Recommendations

Web of Lies

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Courtesy of jenniferestep.comOkay, so I have been plowing through these Elemental Assassin books by Jennifer Estep. Seriously, there’s good. Book two is Web of Lies, where Gin Blanco, our anti-heroine, is living with retirement. And she’s not really enjoying it. She’s restless, which his why when someone tries to rob her business, the Pork Pit, she and her dwarf cook Sophia take them down with prejudice.

This sets up quite the series of events:

  1. We’re introduced to Eva Grayson, sister of wealthy Ashland business owner Owen Grayson, who makes an appearance later on in the book.
  2.  We see just how much of Ashland Mab Monroe controls as the son of her lawyer, Jonah McAllister, who just happens to be the lead robber, gets released so quick it’ll make your head spin. We also get our first intro to Jonah himself as he tries to brace Gin into withdrawing her charges. HA! Like that would happen.
  3. Jonah’s pressuring of people to avoid the Pork Pit leads Gin to having the time to help hapless Violet Fox, who comes in looking for the Tin Man (now deceased Fletcher Lane).

With time on her hands, Gin and Finn decide that it’s worth the time and effort to figure out who is going through the trouble to try and torture Miss Violet, a sweet and bumbling college student who just so happens to be fast friends with Eva Grayson. Lot’s of little coincidences in this book.

Gin and her people learn that Violet and her grandfather Warren are being braced by dwarf mining magnate Tobias Dawson to sell their land. If you know anything of Southern culture, you know that a family’s ancestral land is sacrosanct and the Foxes have been there for centuries. Warren won’t sell, especially not to a creepy schmuck like Dawson. Gin and company also learn that the reason Dawson is so keen to get his hands on Fox land is that they are sitting on a literal diamond cache.

Dawson has mined as far as he could but any further and the Foxes would feel the mining equipment going through their living room floor. Gin decides to take out Dawson, if only to keep Violet safe from the torture that Dawson is willing to inflict upon her. This leads to a lot of trouble, including the killing of Jonah McAllister’s son in Mab Monroe’s own home and a couple of near death experiences for Gin.

We also see Detective Donovan Caine bow out of the novels, at least up to the book I’m in the middle of reading. Donovan can’t handle that he’s compromised his principles twice for Gin, so much so that he’d wished she’d died in the elemental duel she’d had with Tobias Dawson, rather than living through it.

I kinda feel like Donovan Caine is a sanctimonious prick. Honestly, you can live with wishing someone you care for dead but you can’t live with the fact that she took out a seriously bad dude? Murder is pretty awful, no matter how you look at it, but it seems pretty cowardly to me to wish for someone’s death because it would make things easier on you. Gotta say, I wasn’t too sad to see Caine go.

Caine’s departure opens up the field for Owen Grayson, who is intrigued by Gin from the get go and has no problem with her former field of work, that occasionally pulls her back in. Owen has the sort of moral flexibility that’s better for Gin and she still hasn’t gone all save me big strong man. A+ for that. As I’ve said, I hate it when strong female characters roll over for the first guy that comes along.

I highly recommend these books. And you don’t really have to read them in order either. You can just jump right in. So go ahead and pick one up. You won’t regret it. Rating: A+

Spider’s Bite

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Courtesy of Amazon.comSo I tried the Elemental Assassin series a while ago (read: years) by Jennifer Estep, and I just couldn’t get into it. I think that the little blurb I read wasn’t enough to catch my interest. I recently picked up the first book of the series, Spider’s Bite, and was blown away.

We follow assassin Gin Blanco, through a job at the beginning of a book. A grieving family has hired her to take out a creepy pedo shrink who runs an asylum in Ashland (I think North Carolina?). Said creepy doc seduced a 17-18 year old kid in her care through abuse of her role and he ended up killing herself when she moved on to her next target. Ugh. Gross. She also took out a rapey orderly pro bono.

Gin successfully does the hit, gets away into the wilds of Ashland and heads back to her handler, Fletcher Lane. Fletcher runs a barbecue place called the Pork Pit and was himself a very successful assassin codenamed the Tin Man. Gin is codenamed the Spider, due to the melted silverstone spider run embedded in her hands.

Instead of taking a long deserved vacation with lots of umbrella drinks and skimpily clad cabana boys, Fletcher pushes another job on Gin. It should have been an easy one, but nothing is as it seems with this one. Because of the quick turnaround (1-2 days), Gin can’t do her usual in depth research. She’s forced to make the hit at the opera house and things go sideways.

Because she was taking the time to admire a handsome cop named Donovan Caine, apparently the only honest cop in the city of Ashland, another assassin (Brutus) gets the drop on her. Apparently he was hired to take her out when she’d finished her job (not the cop but the man the cop was trying to talk to named Giles something or other, a finance man for a successful company) so she could take the fall for the whole thing.

Unfortunately for the buyer, Gin is damn good at her job. She gets Brutus and manages to take out his partner before he finishes Gin’s original job. By the time she gets back to the Pork Pit, Fletcher is dead and Gin has to find his son, Finnegan (Finn) before he gets just as dead. She manages it, if only just.

Together, Finn and Gin (heh, that rhymes) have to find out who killed Fletcher and betrayed them. Finn, while not an assassin, is an excellent handler (having been taught by his father). Together, they figure out that an air elemental is behind everything. While hunting her down, the manage to save the life of good guy Donovan Caine, pulling him briefly into their world.

Donovan and Gin have a steamy affair in a broom closet while waiting for an opportunity to get the drop on their bad guy, a marketing chief for her original mark’s company who is trying to get the company back from mobster fire elemental Mab Monroe. She’s also a little nuts.

Gin manages to come out on top of an elemental’s duel and gets revenge for her father figure Fletcher but she doesn’t manage to get the guy. Which I like to see. Not that I think an assassin doesn’t deserve happiness in these books but it’s nice when there isn’t quite a happily ever after. I also like that neither Gin nor Donovan compromises on who they are to be together.

Donovan is just too moral a man to end up with an assassin and Gin is unapologetic about who she is. She isn’t going to change to be with a man and she shouldn’t have to. All too often I see a strong female figure who caves on her ideals at the first sign of a hard cock and some good sex. I hate that trope, which is probably why I’ve already bought and read the next two books in the series and am shortly going to buy the fourth.

This is a world where humans, creatures (i.e.-giants, dwarves, vampires) coexist together. It isn’t perfect, there’s a lot of corruption, but it was fairly realistic for a urban fantasy novel. I also like that there wasn’t some sort of Big Reveal. It really just seems like this mix was just always the way things have been. It’s a nice change.

At any rate, I really enjoyed the hell out of this book and would highly recommend it. Rating: A+

Chronicles of a Demigod

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Courtesy of goodreads.comA while ago I bought this book cheap off Amazon but couldn’t really get into it. I think mainly because I was on a steampunk kick at the time and just couldn’t get back into an urban fantasy frame of mind. That being said, Chronicles of a Demigod by Adam McNamee is pretty good.

It starts off with Coyote (the Native American spirit) deciding that his people needed a weapon of godly make, something super cool. Unfortunately there isn’t really a smithy spirit in the Native American pantheons (I say pantheons because while the many tribes believed a lot of similar things, they all have their own myths). So Coyote decides to trick Hephaestus into making him the ultimate sword by playing off his jealousy of Ares.

And it works, sort of. Hephaestus makes the sword…but he curses it so that only a Greek (or a Greek demigod) can wield it. So Coyote takes the sword and, pissed off and a trickster, he gives it to a Greek demigod. One of Ares’ get. 🙂

Enter Ambrose, who lives in Las Cruces and is one of many Greek demigods in the world. As you no doubt already know, the Greek gods were not known for their fidelity. What I like about them in this world is that they can basically live forever as long as they get ambrosia, which is actually supplied by the gods and run around the demigods by Hermes’ offspring.

Ambrose is a son of Ares but he doesn’t fight. Or at least, he hasn’t fought for roughly one hundred years. Why, you ask? Because he fell in love with the daughter of Hades, Selene. Hades made him a deal: you go 100 years without fighting and I’ll allow you to date my daughter. Which first of all, boo. My dad wouldn’t have that sort of say over my love life, why should hers? Second of all, why bother with deals when you’re the lord of the underworld? Can’t you arrange to disrupt the flow of ambrosia or higher someone to take him out if you really didn’t approve?

Anyway, moving on. Las Cruces is one of two areas in the country which are sort of supernatural safe zones. The other being Portland and if you’ve ever been to Portland, you’ll know that wouldn’t be all that far fetched. 😀 Groups of supes live in Las Cruces that normally wouldn’t get to stay in one place. They follow the rules set down by a guy named Alistrov (whom we don’t meet), which ensures the supes stay under the radar and don’t kill each other. Most other places, it sounds like a free for all. And in Portland, the supes are basically serfs of one guy.

Unfortunately, Alistrov disappears and the alpha of the local werewolf pack gets murdered, leaving Las Cruces open for the taking. The supes who live there don’t want to leave. It’s their home and there isn’t any place else in the country that’s as stable and prosperous. So they band together and try to get Ambrose to fight for them, since he’s the only real fighter in the lot.

Ambrose turns them down. He wants to finish out his 100 years and get Selene back. His best friend, a son of Hermes named Dorian, keeps trying to tell him that this deal is not the way to get her back, that it’s changed him but Ambrose doesn’t listen…until Selene shows up and tells him the same thing. And dumps his ass. The reason being that neither Ambrose nor her father consulted with her on this stupid deal, which she would have shot down because Hades can’t make her do anything. Which is kind of cruel when you think of it. She didn’t make the deal so she could have gone to Ambrose any time and told him that. She chose not to and then dumped him. Kind sounds like he’s well shot of her.

With nothing holding him back from fighting, Ambrose decides that he likes Las Cruces too much and he’s a little too mad to not do anything. He agrees to fight their enemy, a bear shifter named Ursa (not original but it’s exactly the kind of name this character would have given himself). And have I mentioned that he’s got to keep his half sister Selia off his back? She wants the Trickster’s Blade like none other but she’s a nasty bitch and Ambrose isn’t going to let her have it. It was a gift from Coyote himself because Ambrose was the Ares kid who was most like Coyote, tricky.

This is pretty clearly a first novel but it was surprisingly good and the world building was pretty decent. I’m a sucker for Greek demigod stories in my urban fantasy, so I ended up quite enjoying this. It definitely ended on an open note, hinting at a follow up book though I haven’t seen one yet. I hope he comes out with one. I really like Ambrose. He’s not your typical Ares kid in fantasy. He’s got layers. Like an onion. 😉 Rating: B+. Good, but could use some polishing.

Brakebills: Hogwarts Lite for America

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Courtesy of goodreads.comSo SyFy has this fun new show called the Magicians that is based on a trilogy of the same name by Lev Grossman. The first book in the trilogy is also called The Magicians and it features a late teen boy (17-18) named Quentin Coldwater who lives in Brooklyn and is insanely smart. Like in a school of smart people where he and his friends are all Hermione Grangers. And yes, these sorts of schools do exist and the kids that come out of them are crazy, crazy smart…though not very well versed in social interactions.

I’ve really been enjoying the TV show and I have to admit…I was a little disappointed in the book. This first book is Quentin taking a test and getting into a school for magic. No, not Hogwarts but Brakebills. Brakebills is on the Hudson River in upstate New York and is, essentially, Hogwarts lite.

You enter a campus that no none magic person can find. Magic interferes with technology. You’re not allowed to tell anyone about magic (statute of secrecy!) and you get sorted into a house…I mean, specialty. Seriously, there’s a sorting process, but it’s a not until second or third year so it isn’t exactly like Hogwarts.

Oh, and there’s also an incomprehensible but internationally adored wizard game! Luckily this is some weird form of chess called welters and not something involving broomsticks. There’s also a Hermione Granger (Alice…something) and a Ron Weasley (Eliot…something) and a number of other brave but insignificant character that may play a larger role later on. We’ll have to wait and see.

I think the second book will be more interesting, or at least I’m hoping. There was no real conflict in this book. It was just Quentin being insecure and learning magic. Even HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone had Voldemort show up at the end. Imagine of in that book, Voldemort had never shown up and Harry just had a regular school year. Yeah, not that interesting.

But, seeing as I plunked down 30 bucks for the trilogy (the sample was interesting enough that I thought the first book would have just a little more oomph), I’m really hoping that it’ll get better.  I’m guessing that this is Grossman’s first book. It has potential but he didn’t really need that much character building. Rating: C

Return of the High Fae

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Courtesy of Amazon.comReturn of the High Fae by by Tom Keller is the first in the Vegas Fae story arc. And I don’t think I’m going to read the rest. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it read like an episode of Scooby-Doo. It felt just entirely too tropey.

The story is written in the first person from the perspective of our protagonist (natch). Wouldn’t it be interesting to see a story written in first person but from the perspective of, say, a second in command? I digress. So our male lead is a PI named Robert Hoskins. And because of that, I pictured Eddie Valiant the entire time I read this.

Good old Bob is an older gent, former cop with two kids he doesn’t see all that often and a ranch on the outskirts of Vegas. We’re introduced to him as he saves a likely mobster named Eddy Milagre from a kidnapping. During the thank you for saving my life what can I do to repay you portion of the book, Milagre’s mom (I think?) discovers that Bobby is in fact a fae. And a powerful one. Of course.

As is the way of things, Mr. Hoskins is all I have no idea what you’re on but can I please leave with them, and gets out of the meet and greet with all fingers and toes attached. I did mention this is pretty tropey right? So Bob goes about his life until he starts seeing weird people around. He meets a Lilith, a vampire who’s not a vampire (seriously, all the tropes) and some other fae.

He finds out from his German aunt, who can walk through trees because faeries that yes, he really is a fae. And not only that, he’s a High Fae. From what I can tell this is like the faerie nobility, the strongest and most revered blood in the fae world. This, of course, leads him to all sorts of trouble but on the plus side, he’s deaged! He’s now a twenty-five year old instead of a 50 something. Though his friends and family will still see what they expect to see.

There seemed to be several different storylines trying to weave together in this story but unfortunately, it came out entirely discombobulated. I think Keller should have first done a coming into the powers/world of the fae story, either as an introductory novel or even just as a novella or short story. Then he should have done the saving the damsel from her horrible life story followed by the fighting a High Fae bad guy story. There were a lot of Oh hay did we mention this moments.

I found this world poorly built and the characters not compelling in the least. I think my favorite one was the dog, because who doesn’t love dogs? And every once in awhile, I see the second book in the story for cheap on Amazon and I pause…but it isn’t really worth it. Maybe if it were a buck or free. Even then, I think I’d rather re-read a Dresden Files book where the fae are awesome.

Not even Vegas as a background could save this book. If I wanted Scooby-Doo, I’d watch Scooby-Doo (which I love, admittedly). I prefer a book where I can’t guess the ending by the third chapter. Rating: C-.

Destroyer Rising

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from daysgonebad.comI’ve been reading the Damian Vesik series by Eric R. Asher for a while now, and they don’t disappoint. Damian is a necromancer and now, since the events of the last book, a lot more than that. People have been bandying about that he’s a god now, a new Anubis.

This book doesn’t go too into depth on that aspect of things, just hints here and there. But in Destroyer Rising, we see Damian doing his damnedest to get over the seeming betrayal of his adopted fae mother, Cora (she was the fae king’s wife and she’d never mentioned that at all to anyone) and trying to rescue ghost girl Vicky.

Being a ghost, Vicky normally wouldn’t need rescuing. Unfortunately, she got in the wrong way of a very powerful demon. This demon is trying to use her to ascend to the mortal world. If that happens, it would be bad news for everyone. Humans are already on edge from the rise of the fae city Falias in the middle of America. Rightly so, since it resulted in the deaths of over a million people, all of whose spirits are swirling around in Damian’s head at the moment.

With the help of his mentor Zola, his sister Sam and his demon friend Mike, Damian has to navigate the Burning Lands to find the demon, perform a complex spell that no living person has ever cast and do it all in the span of about 12-18 hours.

This whole series is pretty darn good but I think this might be the best of the lost. Damian is in a bad place, but he still fights his way through it for the people he loves. I don’t know how many books are left in this series, but I really can’t wait for the next one. I can’t recommend them enough. And it’s so rare to see a necromancer as a good guy. It makes a refreshing change. Rating: A.

Crescent City Fae

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Courtesy of Deannachase.comI love New Orleans. It’s an awesome city with tons of interesting history. Also, beignets. Mmmm. So when I see a book set in Nola, I tend to give it a chance. I’m rather disappointed that I gave Influential Magic by Deanna Chase a chance.

This series revolves around a faerie named Willow Rhoswen (already with the really? feeling). She owns a cupcake shop in New Orleans. A magic cupcake shop. Literally because she weaves potions into her cupcakes. Some of which are dangerous enough to require a government license to purchase. It reminded me a little bit of what Professor Snape says in HP 1 about brewing glory and stoppering death.

At any rate, Willow is apparently allergic to vampires, which are rife in New Orleans. So naturally, she’s totally in love with one. To be fair, he wasn’t a vamp when they started dating. This guy was essentially ordered to date her, get close to her, because apparently her brother was some sort of fae big wig or something. That’s really unclear.

In fact, there was a surprising amount of this story that I felt just didn’t make sense. I’m assuming that this was the author’s first book because it was super Scooby-doo. Or maybe super Adam West Batman. I felt like the author tried to do plot twists but instead of being “oh wow, I didn’t see that coming” it was more of a “why did you do that?”.

I had to force myself to finish this book. Right away, the female lead wasn’t a character I enjoyed. She was trying to be the I can handle myself type and turned into the save me Prince Charming type. I really hate when that happens. It seems that a lot of books with strong female leads always end up with them falling all over themselves for one (or more) men.

I think what really, really bothered me about this one in particular is that it was clear that the man she was having feelings for had lied to her and manipulated her and yet she was still going oh but I still love him so! Am I the only person out there that would toss a guy (or gal if that’s your thing) out on their ass for being a lying bastard? Ugh.

It was an extremely disappointing book and I’m glad that the trilogy (I really should have just bought the first book *sigh*) was only three bucks on Amazon at the time I got it. And I was using a Christmas gift card.

Seriously, skip this series. If you want good urban fantasy or fantasy set in New Orleans, go for Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches or Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. Crescent City Fae…not so much. Rating: D.

A Trip to the Dark Side

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Courtesy of goodreads.comNo, not that dark side. This isn’t a Star Wars post (and though I’m a Trekkie to the core, the new Star Wars is awesome. Go see it!). Simon R. Green’s latest book is called The Dark Side of the Road.

Ishmael Jones (seriously, that’s his name) is a drifter, moving from job to job and blending in to the crowd. He has to, to keep safe. Ishmael isn’t human. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have picked a name like Ishmael. At any rate, he apparently crash landed on earth back in the 60s and as a part of his civilization’s crash protocol, his entire self down to his DNA was remade to be human.

Unfortunately, it didn’t change his strange golden blood or the fact that he (at least seemingly) doesn’t age. So he keeps a low profile and works jobs on what he calls the dark side of the road so he can have access to new identities when needed. He works for someone called the Colonel, who represents The Organization. Suitably vague for their type of work, which is to take care of those things that go bump in the night that threaten to go bump in the daylight.

The Colonel calls Ishmael at Christmas, on the eve of a terrible storm and asks him to come to Belcourt Manor in Cornwall (don’t quote me on the location, it was mentioned briefly and I can’t quite remember). By the time that Ishmael arrives, the storm is so bad it snows everyone into the manor.

Once there, Ishmael discovers that the Colonel is in fact one James Belcourt, son of Walter Belcourt, owner of Belcourt Manor. And he’s missing. Which is odd, considering the weather. Ishmael gets to know the guests, two of whom he knew in one of his previous lives and one of which is James’ sister Penny, who wants all up in Ishmael.

Eventually, Ishmael and Penny discover the Colonel’s beheaded body outside in the snow, disguised as a snowman (loved that. Suitably macabre). Its up to Ishmael to discover who killed his Colonel and is now picking off the few guests (a half dozen or so) left, to get revenge.

This book is Agatha Christie meets the Twilight Zone. Ishmael is an alien, the killer is referred to as the horror by the Colonel, and they’re locked in a quaint, old British Manor for a few days with no outside help to be found. It’s glorious.

It’s my understanding that Simon R. Green isn’t writing anymore series, just doing one off novels, due to health concerns (he’s been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes), so I’m guessing that this is a stand alone. That’s a shame because it has such potential to be a great arc. This is already better than his Ghost Finders books, and I slogged my way through all of them. I hope he does at least one or two more, but we’ll have to wait and see. Even if it doesn’t continue though, this book is definitely worth the read. Rating: A

And we’re back!

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Courtesy of pinterest

So my break was a bit longer than I had intended. That’s alright though, I most definitely needed it. So we’re going to start back with one of my current favorite authors, Rob Thurman. I love her (yes, her) Cal Leandros series. And her Trickster series. I hope there are more of those.

At any rate, her latest Cal Leandros is Nevermore(book 10 of the series). We start out with Cal apparently coming back in time (whoa, where did that come from?!) and more than a little crazy. I mean, Cal’s not exactly stable on the best of days, but right now he’s extremely unstable.

You see, Cal came back in time 8 years in order to prevent a secret human government organization decided that he was too dangerous, having gated in full view of humans in the light of day. At night, it could be passed off as a trick of the light or some such thing, but in daylight…not so much.

They figured the best way to do that would be to bomb Cal’s usual haunt, Ishaiah’s bar, when all of Cal’s friends were there. It might have worked, too, if Cal hadn’t forgotten to get the pizza and gone back out again. As it was, he merely had a front row seat for the two (yes, two) bombs took out his entirely family, his world.

With the thanks of some pre-planning by Robin Goodfellow (who died in the blast…supposedly. Not sure what, exactly, could kill a Puck who is easily 1 million + years old), Cal gets shoved back in time to try and beat the organization’s back up plan.

Known only as Lazarus, this person was sent back in time 8 years to kill Cal before he became too Cal-like. Sometimes I hate time travel stories. It’s so hard to keep things straight. Cal doesn’t know what Lazarus is, he just knows he has to keep himself together long enough to save himself and his brother.

To do this, he reveals himself to early Cal and Niko, who don’t really believe him but he knows enough about them that they at least marginally trust him. Unfortunately, Robin sticks his nose in, coming into early Cal and Niko’s world a full year earlier than he should have. So already, the time travel is having consequences.

This book is one of the best Cal Leandros novels yet…and it ended on a cliffhanger. Noooooooooooooo! It’s at least a two parter, could be even more. I really can’t want to see what happens. Argh! Cliffhangers are the worst and the best because you know there’s at least one more novel in a beloved series…but you won’t get that book for another year (usually).

Well, you can pass the time reading this book. It’s good and gritty and dark. Very pulp urban fantasy. Rating: A+

Gooseberry Bluff

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Courtesy of Amazon.comI stumbled upon Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic by David J. Schwartz through one of those Amazon Daily deals. I think. I can’t quite remember but it was uber cheap and I was intrigued. I believe that before that, it was one of Amazon’s new book serials, like Indexing. Oh, there’s a follow up to Indexing too, which I’m waiting to get all chapters before reading. I find that though I’ve found two (hopefully three) good books through the serials, it can get confusing reading it one chapter at a time.

At any rate, Gooseberry Bluff was complete when I read it. This is an alternate earth type place where magic is known. The point of turning from our earth and this earth seems to be legendary nutjob, Aleister Crowley. In this world, Crowley brought magic and magical beings into the world view by using demons to end WWII. Interesting take on that, I felt.

Our protagonist is a young agent for the Federal Bureau of Magical Affairs, Joy Wilkins. Joy has a very interesting condition called prosopagnosia. If you don’t want to click the link (just wikipedia, y’all), then let me sum up by saying that she has facial blindness. She can’t recognize herself in the mirror, let alone anyone else. The one plus side she does have is that she can read people’s auras, so she can remember people by that. If she couldn’t, people would probably think that she was rude, forgetful or even faking.

Joy is sent to Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic in Wisconsin to look into demon trafficking, which they think is connected to events called Heartstoppers. Heartstoppers is the massive, unexplained deaths of everyone in a certain mile radius, which varies from attack to attack. The bureau thinks that demons are involved, but they don’t know how. They also think that the trafficking is happening through the community college and may be linked to a missing teacher.

Joy goes in undercover as a teacher taking over for the one who is missing. Its her first real assignment and right from the off, everything goes wrong. Her mentor and supervisor is found dead, her new supervisor is clearly a misogynist who doesn’t trust her (never got a good reason for that other than she’s a woman, which…ugh) and she’s drawn into some screwball local secret society that may or may not be involved with the attacks.

Joy has to save herself, save the town and possibly save the planet while trying to figure out who killed her mentor and who is behind the demon attacks. And while this is clearly a first book, because it’s a little choppy, I thought it was fun enough that I keep hoping for a sequel. The characters are interesting and not what you’d expect. Joy is a young African-American woman with the aforementioned (and rare) disability. There’s a teacher who is cursed, a powerful girl who doesn’t know she’s powerful, a drunken magical duelist and someone/thing who may or may not be a god.

It was a good mix and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. I’d recommend picking it up if you’re looking for a bit of light reading, which I would recommend to break up the chewiness of the Mistborn trilogy. Rating: A. I also highly recommend checking out the Amazon serials. You subscribe to a book for about $3 and you get a new chapter every couple weeks. You’ll end up with a full length novel for about half the price of most of their books if you just have a little patience.