magic

Guess who’s back! Back again!

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Why yes, I do have some Eminem stuck in my head. Why do you ask?

So, yet again, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Life gets in the way. At any rate, I’m making a pre-New Years resolution to start up the ol’ book blog again because while I have lagged on the posting, I have definitely not lagged in the reading. Thank goodness I have an ereader, or I’d be drowning in books.

Instead of reviewing a book this time, I thought I’d chat about some of my favorite authors and maybe toss out a favorite book from their bibliography. We’ll go alphabetically because I don’t have an all time favorite author. These are my favorite, favorites. I have read a lot more than just the below. And keep in mind that some of these people may be problematic right now, but when I first read them, they were not. And I still love what they wrote, even if I don’t like the person they turned out to be. If we couldn’t separate art from artist, then no one could enjoy a Picasso or a Diego Rivera, a Hemingway or any number of musicians’ works.

Old library or bookstore. This is what my house would be without an ereader.

Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I mean, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Ilona Andrews – I legit don’t think I could pick between any of her books, I enjoy them all so much but if I had to choose one series…Probably the Innkeeper series. It’s a mix of magic and sci-fi, found family and mystery. It has it all.

Jim Butcher – The Dresden Files. All of them, but in particular, I’d probably choose Changes. And oof did that one just kill me at the end the first time I read it. By the way, his son has started writing too! Check out Dead Man’s Hand by James Butcher.

Gail Carriger – Anything. Legit anything of hers. I have read all her books. I subscribe to her newsletter. I got to meet her in person once! She’s lovely and her writing is amazing. The book that started it all for me is Soulless. It’s steampunk and got me addicted to steampunk. It also makes me realize that I like steampunk (and other stories) that are a little lighter, a little more fun than some other steampunk works (Whitechapel Gods comes to mind).

Agatha Christie – The godmother of mystery. I love Death on the Nile or the Mysterious Affair at Styles.

James S.A. Corey – The Expanse! What an absolutely amazing sci-fi series! I love it so much. It made me thirsty for more sci-fi, but I haven’t quite found anything I love as much as this series.

Blake Crouch – Wayward Pines trilogy. Man, that series definitely kept me guessing, which can be hard to do. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m actually pretty good at figuring out the end game in books, shows and movies (I figured out the Sixth Sense about halfway through), so I love something that can keep me guessing. I would love a fourth or a spin off, Mr. Crouch!

Clive Cussler – The leader in maritime adventure novels! Dirk Pitt, Numa Files, Oregon Files – I like them all. My favs are Raise the Titanic and Inca Gold.

Charlotte English – Weird & Wayward. Victorian Addams family anyone?

Jennifer Estep – The Elemental Assassin series is amazing. Not sure I could pick just one of them. I also like her Mythos Academy books and Galactic Bonds series.

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett – Good Omens. Nuff said.

Simon R. Green – Deathstalker, Dealthstalker Coda, Nightside, Hawk & Fisher, Secret Histories, Shadow’s Fall. I haven’t gotten into his very latest series, but I plan to. Again, hard to pick just one, so maybe Just Another Judgment Day from the Nightside series?

Charlaine Harris – Sookie Stackhouse series. I think I might have to go with Dead to the World, where vampire sheriff Erik loses his memories and Sookie has to figure it out.

Kim Harrison – The Hollows series. Still on-going, even though I thought it had ended. Not up to date on the last couple of books, but I like that Rachel and Trent have gotten their shit together. That was the longest will they/won’t they ever.

Jordan L Hawk – Widdershins series. This is Victorian and kind of Lovecraftian and also the main characters are homosexual at a time where that was punishable by law (or worse).

Faith Hunter – Jane Yellowrock. Can’t go wrong with the first novel, Skinwalker.

Richard Kadrey – Sandman Slim series. I think my fav might be teh first book Sandman Slim.

Annette Marie – Guild Codex, Demonized, Warped and Unveiled. They’re all interconnected, they’re all fun. I just reread all of Demonized and Warped recently. Soooooo good.

Seanan McGuire – The October Daye series. Easily my favorite of the bunch is One Salt Sea. Also check out her Indexing series.

Jessie Mihalik – Starlight’s Shadow, Consortium Rebellion and Books & Broadswords series.

Devon Monk – Ordinary Magic series.

Anne Rice – A toss up between The Mummy or Ramses the Damned and Queen of the Damned.

John Scalzi – Easily Kaiju Preservation Society, though redshirts was amazing for this old Star Trek fan.

Rob Thurman – Cal Leandros and Trixa series. I’m sad that she quite writing before finishing them.

Next month, I’m hoping to review Gail Carriger’s next book, The Dratsie Dilemma.

Like father, like son

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For those of you who don’t know, I am a huge Jim Butcher fan. I love the Dresden Files and Cinder Spires and I’m trying to work my way through Codex Alera (high fantasy like that isn’t usually my cup of tea). Jim has a son who just wrote a book, and color me friggin surprised that Jim has an adult son because he does not look old enough to have an adult son.

Jim’s son is James. This will probably be confusing for a while. James J. Butcher just recently published his first urban fantasy novel, Dead Man’s Hand via Penguin Random House publishing. I bought this book because I figured if he was anything like his father, I’d love his writing too. This novel is brand spanking new, so BEWARE THE SPOILERS.

This novel is very much a first novel. Not that I’m by any means a writing expert, but I am a voracious reader. The world needs to be filled out a bit more. The writing needs to be polished a bit more. But there’s tons of potential in James’s world. Dead Man’s Hand is apparently the first in at least three books, featuring 19 year old witch Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby. That’s a hell of a name, right off the bat. And yes, witch is the term used in the books. It appears to be non-gender specific in this world.

Grimsby is a failed witch. An accident as a child left it painful for him to do complex magic. He only has a handful of tricks he can do without hurting himself. What he wanted to be, above anything else, was an Auditor. Auditors appear to be the magical cops of this world. He failed his training because he can’t do all the things Auditors are supposed to do. The book starts with him doing cheap tricks for kids birthday parties in a crappy, Chuck E Cheese style restaurant. Thanks to the person who ran him out of the Auditors training, Samantha Mansgraf, putting his name (in blood) at the scene of her death, he’s about to go on a terrible journey with someone called The Huntsman. They have to figure out who killed her and over what before Grimsby also dies.

I won’t go into too many details, as this book has only been out for about a week, but Grimsby is kind of a coward. He definitely has self esteem issues. Still, because he’s the book’s protagonist, he finds himself overcoming these things to do the right thing in the end. The Huntsman is basically a killer. Not really sure of his back story yet. He’s lost a spouse at some point not too long ago, because he’s drinking himself to death when we’re introduced to him. He’s a seasoned investigator, so this is kind of a magical buddy cop book.

I’d recommend checking it out and supporting a new author, but remember that this is James’ first ever novel. You can tell, but don’t let it put you off. This world has some real potential. Rating: B-/B. Check out this VIDEO of Jim Butcher interviewing his son James. There’s a point toward the end where Jim said that he’s read the second book and that it’s leaps better than the first one. That gives me hope that the second book will be pretty good.

Annette Marie

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https://www.annettemarie.ca/

Sometime during the pandemic (I think), I picked up this book called Three Mages and a Margarita. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because I’m a sucker for a good marg. Or maybe because the description of a take no shit female lead tickled my fancy, but I got this book via Amazon Kindle Unlimited and I plowed through it in less than a day. Then I binged the rest of the series that had been written.

The Guild Codex: Spellbound series (currently 8 books, not sure if it’ll be more. Felt wrapped up, but who knows?) follows human girl Tori. She lives in Vancouver, BC and she’s a little bit of a screw up. She’s got a temper and it’s cost her a few jobs. Jobs she needs, because she doesn’t exactly have an education to fall back on. If you can’t tell, she had a shitty childhood (mom left, dad abusive – standard issue backstory).

Desperate to find a job, she stumbles upon a pub called the Crow & Hammer. Normally, a human wouldn’t be able to find it, as it’s hidden from a straight human’s eyes. Tori just bullheaded her way through the enchantment, served up some quality cocktails and found herself with a job. Initially, people tried to keep the weirdness on the DL, but as Tori isn’t stupid, she noticed. And confronted people. And then immediately wanted in because magic is cool.

The Spellbound books follow her through her travails of getting a hold of magical objects that she can use, convincing MagiPol (the police of the arcane using humans) that she’s really a low-level witch, having a strange love triangle with two of her good friends at the bar (actually a Guild of magic users) and trying to save one of those two in particular. The books are, admittedly, a little formulaic and Tori isn’t the most complex character I’ve read, but the world building is really, really fun.

There are three other Guild Codex series (Demonized, Warped and Unveiled), each following a different character. Warped follows unlikely MPD agent Kit Morris, who was essentially blackmailed into becoming an agent. Kit has the ability to make people see and even feel (like a physical sensation, not an emotional sensation) things with just his mind. Demonized follows a mousy kind of girl named Robin who accidentally binds herself to a demon to rescue him from her horrible family members (all of whom are demon summoners). Robin and her demon are very interesting characters and I kind of identify with her most because she’s a shy, bookish sort of girl.

Unveiled follows the unlikely named Saber Rose, a very young witch who was convicted of murdering her aunt and now is in magical rehab somewhere east of Vancouver. She’s possibly the most interesting character Annette Marie has written. She’d damaged, through no fault of her own. She comes to us having already committed murder and isn’t at all sorry about it (Aunt was abusive, duh). She believes herself a low powered witch, but is in reality a very high powered mage. She has amnesia of the events surrounding the murder, so she’s forgotten that she knew a young boy who turned out to be the rogue Crystal Druid (from the Spellbound series). Her series is on-going, and I’ve already pre-ordered the 3rd book.

These books are seriously fun and feature strong female leads. None of them are perfect, which makes them interesting. And even though Robin (Demonized) is kind of a damsel, they don’t generally default to that ‘big strong man save me!’ cliche. I look forward to future books and to checking out her other series. Rating: A+. Check it out if you’re looking for some fun, quick reads.

Blood Heir

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Hello all! It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted. There’s been a bit of something going on in the world and I just could not get up the desire to post, even though I’ve been reading. I’m sure there are plenty out there that feel the same or worse, but things are starting to get better! Since I just renewed my ownership of Crooked Reviews, I thought it best to post again. Brief mention of spoilers because this book is fairly new, written during the pandemic and just published.

There is always something in me that is a little leery of reading spinoff books from a series I love. Even though it’s the same writer, or same writing team in this case, I’m always worried that it won’t be quite as good as the original series. Usually, I’m proved wrong because I like the writer (or writers) for a reason. I was once again proven wrong with Ilona Andrews’ Blood Heir.

This follows the continuing adventures of Julie Olsen from the Kate Daniels book, roughly a decade or so after the end of Magic Triumphs. Only now she’s Aurelia Ryder. I gotta be honest, I don’t dig that change. I’m not sure why, and it isn’t currently explained, that she changed her name. She’s also the official heir to Erra, who has set up New Shinar around San Diego. She calls her grandmother.

Julie has hardened and changed, physically, mentally and magically since she left Atlanta. She ran afoul of a big bad called Moloch (a name that any scifi fan or bible reader will know – interesting Venn diagram) in Arizona. He carved out her eye and she his, but she put his eye in her head. The psychic/magical backlash put her in a coma that lasted for about 9 months, but to her was several years. She and Erra trained the ever-loving crap out of Julie/Aurelia while in that coma and she came out much more knowledgeable than when she went in. She now also looked like Kate Lennart’s (nee Daniels) biological daughter.

The book starts out with Aurelia riding back into Atlanta. She needs to do something to save her mother, but unfortunately that also means she can’t actually see her mother. Because reasons. Because prophetic reasons. It’s a huge convenient plot device that I’ll be honest, kinda bugs me. Kate Lennart spent her life thwarting prophecies and now Aurelia (nee Julie) thinks she can’t help keep herself alive? I call shenanigans.

At any rate, she runs into some members of the Pack who try to shake her down. She gets out of it, but she’s caught the attention of Ascanio of the Bouda clan. She and Ascanio have never gotten along, and she knows he’s up to something, but she doesn’t know what. At this point, she’s not interested at all because it doesn’t have to do with saving Kate from Moloch.

Aurelia gets away from the members of the Pack and sets up house near Unicorn Lane. Unicorn Lane is violently magical, even when the tech is down. It’s a great place to hide near. She also hightails it to the Order because she’s here to solve a murder that has to do with the prophecy and saving Kate. A priest of great renown was murdered by something and Moloch wants that something. If he eats the heart of that something, the prophecy concerning him and Kate will come true.

There’s a lot of this book that is spent with Aurelia going around to the people she used to know as Julie Olsen (Nick Feldman of the Order, Ascanio and some others in the Pack, the People and so on) and spending her time with a “will the or won’t the recognize me”. Spoilers: Some do, some don’t. She also feels like some people haven’t changed for the better. The Pack seems a lot more paranoid, because visiting shapeshifters have 24 hours to present themselves to the Pack, instead of the standard 3 days when she last lived there.

She also picks up a little street thief and ends up claiming responsibility for her. Unlike with her and Kate though, the little thief (Marten – like the varmint) is taking under the wing of the premier thief/assassin for New Shinar. Marten saw what happened to the priest and was a key witness for Julie.

Also on the scene is Derek Gaunt, the werewolf that Kate and Curran practically adopted. Apparently, when Julie left, she was hoping that Derek would follow her. He didn’t and she’s mad. Of course, I’m pretty certain that she never really let on that she liked him. Too much like Kate. At any rate, Derek left Atlanta not too long after Julie and some how and for reasons currently unknown, became a beta in the Icy Fury Pack (Alaska-ish) and changed his name to Darren Argent. He wants to solve the murder too, because he owed the priest for something that happened a while ago.

Naturally, Darren and Aurelia run into each other and recognize each other immediately. Darren pretends not to know Aurelia is Julie for a while, but eventually gets tired of the charade. Together, as they’ve done so many times before (and in various novellas and short stories in the Kate Daniels verse), they solve the murder and kill the creature responsible before Moloch can get his creepy hands on it. Derek eats the heart of the beast, because that’s the part that will allow a prophecy to come true. We don’t know what Derek’s prophecy is, but I’m betting it’s him and Julie/Aurelia finally getting their act together because clearly they are mates.

This was very clearly an introductory book for a new series. There are a lot of things in question and there’s a lot of things that I’m considering whether or not I like. New names of Julie and Derek, for instance. This insistence that Kate can’t know she’s in Atlanta, so naturally she has to stay in Atlanta BECAUSE REASONS. It’s always irritating when there’s a “you have to stay here or you have to do this” but there’s not even a paltry excuse as to why given.

Overall, the writing is Ilona Andrews through and through and, overall, the story is quite good. It made me want to re-read the Kate Daniels series again, so I did. I’m sure there are more books coming out, because Aurelia and Darren (Julie and Derek) have issues they need to work out. And the big bad wasn’t killed/banished. I’m going to call it now: To get rid of the big bad, who regenerates so you can’t kill him (natch), Aurelia is going to swap him for her grandfather in Neig’s private realm somehow. And I kinda hope that doesn’t happen so I’ll be surprised by whatever comes.

It’s a good read, and I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series but I hope it doesn’t become too formulaic. Rating: B+. It’s a little tropey and a little basic, but a fun read and definitely in the Kate Daniels universe style. Recommendation: I’d also read Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles series and The Edge series.

Heart of Venom

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Courtesy of jenniferestep.comBook nine of the Elemental Assassin series is Heart of Venom. This one is a little different than the ones before it, because it hits a little closer to home for Gin and the others. With Owen Grayson back in the fold but Gin not fully on board with taking him back, the ladies decide that a spa day is in order.

Luckily for them, the know the best beautician in all of Ashland, Jo-Jo Devereaux. Jo-Jo closes her salon for the day, Gin whips up some goodies and the girls of the group (Gin, Jo-Jo, Bria, Roslyn and Sophia) are all set for a day of relaxation.

The day is unfortunately ruined by the return of an old, old enemy of the Devereaux’s. Harley Grimes is a half-giant, half-dwarf with fire elemental powers and a real nasty streak to him. His sister (half-sister maybe?) is even worse. And Harley wants Sophia back.

Years ago, when Fletcher Lane was still active, he rescued Sophia from the Grimes’ mountain retreat outside of Ashland. Sophia had been tortured by both Grimes’, leading to her mangled voice and job getting rid of bodies for Fletcher. Grimes never came after her while Fletcher lived because he was scared of Fletcher, but now he knows Fletcher is dead and he wants what’s his. And can I just say screw guys who think of women as property? Ugh!

Grimes kidnaps Sophia from Jo-Jo’s spa, shooting Jo-Jo and hurting the others. Gin tried and failed to get Sophia back before they lit out but she needed to save Jo-Jo too. She and the others haul everyone up to Cooper’s place. He doesn’t have much experience using his air magic for healing, but he tries, saving Jo-Jo for the time being.

While that’s happening, Gin decides to head for Grimes. No one messes with her family and lives. The others are varying levels of unhappy and supportive. They all want Sophia back, but they don’t want her to go off half-cocked, which is a very un-Gin-like thing to do. Eventually, she caves and takes Owen up to Warren Fox’s joint for information.

Warren doesn’t live too far from Grimes and apparently he’d been the one to take Fletcher up there in the first place. With his expertise, Gin gets close. Close enough to rescue Sophia but at the expense of her own freedom. This isn’t the first time Gin has been captured and tortured. It isn’t even the first time she’s been on the receiving end of fire elemental magic. It feels a little different though because Grimes and his sister are severely unhinged, where as the others Gin has faced were more methodical and collected in their psychosis.

It’s almost lucky for Gin that Grimes likes to play cat and mouse games with his captives because no one is better at playing than the Spider. Not that they believe she’s the Spider at first, but they do eventually as she takes out man after man in an effort to get back down the mountain.

At one point, Grimes’ men think they’ve killed her. It’s only fair as she jumps off a freaking cliff to get away from them. But Owen finds her, using his metal elemental magic to track down the silverstone embedded in her hands. He never left the mountain, just getting the injured Sophia and Warren down to the car and on their way. He just couldn’t leave Gin alone up on the mountain.

Together, they make it down off the mountain and back to Cooper’s place where Jo-Jo and Sophia are recovering and surrounded by their friends/family. Once Gin and Owen are healed, everyone plans out how to finally kill Harley and Hazel Grimes, because those two (or at least Harley) will never stop until Sophia is theirs.

I felt this book was a bit more on the emotional side for Gin. She’s up in the air about Owen and then her family is kidnapped and hurt right in front of her. She feels helpless and angry, which she isn’t used to. I think it sort of rounds her out, makes her a bit more relatable. It’s also hella tough to read at points, especially some of the bits about Grimes and what he likes to do to women. Still, it’s well worth the read. Rating: A but be warned, this is a tough read.

Tangled Threads

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Courtesy of amazon.comYes, I’m still on my Elemental Assassin books kick. So we’re doing book 4 this week, Tangled Threads. This book starts out with Gin taking out small fry guys in Mab’s organization. Naturally, Mab doesn’t just stand by and let this happen. She hires a top notch assassin to take out the Spider, a woman by the name Elektra LaFleur.

Now, kinda lame name aside, it does actually mean something in this assassin bound world, Elektra has the rare elemental ability of lightning which is apparently an offshoot of air magic. And Elektra always leaves an orchid at the site of her kills. She’s not subtle but she’s also never missed. Never. Which makes her a good choice to try and take on Gin.

Gin sees Elektra in action after sensing a pretty obvious trap and taking no action. Elektra takes out one of Mab’s own people in a fit of pique. Doesn’t sound like the most stable of people to me but then again…assassin, so I’m sure that really goes without saying.

So on top of dealing with a very good assassin, Gin also has to deal with Detective Bria Coolidge of the Ashland PD, her long lost sister. At the beginning of the book, Bria still doesn’t know it and Gin is reluctant to tell her after a bad experience with the last Ashland detective she told. She’s worried that Bria won’t accept her as who and what she is, that she’ll be a disappointment.

I find Gin to be a wonderfully complex character, able to kill a bad guy without remorse (and to be patient with it so that she doesn’t get noticed herself) but still be worried about things like whether her sister will like her, whether Owen Grayson really accepts her for who she is.

This book falls around Christmas in Ashland, which apparently can get quite cold. I don’t know much about North Carolina but I guess this can happen? At any rate, after not falling into the obvious trap set by Elektra LaFleur, Gin tracks down who set her up (a bartender at Roslyn’s club) and sets out to make the guy pay for it…only to end up rescuing him after overhearing one of Mab’s people threatening to rape his daughter. Gin doesn’t do kids. Ever.

Gin needs to rescue the kid, kill the assassin and figure out whether or not to tell her sister who she really is. Can she do it? Please! She’s the Spider. She can do anything! This might be my favorite of the series so far. It was a really, really good read. And Gin still hasn’t gone all save me sweet prince with Owen. If anything, she’s usually trying to protect him. I love it. Rating: A+

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

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.

Crown & Key

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Courtesy of goodreads.comSo I troll through Amazon Kindle books on the reg to see if I can find anything that catches my fancy, especially when I’m between novels on my favorite series (Dresden Files, any and all Simon R Green etc). I picked up this steampunk novel The Shadow Revolution: Crown & Key by Clay and Susan Griffith. I wasn’t really able to figure out in this book if magic and such was on the DL  or if it was well known but considered ‘suspect’ (i.e.-practitioners are thought of in the terms of gypsies and such were at that time, an unwanted peoples). It certain seemed that everyone that our main character, Simon Archer, met was aware of magic on some level. But this is a first novel, so I give a little leeway on the world building ambiguity.

So, Simon Archer is a mage. Not just any mage, but a scribe. Supposedly he is the last one. From what I’m able to gather, scribes work magic through writing down spells and then speaking an activating word. Simon has taken this a little further and tattooed useful spells on his body. Therefore, all he has to do is speak the activating word to do the spells. The problem with magic in this world though is that if you use too much, you get ‘aether drunk’ (seems like an uber high, giggly feeling as it’s described).

Simon is a playboy. The illegitimate son of a scribe in some sort of protective society that seems to have fallen apart, Simon has made himself a bit of a name in the social scene. It isn’t unusual to see him at a party, even if he isn’t invited. This sort of lifestyle is all well and good for him until an old friend gets murdered by a werewolf right in front of him. She’d been trying to ask him for help regarding said werewolf but she was just a bit too late.

To try and get a little revenge, he crashes a very high society party (Prime Minister high) to confront the werewolf, a Peer whose name I have forgotten. Simon confronts him, gets in a fight and is helped out by a Lady by the name of Kate Anstruther. A self professed Alchemist, Kate has no time for societal games. She is much too logical to be swayed by some idiot lord trying to get in her knickers. She’s only there because her younger sister Imogene is a society person and it isn’t proper for a young lady to go out alone.

This fight brings together Simon, Simon’s teacher Nick Barker, and Kate in a race to figure out not only what’s going on but to save Kate’s sister. Imogene falls for the wrong sort (natch, always the way these things go) and it leads to a host of trouble. Throw in a Scottish werewolf hunter, a tinkerer named Penny and an evil doctor and you have a nice little mix.

I quite enjoyed this book. I kept waiting for Kate to go all helpless damsel and it didn’t really happen. The only time she did get a little stereotypically weepy woman was when she was strapped down to a gurney and both she and her sister threatened with extreme bodily harm. I personally feel that is quite an acceptable circumstance for your strong female (or male) lead to have a bit of a breakdown. I’m still deciding if I want to move onto book 2 of this series but I think its definitely worth a read. Rating: B, solid but not outstanding. Also, they never really got to why it was subtitled “Crown & Key”…

By Special Request

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The Scriptlings by Sorin SuciuSo for the first time ever, I was recently contacted to review a book. That’s exciting. After a day or so thought I decide why not? Getting asked to review a book is awesome and not something that happens every day, though I did make it clear that no good review was guaranteed. I’ll give it a shot and speak my mind.

That being said…Did you like Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett? You did? Well good! Not only is Good Omens a personal favorite of mine, but the book I was asked to review is quite a bit in that vein.

So I present you with The Scriptlings by Sorin Suciu. This is an urban fantasy novel set in Toronto, Canada. Now, to give a bit of a fair warning there is some toilet-y humor to this book. The Magicians in this book all take new names when they begin their study, all of them happen to be…well unconventional is probably the best term. The lead characters are: Master Loo (British slang for toilet), Master Sewer, Merkin (If you don’t know what this is, I’m not telling you but be real careful if you Google) and Buggeroff (the first thing the poor lad said following an evening of getting spectacularly drunk).

When I read the blurb about this book on Smashwords, I started grinning. I knew immediately that I would enjoy this book and I was right. Hint: Take advantage of the footnotes. They add to the humor.

So, our story starts out with ‘heroine’ Merkin being grounded (magic stifled) by her Master (Master Dung) due to her insubordination. Now partly this is due to Merkin being not a very good person (seriously, I wouldn’t have minded if she’d been grievously injured or worse) and part of it is Master Dung being a complete and total asshole. So, Merkin being tired of Dung (and really who isn’t?), she figures out a way to get her magic back and ends up killing Master Dung.

What she doesn’t realize is that killing Master Dung notifies one of his former Scriptlings (this world’s term for a novice or learning magician) and knocks her out for about two days. When she comes to, she gets talked into a corner by Master Sewer. In exchange for him not turning her into the authorities for murder, she will become his Scriptling. And by the laws of magicians, he gets to keep Master Dung’s estate since Sewer is Dung’s eldest Scriptling.

Elsewhere in Toronto, young Simon is working a dead end job despite his degree in computer science when one day he gets an interesting email about a job offer. It seems tailored just for him (it is but he doesn’t know this yet) so he decides to check it out after just a teeny bit of deliberation. For his trouble, he gets killed. :-O And then he wakes up. You see, Simon was 100% non-magical which made him the perfect tabula rasa for Master Loo’s most ongoing experiment: giving Magic to those who have none. Unfortunately, this requires killing the subject.

Except this time (this time, meaning he’s killed quite a few people) it works! Simon comes back to life and ends up with the self-chosen Magician name of Buggeroff. Simon was a good choice of subject because apparently magic is quite a bit like software coding, only using Latin, Russian and Sumerian. I think this is quite the unique take on magic in fantasy novels. A very nice touch.

The stories of Buggeroff and Merkin start out separate and twine together nicely over the course of the novel. It was a refreshingly new take on urban fantasy and the potentially apocalyptic story line.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I think that if you like Good Omens or even some Douglas Adams, then you will like this book. Rating: B+