’s best friend and the heroine of the series, hadn’t met an archangel yet, so maybe this novella is supposed to happen before the series starts. The biggest issue I had with this was the repeated references to the sexual attraction of the two main characters, which made the romance very physical and not mental enough for me. Deacon bluntly tells Sara he wants to take her to bed within a very short time of knowing her and they pretty much sleep together while on a job together. In the middle of their investigation when Sara is going to be the next hunter Guild Director? I also found it silly that Deacon was so big that he couldn’t fit into Sara’s car and had to follow on his motorcycle. Other than my inability to suspend disbelief at these things (and I think I’m in the minority from what I’ve seen), the story itself was relatively enjoyable.

Overall: Not bad but the romance was too predictable and physical for my tastes, but I think it would appeal to those who like a little steam in their stories.

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4) Blind Spot by Meljean Brook: This one is another story linked to a series I haven’t read, which is the Guardian series.

The Premise: Maggie is the equivalent of a butler for a very wealthy and powerful family, and her boss happens to be a vampire. When Maggie’s employer’s niece, Katherine, is kidnapped in New York, Katherine’s brother, Goeffrey Blake goes to get her, but he runs into some trouble and Maggie is sent over. Maggie and Geoff must work together (along with the family’s hellhound, Sir Pup) to find his sister.

Excerpt of Blind Spot

My Thoughts: I haven’t read the Guardian series, but I have read another novella set in this world in the Wild Thing anthology. I remember liking the worldbuilding in that story, but this one is even better. I think this author has grown, and I’m impressed! I felt like I was seeing Geoff and Maggie get to know one another and that although they each had an interest in each other they were aware that finding Katherine was more important. The attraction is shown more subtly, like their mutual curiosity for each other, and in gestures, like Maggie’s quick looks everywhere but pauses on Geoff’s mouth and hands. Meanwhile, Geoff’s thoughts reveal that he has known and thought about Maggie far before they ever met, which pulled me in because I wanted to know why and how that happened. The fantasy elements, such as Sir Pup the shape-shifting hellhound, and interesting abilities (really cool but I don’t want to spoil you), were unique and fascinating but also help along the story. I adored Sir Pup, the half-scary chaperone and comic relief.

Overall: Really enjoyable blend of the fantastic and romantic. I liked this more than I expected to: it ties with the Ilona Andrews novella as my favorite in this anthology.

Other reviews:
The Good, The Bad, and The Unread – I think I consistently have a very different opinion from this reviewer, just like now, but we agreed on the Meljean Brook story. She’s also misinterpreted Andrea and Raphael’s relationship prior to when the novella takes place, IMHO.
Literary Escapism – I’m somewhat in line with her thoughts, but probably liked the Singh story less than she did.
Smexy Books – Same as above.
Shaymless Aymless at Babbling about Books and More – also in line with LE and Smexy books

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

Posted on October 4, 2009 by janicu

Rosemary and Rue:

An October Daye Novel

Seanan McGuire

I kept seeing good reviews of the debut novel by Seanan McGuire everywhere, but Urban Fantasy (one of my fav blogs), really cinched my interest when they recommended Rosemary and Rue “especially for fans of Ilona Andrews or Patricia Briggs.” After that I was sold! I planned to buy this, but got lucky and won it over at Lurv a la Mode. 🙂

The Premise: This is the first book in a series about October (Toby) Daye, a changeling living in San Francisco. Toby is detective who has had it with the world of the Fae but her resolve to stay far from it dissolves when a pureblooded fae calls her before being murdered and puts a curse on Toby to find out who killed her and why.

Excerpt of the book

My Thoughts: It didn’t take me very long to fall in love with the world building in this book. The prologue was a mind blower (and in this case you HAVE to read it to make sense of what happens afterwards and why Toby wants to distance herself with her faerie friends), and I started getting excited about having another author to stalk. Deety at Urban fantasy had said, “there’s a level of uniqueness that makes this book stand out from the pack” which I saw in the way the world of the faerie blended so well against the backdrop of San Francisco. I just loved how Toby, our narrator would explain the world as things were happening. I could see San Francisco and I could see the hidden parts and faerie creatures that were everywhere for Toby, but hidden from human eyes. Some parts are beautiful, some are scary and gritty, and there are so many varieties of creatures from Pixies and Undine to Cait Sidhe to Kitsune. And then we have the halfbreeds and the changelings, like Toby, who are considered lower caste for their human blood, diluted magic, and shorter lives. In Toby’s opinion, changelings have the short end of the stick, because no one knows what to do with them really, they don’t belong in the human world, but they aren’t treated well by the faerie.

There are quite a few characters we’re introduced to throughout the book. Toby has a lot of friends, many with back stories hinted at throughout the book. I liked a lot of them and wanted to read more. Hopefully many of them will be reoccurring characters in this series. There’s also suggestions of possible romantic interest in Toby, but only very brief ones, this is still an urban fantasy. Two of these guys I firmly believed to be *wrong* for her and I was rooting against them. I already had my favorite ship, which I share with Ana of the Book Smugglers – Tybalt, the king of the Cait Sidhe. Ana says in her review, “Even though you try to hide your feelings, I know, deep down you so totally love the woman.” – exactly!

Toby is unusual for wanting her own life and a job outside of the faerie world. After what happens to her in the prologue her pulling away from it further made sense as well. The prologue gives you a pretty good indication of the author’s storytelling – things get messy for our heroine. This book has some gritty aspects along with the prettiness: deaths, kids being exploited, unhappy people. Toby makes mistakes and the bad guys are willing to do anything to get what they want. This means Toby gets very beaten up in this book while trying to figure out who killed her friend.

And this is where the flaws in the book come in. I was really happy reading the book until about halfway, when my glee and lovefest began to dim. I wasn’t sure why until I read some other reviews which pointed out what the problem was: Toby kept getting railroaded by the bad guys, over and over. She almost dies a few times, and still she has to keep moving and running around or she will die. When Toby finally figures out what was going on, I didn’t think it was her sleuthing skills so much as dumb luck and a lot of help along the way. The consequences of who it ended up being are very interesting, and I liked that Toby finds out some harsh truths about herself, but the constant rebounding Toby has to do to get there was exhausting. I also ran into a pet peeve which is a character having sex after almost dying – that’s just not realistic!!

Anyway, despite those quibbles, I really liked this book, and I’m very happy that there’s a second and third book coming out quite soon – A Local Habitation comes out in March 2010, and An Artificial Night comes out in September. The only problem is that I’ve gotten sucked into another series (I can’t seem to help myself), which doesn’t really seem to have an end in sight (the author’s FAQ says “several” and hints at eight or more books).

Overall: I’d say it made me excited to read this. The world building was very strong (LOVED it!!!), but the plot isn’t without it’s flaws which made the second half weaker than the first. I am eagerly anticipating the second and third book just to see where things go and hoping Toby gets together with the love interest I’m pulling for.

Buy: Amazon | B&N

Reviews elsewhere:
Urban Fantasy – see above 🙂
The Book Smugglers – Thea gave it a 7, leaning towards and 8, Ana gave it an 8
SciFiGuy – “destined for my top 10 list for 2009”
Lurv a la Mode – very highly recommended
Book Love Affair – “love at first sight”

Dawnbreaker by Jocelynn Drake

Posted on September 30, 2009 by janicu

Dawnbreaker (Dark Days, Book 3)

Jocelynn Drake

This review is for an ARC I received from EOS books

The Premise: This is the third Dark Days novel, narrated by Mira, a 600 year old vampire, known as the Fire Starter, the only nightwalker (aka vampire) with the power over fire. Mira is in the middle of a war between the nightwalkers and the naturi, a race of beings who think that all humans and nightwalkers should be eliminated to cleanse the earth. Mira’s fight with the naturi has traversed the globe, from her home in Savannah, to London, to Venice and back. Now things have progressed so that the naturi are about to break free out of the seal keeping most of them out of the world, but Mira is hellbent on stopping them.

My reviews:
Book 1: Nightwalker (livejournal, wordpress)
Book 2: Dayhunter (livejournal, wordpress)

Browse inside Dawnbreaker

**** There are minor spoilers for the past books from this point on ****

My Thoughts: I had very similar thoughts about this book as I did for the previous two, except I would say that this book has even more action. Dawnbreaker is like one of those blockbuster movies with plenty of fights and pyrotechnics (which makes for a quick read whenever I picked it up). The book starts off where Daywalker left off, with naturi pursuing Mira while she tries to stop them from breaking the seal that keeps most of their kind from returning to the world. By Mira’s side are several people who we’ve been introduced to in the past couple of books. There’s a lot of characters to keep track of, but I had no issues remembering who they were because of quick summaries of who is who exactly when I needed it. All of these people are under Mira’s protection and she takes her job very seriously, but the bombardment from the naturi means Mira is a busy woman.

One of the people surrounding Mira is the vampire hunter Danaus who over the past couple of books has become something of a friend. Their relationship is an odd one. They have to work with each other because only Danaus is able to expand Mira’s abilities, but they are natural enemies. This book is very much an urban fantasy because there is almost no romance, but there are hints that Danaus and Mira feel more for each other than they are willing to admit. These hints were *very* few and far between, and are about equal in number to the comments that one day Mira and Danaus will kill each other. They both seem able to understand one another in times of trouble, but Mira and Danaus have seen each other do things they didn’t approve of. In any case, because this book was focused on the race to stop the naturi from re-entering the world, there was less time to delve into relationships as deeply as they were in previous books. Much of the interesting interactions happened in the last quarter of Dawnbreaker. I don’t doubt we’ll see more of that to come, both between Mira and Danaus, and between Mira and others, including the vampire Coven leaders, whose long term plans are hard to guess, and Mira’s new vampire family. This book leaves us with some problems solved and other problems appearing (Mira’s seat on the Coven, Danaus’ identity, The Great Awakening). I can’t wait to see how Mira and Danaus tackle them!

My family used to live there, so I have a very small nit about the Peruvian weather: Peru isn’t far from the equator and the change of seasons is quite mild, so the description of the winter winds and seasons being the opposite of North America’s isn’t accurate. I’d say Cusco is only colder because of the altitude and there really is only a dry season and a rainy season, not four seasons.

Overall: Ramps up the non-stop action which is found in the first two books. This book continues with the same dark, Gothic undertones and epic scope. I love the complex relationships between characters which is sparingly doled out here, but I have no doubt they will come to the forefront again soon enough. There are a couple of juicy issues left for Mira and Danaus to tackle after this book, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Buy: Amazon | B&N

Links and other reviews:
Jess’s Book reviews as a interview and contest for Dawnbreaker that ends 10/5 (this is awesome because it comes with a picture of how Drake imagines Danaus)
Interview at SciFiGuy (I was interested to find out about a preview novella in the Unbound anthology, and that the next books will be called Pray for Dawn and Wait for Dusk)

Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout

Posted on September 19, 2009 by janicu

Norse Code

Greg Van Eekhout

I saw a few reviews of Norse Code when it came out a few months ago (in May), but I had a hard time deciding whether to pick it up based on them. To make my decision for me, the ever awesome calico-reaction sent me a copy and I finally read it this week. 🙂

The Premise: This is an urban fantasy which takes it’s fantasy elements from Norse mythology. Mist is a once-grad student who was murdered and became a Valkyrie. Now she works on project NorseCODE to increase the number of warriors in Odin’s army for Ragnarok, the Norse version of Armageddon. Meanwhile, Odin’s wanderer son, the god Hermod is also working to prevent Ragnorak. Their two stories overlap in a series of odd adventures on Earth and elsewhere.

Excerpts: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

My Thoughts: The book begins with an event amongst the gods which was believed to be the first sign that Ragnarok will come to pass, and then thousands of years later, we’re in modern day United States and it looks like Ragnarok is right around the corner. At first I had a hard time figuring out where things were going (Mist suddenly decides she’s going to rescue her sister from Hel, Hermod is off in California looking for wolf pups who will swallow the the moon), but once a mutual objective was decided, things got more interesting. Actually – I had no clue what Ragnorak was, Norse mythology is something I know very little about so that’s probably why I was semi-mystified. I think I only know some of the big names like Thor, Odin, and Frigg, and most of those is from learning where the names for the days of the week came from sometime in middle school. Looking at wikipedia, the basic story of Hermod and his brothers, Höd and Balr used in Norse Code is taken directly from Norse mythology, so those more familiar with it would probably pick up the story faster than me, but I had no problems following once I did.

The other bit of confusion on the book may be the shifting points of view. Most of the book is told from the third person, focusing on first Hermod, then Mist and vice versa, but there are also chapters told in the first person from one of Odin’s two ravens, who constantly fly everywhere and take note of what is going on. This gives the reader an opportunity to find out what other characters are up to while Mist and Hermod do their thing, and it does fill in the blanks which would otherwise be there, so I had no issues with this, but I can see other readers not particularly liking the multiple POVs.

There’s a lot going on in this book. As soon as the adventurers jump out of the frying pan, they’re into the fire, and no matter what they try, the next step towards Ragnarok happens. Yet Mist and Hermod keep trying because if they didn’t, the world of humans, Midgard, would be lost forever. Because of this, the book is primarily an action-adventure as our heroes scramble to prevent the inevitable, and character development is produced in quick, hurried strokes. A look or sentence here and there throughout the story. If you don’t pay attention, you’d miss the smidgen of romance or the nature of relationships between siblings. I found this OK, since the story itself was interesting enough, I didn’t need to focus on the characters, but it would have been nice to get into the character’s heads more. I thought that Hermod was the best-written character in the book, perhaps because he had the best lines. The humor in this book sneaks up on you. There’s one particularly brilliant scene where Hermod reads a note from his father aloud, and rather than reading what it really said, he inserts his own version which made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

This book is categorized as “urban fantasy”, though I would nitpick a bit there and call it “contemporary fantasy”, just because so much of the book doesn’t even happen on Earth as we know it. There are a couple of books that it reminded me of, in a very cursory way: Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, just because of the Valkyries, and Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity series just because of the use of interconnected worlds with some similarities (lots of ‘heim’s). Yes, people who have read these books, they are NOTHING like Norse Code whatsoever, but I like pondering how authors take a concept in very different ways.

Overall: I liked it in a “Oh, that’s a clever idea” kind of way. I probably would enjoy it more if I knew more of Norse mythology so I could have fun identifying myths and gods, but I wasn’t so confused I couldn’t follow the story. There’s a very readable writing style, and the moments of wry humor tickled me. I’d recommend reading excerpts to get a feel for the book before you buy.

P.S I think this is a standalone.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N

Other reviews:
Calico reaction rated it as give it away.
Scooper Speaks “interesting, but [..] a tad bit choppy”

Sins & Shadows by Lyn Benedict

Posted on September 8, 2009 by janicu

Sins & Shadows by Lyn Benedict

I can’t remember how I first heard of this book, but after getting a used copy, it stayed on my TBR pile until I saw a review at mardelwanda‘s livejournal. Mardel said of the main character, Sylvie: “She’s kind of mean, kind of angry. But I actually enjoyed reading her angry sarcastic comments. She’s just so damned mad and tough she doesn’t care who she’s mouthing off too, a god, an erinyes, witch, whoever. You get the feeling, from hints, that she’s killed a lot of….beings.”

So I was intrigued. A pissed off character. It can go either way. I mean, a character that rubs you the wrong way can make or break a book for the reader, if they’re just jerks, that’s no good, but if there’s depth and development to them and it gets really interesting.

The Premise: Sylvie Lightener is a a private investigator specializing in paranormal cases. She’s been through a lot, including the recent killing of one of her employees, and in an effort to protect the people around her, she’s closing up shop. Just as she does, one last customer comes in. This man tells her: “My name is Kevin Dunne. I am the god of Justice. And I need your help.” He wants Sylvie to find his missing lover, who he can’t find anywhere, but he knows that he is still alive. Since Sylvie isn’t really allowed to say no, she flies to Chicago to investigate.

This is the first in a new series called Shadows Inquires. Lyn Benedict also writes as Lane Robins (Maledicte – which I haven’t read)

An Excerpt (part of the first chapter)

My Thoughts: I thought Sins & Shadows was well-written. Good sense of place (Chicago), characters with depth, and good pacing. I’ve seen reviews who disagreed about the pacing, but for me I just picked it up to read the first chapter and then it was 2 hours later and I’d read 150 pages. It starts out as a mystery, but turns into much more. I think my favorite part was anything to do with the gods and how they worked. Actually, how magic worked. This book had some really interesting ideas that sort of made me go, “Ohhh. Cool.” because it made sense and things fit together. Most of it was about the Greek gods, but the Christian god fits into it as well, and the way Benedict brings in well-known characters associated with the deities (such as the Furies and others) was really nicely done.

The big make-it-or-break-it part of the book is definitely (as you’d guess from what I’d said about pissed off characters) Sylvie. You know how it can be really annoying when the main character is the type who just doesn’t know when to shut up? It’s a really close line here. I can see people finding Sylvie abrasive, but for me, these moments came in spurts (the more danger she’s in, the worse she is). She starts off mean to her loyal employee Alex, trying to get Alex to stay away from the job in an effort to protect her, but then after that Sylvie didn’t really seem that bad until much later on. It actually seems to work with the plot, which I was a little impressed by. There is an angry voice inside her which she hears, and I was beginning to wonder if that had deeper implications, but you have to read the whole book to see what I’m talking about. Sylvie is a dark heroine, one who is flawed in a way where I disagreed with what she was doing and saying. She’s very motivated by revenge. It clouds her judgement where others look at her in dismay but she refuses to budge in her thinking. Yet this works because she has to deal with the consequences of this, and I want to know if she can redeem herself or not. It’s truly a toss-up, because all through this book, she hasn’t done enough assure me that she can change. It makes me really want to read the next book though and find out. Weird, huh?

One issue I had with the book would probably be that I kept getting the sense that I was reading the second book of a series rather than the first. The first chapter throws you in midstream with Sylvie closing up shop and you don’t really find out why until much later. Then there’s Sylvie and Alex’s shared back story which sounds substantial but only piece together bit and pieces of it. And there’s Sylvie’s relationship with ISI agent Michael Demalion and other hints dropped here and there about Sylvie’s past. I wanted to know more information but because it wasn’t directly related to the current action, it wasn’t forthcoming. I hope this is remedied in later books.

Overall: Has a pissed off main character, so avoid if you hate that, but I think there’s so much potential there for character growth, and I’m so interested in what the author did here that I’m looking forward to the next book. (So I guess I kinda liked it).

Other reviews (a mixed bag):

Calico-reaction – rated it “give it away”

Mardelwanda – liked reading the book

Fantasy debut – a neutral review I think..

Buy: Amazon | B&N

Mercy Thompson: Homecoming by Patricia Briggs

Posted on September 4, 2009 by janicu

Mercy Thompson Homecoming

Patricia Briggs

This is the graphic novel which collects the first four comics in this series. I pre-ordered this one since I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

Preview of Mercy Thompson: Homecoming

Premise: This is a graphic novel prequel to the events in the Mercy Thompson books. It covers Mercy first arriving at the Tri-Cities, getting a job as a mechanic and meeting Zee, Stephan and others. In true Mercy form, she manages to find herself involved with trouble (starting by being attacked by a pack of rogue wolves), but stubbornly works through it in her own way.

My Thoughts: Wow, I’m seeing a lot of negative reviews on Amazon from people who thought this was a novel, not a graphic novel. Yikes! Perhaps they pre-ordered *very* early before the cover which says “an original graphic novel set in the best selling Mercy Thompson universe” was put up, and didn’t check Patricia Briggs’ website to see that the next Mercy Thompson novel is Silver Borne and is coming out Spring 2010. : It’s a bit sad to see it getting a lot of negative reviews because of this.

Anyway, as a graphic novel, I liked that everything is in rich color (not always the case)! I’ll probably be flipping the book open to stare at the artwork every so often this week. I’m enjoying having images of the characters to look at. It looks like the illustrators were changed halfway from Francis Tsai to Amelia Woo, so there were some subtle differences in how people were drawn, but I wasn’t completely thrown. I did feel that there was an uneven-ness in the way Mercy was drawn. First: she looked asian sometimes, white others, and native american rarely. Then in the first two comics Mercy looks similar to how she looks on the covers by Dan Dos Santos, but in the second two she has lighter hair and skin. I’m not sure why. It’s too bad Mercy looked so different when she’s the main character. Either way, I still liked the artwork, so that’s a minor complaint. I most liked how Adam was drawn by both illustrators. Zee looked the most like I imagined, but maybe more wiry and less stocky than I expected. Stephan looked the *least* like I expected (90’s grunge vamp? didn’t expect that one).

Story-wise, there is a lot of subtle back story hints which fans of the Mercy Thompson novels will like. How Mercy got her lamb necklace and her cat for example, but I do think this graphic novel is better when you have already read the Mercy Thompson books so you can pick up on these things. Bran doesn’t really show up in this book but there is a drawing of him in the extras at the end of the book (the other extra is an interview with Patricia Briggs about working on this GN).

Overall: A nice graphic novel prequel to the books. A must for die-hard Mercy Thompson fans, but if you don’t like graphic novels you may want to skip it. I personally like it a lot and am happy I bought it (*hugs it* but then I’m a big fan of this series). The only minor complaint I have is that the artwork had some inconsistencies and uneven-ness particularly in the way Mercy was drawn.

Amazon | B&N

Links:

The Dabel Brothers are also making the first Alpha and Omega story into comic book form: http://www.dabelbrothers.com/index.php?categoryid=16&p2_articleid=59

Ariel by Steven R. Boyett

Posted on August 7, 2009 by janicu

Ariel

Steven R. Boyett

I heard of this book through the Hidden Gems Forum of paperbackswap. Someone had posted about this book as a Gem from their childhood and said it was a story about a boy and his unicorn in a post apocalyptic landscape. I was intrigued. This excellent review at Lost Books cinched my wanting to read it. Unfortunately this book was hard to find because it was last published in 1984, and I had to set up an alert for it to find it at a decent price used. That’s why I’m glad it’s being republished this year, August 25th.

This review is based on what I recall from reading it last year.

The Premise: Pete is a high school student in Florida when suddenly technology stops. Planes fall out of the sky, cars and electricity stop working. Riots begin, and Pete is cut off from his parents who work too far away from his home or school to easily walk. Civilization tumbles into its lowest form – pure chaos and everyone for themselves. Mythical creatures begin to appear, such as Ariel, a unicorn who befriends Pete. To survive Pete and Ariel journey from town to town, and living off the land for food and shelter.

My Thoughts: The narrator of the book is Pete, but the title of the book is Ariel. This is significant, because the relationship between the two of them is the driving force behind the book. In the first part of the book we see how they met and then how the two of them learn how to live off the land by going to libraries and reading. At first things are fine, but Pete is human and fallible. He wants to show off about Ariel. While there are other relationships between man and mystical beast, it isn’t at the same level where they are equals. So things change when other people learn of their relationship, which a now self-serving society wants to exploit.

Pete has to grow up in order to protect himself and Ariel. But he’s also growing up in other ways, which affect Ariel. I found him an imperfect character, not always saying or doing the smart or right thing. Sometimes he was meaner than he needed to be. This went along with the sometimes harsh nature of the book. There’s violence, bad people, terrible things happen. But good things happen too. Ariel is a good thing. There are also people willing to help them out, and Pete makes a few friends and learns some self defense and other skills from them.

One thing I wanted to note is that the writing is really well done. One of those authors where you just forget you’re reading, you’re so caught up in the story that you don’t even notice the words, you’re too busy watching what’s going on in your mind’s eye. I had visions of endless walking and desolation but with the company of friends. Even Ilona Andrews (who has her own version of our world without technology in the Kate Daniels series) is a fan.

Overall: The book really leaves an impact, even a year later I feel a bit haunted. It’s not really young adult although Pete starts off as a teen when the book begins; there are some violent and sad things that happen here which are described rather matter-of-factly. There’s a mixture of both hope and loss after reading Ariel. I plan to read Elegy which is the sequel to Ariel, thirty years later. Elegy comes out November 3rd.

Amazon | B&N