Urban Fantasy

Spirits From Beyond

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Oh Simon R Green. How I love thee. Even though your Ghostfinders books aren’t quite as good as the Nightside, Secret Histories, Deathstalker and Hawk & Fisher novels. They’re still a right side better than a lot of the schlock on the market today. It continually amazes me how Green can pump out such original stories. And I absolutely love how he can twine together all of his stories with some little in thing like the Rainbow Road or what not.

Now, on to Spirits From Beyond. This is the latest Ghostfinders book, just released within the last few weeks so be warned there be SPOILERS here. Spirits opens up with our beloved cocky-arse JC Chance (kind of an unwieldy name in my opinion) alone in his bedroom attempting and failing to sleep. Ever since his ghostly girlfriend Kim disappeared a few books back, he’s been something of an insomniac apparently.

So here’s poor JC, trying to bully his brain into letting him finally sleep when lo and behold! Kim turns up at the foot of the bed. She tells him that he must come fight for her at the Chimera House (where she disappeared) or she’ll never be able to come home to him.  So of course that means he calls up teammates “Happy” Jack Palmer and Melody Chambers. Luckily he does not call them mid-shag as Melody has rigged up some tech so any call JC makes to them immediately transfers to his TV.

JC gives them what low-down he can and breaks every traffic law known to man to get get to their place and then Chimera House. To be fair, he’s doing this in London and that’s not really out of the ordinary. 😉 At any rate, they get to Chimera House, which is still standing despite the previous promise from big boss Catherine Latimer that it would be torn down. So it is, of course, the perfect place for a trap by the fiendish (and still not directly seen) Flesh Undying.

Luckily for our Ghostfinding friends, or unluckily for the Flesh Undying, the trap fails. Instead of waking the ghost of an uber-powerful proto-god from another dimension, the Ghostfinders make a friend when they help him pass over, as one might expect from a Ghostfinder. By this point, the Flesh Undying should really learn not to underestimate these guys. But that wouldn’t make the books nearly as fun to read.

Once they’ve dispatched this god, JC Chance gets fired up. He’s tired of stumbling around in the dark, worried about moles in the Carnacki Institute and what his boss is up to, he takes the troops on a field trip to the Secret Libraries of the Carnacki Institute. Supposedly there are all sorts of books people really shouldn’t have or read there. Technically speaking, the team is not supposed to get in there until they have the official go-ahead from Latimer, but that has never stopped JC Chance before.

Their little soiree into the Libraries catches Latimer’s attention, and not in a good way. The team is blundering about, making waves and disrupting her own secret investigations into the traitor(s?) of the Institute. So she packs them all off to the southwest to deal with a haunted inn. Like you do.

The King’s Arms is located in fictional town Bishop’s Fording. The inn sounds a bit like Strangefellows in the Nightside in that its has been around in one form or another for so long nobody can remember it not being there. Unfortunately, the King’s Arms is located in a Bad Place. Something so terribly evil happened there at some point that it keeps spawning terrible events such as suicides and mysteriously missing guests etc.

The owner of the inn used to work for Carnacki before retiring, though never as a ghostfinder. He was raised in Bishop’s Fording and has a history with the town and with the inn. He requested JC and his team and got much more than he bargained for. What happens at the inn? Read it and find out!

This book, Spirits from Beyond, is much better than the previous books in this series but we’re still no closer to getting answers to the questions the team has been asking? What is the Flesh Undying and how do they beat it? Who is the traitor in the Institute? And what exactly happened to JC down in the London Underground? I have a feeling that we might be getting some answers in the next book, because there was a tantalizing little bit of dangling bait at the end of this book that hints to both a new book and, possibly, some answers. Eventually.

Worth the read, I’d say, though I’m still waiting for more Secret Histories. Rating: B/B+

Along Came A Spider

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And I’m back! Moving across country is no picnic, let me tell you. And while I’m waiting  to find a job, I might as well update my blog! So I read a bunch of books on my trip, but some of them were rereads. One of the new ones was Along Came a Spider by Kate SeRine. This is the third in her Transplanted Tales books, which I really rather like.

This one features Trish Muffett, CSI to the Tales. The book starts out with Trish trying to investigate some vampire killings, but trying to keep the info she finds out away from best friend Red Little at the beset of bestie’s boyfriend Nate Grimm. Red is uber pregnant in this and since Nate Grimm is death incarnate for the most part, no one quite knows how this pregnancy will work. So, no one wants to chance Red running off to save the day as she likes to do.

At this opening crime scene, Trish is attacked by some Dracula brides. Who comes to her rescue? None other than the one man she’s had a crush on forever and a day, Nicky “Little Boy” Blue. Nicky disappeared some years (apparently) after the events in Red and has been off to parts unknown doing things unknown. Until he kills off those lady vamps trying to feed on Trish.

Utterly confused as to what Nicky Blue, notorious (or at least suspected) gangster, is doing saving her butt from certain death, Trish tries to use her not so secret superpowers (reading people’s souls through their eyes, very like a Dresden Files soulgaze only it works on the dead as well as the living) to figure out what the vamps are doing. No joy, so she goes home to her lonely apartment and cat. Why is it always a cat? Why not a dog? Dogs are way cuter.

At any rate, some rather upset ghostie tries to pull a Poltergeist on her and guess who saves her again? That’s right, Nicky Blue, who has apparently been breaking into her apartment to read the real, undoctored reports from her vampire crime scenes. That’s not creepy, really it’s not (*dripping sarcasm*). Even after finding out that he’s been breaking and entering and watching her sleep, Trish still has a think for bad boy Nicky. And this ghostie gives her a great opportunity. Unable or unwilling to beg a place to sleep off the pregnant Red and worry-wart Nate, Nicky offers Trish a room in his mansion.

So yeah, they really do get it on eventually. I didn’t find their hook up nearly as weird as Lavender and Seth’s in The Better to See You. So in between hooking up with Nicky and running from some Here and Now agency simply called The Agency (so creative), Trish and Nicky try tracking down Dracula and figuring out who is responsible for the deaths of a bunch of Tales that were really no threat to anyone but themselves (i.e.-The Pied Piper, who is apparently a career sex offender. Ew).

I enjoyed this book. I liked seeing a bit more of Trish Muffett although I do think she fell into a lot of urban fantasy female character cliches: in love with one guy in particular and no one else could possibly do, strong woman…unless there’s a man around to take care of things, constantly getting injured by doing something that defies basic common sense.  At any rate, I’d call it an quick, entertaining read. You could certainly get this done in much less than a day if you’re looking for just a little something to read. Rating: B-. A little trope-y but cute.

The Better to See You

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This is the follow-up to the previously reviewed Red. The Better to See You by Kate SeRine features a fairy godmother by the name of Lavender Seelie. Or I should say The fairy godmother. She is Cinderella’s fairy godmother and she, along with Aladdin’s (called Al Addin in these books) djinn, was responsible for opening up the rift between Make Believe and the Here And Now. Lavender is an alcoholic.  She’s spent the years following the rift opening drinking away her guilt and being a virtual slave to James (the prince) and Cinderella Charming.

Lavender’s magic has been, for want of a better term, on the fritz since the rift opened. She drinks to dampen her magic, or at least her ability to do magic. Until Red Little came along in the first book and helped her get clean.  So when James Charming came along and threatened her (reason for the threat is unclear), Lavender defend herself and burnt down James and Cinderella’s mansion. And shrunk James’ (a serial cheater) penis. Red Little wisely suggests that Lavender get out of Dodge (or in this case, Chicago) and sends her to a place in the Pacific Northwest called the Refuge.

The Refuge takes in Tales who have not been able to blend in to the Here And Now.  Its a safe place for Tales and the occasional Ordinary where they can be themselves. If they have magic, they can use it openly. If they’re a werewolf or such, they can be so openly.

So Lavender hits the road after getting a little financial help from mom and dad (purveyors of medicinal fairy dust). She runs into trouble when her GPS gets her lost and then she gets attacked from a hellhound. She’s rescued by none other than the Big Bad Wolf himself, Seth Wolf. He takes her home, despite his supreme dislike and distrust of all magic wielders, and nurses her back to health.

One thing leads to another and there is a gratuitous amount of Lavender/Seth sexy times. She finds a job and a growing mystery of disappearing tales and Ordinary murders. Someone’s after Seth and also after Lavender. Who is it? What is their end game?  Read the book to find out!

This was a very good follow up to Red and I highly recommend the both of them. They’re quite imaginative. I’ve already pre-ordered the third book (due out August 1), Along Came a Spider. Rating: A

Transplanted Tales

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I just read this book called Red by Kate SeRine. The general gist of it is that a faerie godmother (Cinderella’s) and a djinn (Aladdin’s) got in a magic fight and ripped a hole in the fabric of reality between the land of make believe and the “here & now” (being the human or Ordinary world). This transplanted (ah hah! series name right there!) a whole of faerie tale people and creatures. Though strictly speaking they aren’t limited to just what we would consider faerie tales (Cinderella, Little Miss Muffett, Beauty and the Beast etc). It really covered literature as a whole, bringing over people from various points in their stories. For instance, Juliet is alive and well (and married to a gangster)…for now.

Red is about, I’m sure you guess, Little Red Riding Hood. Her name is Tess Little (ha) and she may be short but she’s no young lass. She’s an adult woman who works for the “Fairytale Management Authority” (FMA). They make sure that the transplanted tales don’t garner the attention of ordinary humans. See, its really rather hard to kill a Tale and they also retain characteristics from their stories (werewolves in literature will be werewolves here, faeries still have wings and magic etc). Ordinaries would likely want to either kill or study them, so everything needs to be hush-hush. If a Tale is injured, they’re taken to a special, Tale only hospital. There is at least one Tale only jail where one can spend decades or more and come out looking the same.

Red starts out tracking down the Pied Piper because he broke his parole (this guy is apparently a pedophile in this story and now I will never be able to read that story to children because ICK). Instead of ‘coming quietly’ for a year or two to finish his sentence, he takes his own life. It sparks an investigation where Red gets a new partner, a reaper with a fondness for film noir clothing called Nate Grimm (which cracks me the hell up because I know a guy by that name).

The Pied Piper is not the only Tale to mysteriously die and now Red is on the heels of a serial Tale killer who may or may not be one of her (many) exes including one Big Bad Wolf (aka Seth Wolf).  Will she find out who is behind the killings? How much will it cost her? I really hope you find out because this book was fun and interesting. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a concept like this before and if I have, it certainly isn’t as well done. I’ve picked up the next book in the series, The Better to See You. Can’t wait to finish that one. One thing is for certain, you will never look at any faerie tales the same way again. I think this includes if you have read the original Grimm and Anderson tales, which are much darker than the faerie tales American kids are raised on.

Rating: A. Pick it up.

Introducing Jamie Quaid

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So I was killing time in a bookstore a couple weeks ago, waiting for the hubby and the folks to meet up with me when I stumbled across this book called Boyfriend from Hell. Intrigued by the dust jacket blurb and not knowing how long I’d stay waiting, I picked it up and proceeded to read. I was decently enthralled. It isn’t really a “oh my god, can’t put it down” read but a “Ooh, I wonder what happens next!” read.

Jamie Quaid introduces us to Tina Clancy, a physically disabled and very poor law school student. She’s working in the Baltimore harbor area which, according to back story, had suffered an extreme chemical spill by local baddie chemical company…Acme Chemicals. I was worried at this point that we’d be going a bit Loony Toons, but I was willing to look passed this bit of unoriginality for the promising story.

Tina, also called Justine or Justy depending on who is talking, is working for a man named Andre Legrande (he named himself apparently. And no, I’m not joking). Andre owns most of the lucrative businesses in the chemical spill affected area referred to by the locals as The Zone. She does his books for enough money to make rent and goes to law school during the day.

The thing about the Zone is that it’s weird. Gargoyles move and buildings literally glow in the dark. People can do things that normal people can’t do. And they keep it all under wraps so they don’t get taken off up to Acme to be taken apart bit by bit.

Tina is an outsider in the Zone. She wasn’t born there but she chose to live and work there. She wanted a low profile job and living situation, having encountered a little bit of legal difficulty of her own. Tina has a physical disability brought on by a run in with some on the take cops who pushed her down some stairs. She has uneven legs from having them badly broken. We’re introduced to our female lead as a not perfect person, physically and mentally as she has a bit of a temper to her.

But the Zone, or whatever, has decided to make her one of the boys, so to speak. When her boyfriend Max apparently tries to kill her for no apparent reason, she yells out “Damn you to hell!” and off he goes. The next day, she wakes up to reporters and perfect hair. Apparently, her form of vigilante justice gives her gifts, which are currently manifesting as physical changes. We find out a little later that she as been claimed as a “Saturn’s daughter”. This is apparently a person who was born at a particular time under particular astrological events that aren’t really clearly explained because our heroine doesn’t believe in that stuff.

Eventually it comes out that Max wasn’t trying to kill her but was, in fact, the victim himself. So Tina, with help from her fellow Zonies, has to figure out who tried to kill Max and hopefully how to retrieve him from the depths of hell in the process. And she still has to study for her final law exams and figure out just what is happening to herself.

I liked this book enough to pick up the sequel to it and I’m hoping there’s another one. I also like the fact that while there was some sexual tension going on, there wasn’t actual sex. Like I’ve said before, I have no trouble with sex scenes in books but I hate when the sex becomes the central theme of the book. Jamie Quaid did a very good job for what I can only presume is her first book. Rating: B+/A. Give it a shot.

Casino Infernale

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*SPOLIERS* Oh Simon R. Green, how I love thee. Green brings back his secret agent Eddie Drood in Casino Infernale, the latest in the Secret Histories arc. Like the rest of the Secret Histories books, this title is also a play on a James Bond title. Which is fitting considering that Eddie Drood’s alter ego is Shaman Bond. And Shaman Bond is the one who has to do the heavy lifting in this book.

In a previous book, Eddie and his lady love Molly Metcalf killed Crow Lee (The Most Evil Man in the World. He doesn’t always drink beer but when he does…). Apparently Crow Lee has left some sort of Inheritance (yes, capitalized) to whoever can find it first. Considering the man was called The Most Evil Man in the World, whatever the Inheritance is (no one knows), it isn’t anything good. People and various organizations around the world are already making trouble trying to find it.

So the Droods call in a Summit of the major players in the supernatural world. Only representatives from the UK show up, all of which appear in other books by Green: The London Knights, the Crowley Project, the Carnacki Institute and the Nightside (love Dead Boy).  The problem is, with so many major players in one place, they have to find a suitably neutral place. That place? The Martian Tombs. Natch.

So everyone there decides that the Crow Lee Inheritance is too dangerous to just be out there, but they can’t decide what to do about it. Until the Armourer (official Drood representative to the Summit) suggests breaking the Shadow Bank at the Casino Infernale. So anyone of you lot who have seen Casino Royale with the delectable Daniel Craig will recognize this basic plot bunny. Eddie gets the nom to break the bank because he’s the only one at the Summit who basically has the balls and the practical know how to break the bank at a casino.

What he doesn’t know when he agrees to do this at the Summit is that the family has to take away the one thing that makes him a Drood, his torc. The Casino Infernale has ways to see Drood armour (yes, I’m usuing the British spelling as the writer is British and I’m a total anglophile) and it is just too dangerous to send him on this mission as a Drood. So, naked in a sense but not completely defenseless, Eddie (now as Shaman Bond) and Molly go to the Casino Royale to gamble their way to the top.

They have, of course, some very nice little toys from the Armourer: a chameleon card deck (exactly what it sounds like), Eddie’s repeating Colt revolver (never runs out of bullets. It’s magic!) and two little black disks that when combined open anything. There’s a catch to this breaking the bank thing though. The Shadow Bank doesn’t deal in money really. They deal with souls. And when Shaman Bond arrives on the scene, he finds that his newly discovered parents who were supposed to be helping him pave his way in had actually bet and lost his soul. Way to go mom and dad!

But through a combination of luck, nastiness and trickier, Eddie and Molly keep winning, racking up the souls until they get invited to the Big Game (yes, capitalized). Do they make it to the end? Does Eddie get his soul back?  Read it and find out! Because seriously, Simon R Green couldn’t have been any more on with this book if he was a light switch. It was awesome! And there is definitely going to be another book because there are unanswered questions. And they said there would be on the last page. 😉 Rating: A+++ Seriously. Read it.

A Fiend in Need

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Oh where do I start? A Fiend in Need is written by Maureen Child. This is apparently the second book in the series. I won’t be going back to read the first one.  I’ll likely not read any sequels. And probably not any of her other books.

My issues:

-She wants to write her main character, Cassidy Burke, as some sort of new found slut (new found because she got preggers at 16 and has been a single mom until 32). She can’t write the word vagina. She insists on calling it hoo-hah. Really? You’re an adult woman. You’re likely writing for adults as well. You have no trouble writing penis but vagina gives you the heebie-jeebies? Grow up. Even if you don’t want to use the word vagina, you can use dozens of other words that are far more sexy than hoo-hah. There is a thesaurus online. Please try it.

-Cassidy is Buffy the Vampire Slayer if Buffy came into her powers on her 32nd birthday. Of course, she can’t call Cassidy that so she’s a “Demon Duster”. *facepalm* How about hunter? Executioner? Assassin? Butcher? Well…maybe not butcher. My point is random demons hissing out “Duster!” just doesn’t work for me.

-Cassidy is a cleaning lady. She finds demons by…squirting them with homemade Windex. It doesn’t kill the demons, but it burns.  Apparently the main ingredient is oregano. *sigh*

-Her human ex who knocked her up wants back in her life. She has a demon lover. Because not all demons are bad.

-Everybody in the town suddenly knows about demons. But no one talks about them. I have no idea why.

In this book, she place bodyguard to a hot (surprise, surprise) Faery. Turns out there are demon queens and the local demon queen wants to use this Faery as a sex slave because sex with a Faery pumps up whatever powers you have. Natch. The demon queen puts a hit out on Cassidy which, unfortunately, is not successful. The book is filled with a bunch of little fights which lead to the inevitable final showdown. The night before, Cassidy and the Faery do the horizontal mambo where in they ‘bond’ (sexy bond obviously) and the Faery dude gives all his power (and thereby his life) to Cassidy so she can beat the demon queen. And she does.

I had to force myself to finish this book but I was skimming by the end. It was something like 3.99 on Amazon. It isn’t worth it. Rating: D. I’m sure it appeals to someone out there. But if you want good quality urban fantasy, check out Jim Butcher or Simon R. Green.

 

Hazardous Goods

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I am a big reader. I love Clive Cussler’s action/adventure stuff and I love urban fantasy and steampunk. The trouble is, I read very quickly and I often find that I have to wait months or a year to read the next novel in a series I’m reading (Dresden Files, the Hollows etc). Or a series has just ended (Sookie Stackhouse). So I have to troll through Amazon to find new stuff and often times have to go on very short preview chapters or just the descriptions of other people.

Sometimes I strike out. And sometimes I find a hidden gem like Hazardous Goods (Arcane Transport) by John Mackie. This book takes place in Toronto, Canada, which isn’t a place many if any of my urban fantasy books have taken place. It centers on a business called (*gasp*) Arcane Transport. They transport goods and items for businesses in the Toronto area. This can be a great many items from small to large.

Donnie Elder has just lost his job is the normal world. Coming to his aid is an old family friend who runs a transport service a la FedEx or UPS but smaller. This man is getting up there in years and is looking for a junior partner who is eventually going to take over the business. Enter Donnie.

Donnie is very much a skeptic. He doesn’t believe in magic or the things they transport. His business partner takes him on his first rounds in the business and unluckily enough, they get robbed. It puts the elder man in the hospital and puts Donnie in charge.

So now there are shenanigans of the new-to-the-job-and-finding-magic-is-real types. Add to that the fact that Donnie is bound and determined to get the stolen item back, then you have a sort of detective without the detective training thing going on.

It was an interesting first book and it has potential. It was, unfortunately, short so I blew threw it in a manner of hours. 🙂 So I’d rate it a solid B. There’s another book coming eventually but not soon enough.

Dead Ever After

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You know you’re addicted to reading when you buy a brand new book and read it in a matter of hours (spread out over two days, but hey, I was trying and failing to pace myself). I just picked up Charlaine Harris’s Dead Ever After. Its being billed as the final Sookie Stackhouse novel but there is a follow up “coda” of sorts due out in October (After Dead).  Since Dead Ever After just came out recently, I’ll try not to go into too many details. However, there may be inadvertent SPOILERS.

So at the end of the last book, Sookie was forced to use her precious faerie brooch the cluviel dor to bring Sam Merlotte, her boss and best friend, back from the dead. His former lover had accidentally killed him while trying to off the Shreveport werewolf pack leader Alcide. Things did not end up good for the girl.

This book picks up the day after pretty much. Sam is in shock (obviously). And we learn that there are some people out to get Sookie Stackhouse for pretty much everything that she had done in the previous books. Eric is pissed at Miss Sookie for using the cluviel dor on Sam rather than on him and his marriage problem.

So Sookie has to sort out Sam while keeping herself alive. We get all the good old characters back: Mr. Cataliades, Diantha, Bob the (no longer) cat, Amelia Carmichael, Bellboy Barry and Quinn (albeit briefly). It was a very good book and if you like the Stackhouse series at all, you cannot miss the finale.

My pet peeves with the book even though I highly enjoyed it:
1) Eric went back to his old dickish self. I’d thought he’d changed in the last few novels but alas, he was your “typical” vamp in that change is hard and probably doesn’t come at all.
2) All too brief cameos by Quinn and Alcide. Almost wasn’t worth having them there at all
3) The bringing back of two relatively minor douchebags as major baddies bent on revenge.
4) Bit of an unnecessary side plot involving Copley Carmichael, Amelia’s dad. It introduced some whole new information that literally NO ONE in this universe knew about…and went absolutely nowhere with it. Perhaps this information will lead into some sort of spinoff series in this same universe?

At any rate, despite my little peeves, I really enjoyed the book. I’ll likely pick up the coda in October as well. Until then, I’m going to need to pick up more books. Rating: B+/A-. And remember, I welcome suggestions!

Drynn

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Drynn is a book I stumbled across on Amazon while looking for something new to read. Written by Steve Vera, it throws small town Montana sheriff Skip Walkins into a world he is not at all prepared for. See, entombed in this small town cemetery is a nasty, extra-dimensional bad guy/demon type named Asmodeus the Pale. This bad guy was entombed by a number of mage warriors from his dimension (called Theia) called Shardyn knights.

These Shardyn were trapped on Earth after defeating Asmodeus because Earth has no magic. Thinking that, they made lives for themselves among humans and hoped to find a way back. Except something happened. A killer by the name of Donovan (not sure why that seems strange to me but it does) makes his way to this small town in Montana for some reason he doesn’t fully comprehend. See, Donovan was legally dead for some time and when he came back, he came back changed.

Something about Asmodeus called Donovan to Montana, where he inadvertently released the demon. So Skip has to chase both demon and Donovan across the country. Asmodeus wants revenge on the the Shardyn knights and he’ll stop at nothing.

All in all, I was really surprised by this book. Some of the characterizations were a little ham-fisted I thought. Skip not only gave up a life as a good detective with Philly PD, he also happened to be a crack sniper for the Marines! Of course! But I was pleased to see that while there was a bit of sexual tension there was no actual sex! An urban fantasy book with no sex! Holy shit, I’m hallucinating. Now, I have nothing against sex but it is nice to see that an author can go without it.

Vera left the end of the book in a way that clearly says he is looking to continue in at least one more story.  And I am actually looking forward to it. So it was a good read and cheap on Amazon Kindle but Vera could use a little polishing as a writer. Rating: B.