30
Jul
ISBN: 978-1439155073
Dr. Megan Chase is back, and this time, giving readers very little breathing space, Meg is trying to survive fireball flinging car chases with witches and find out who is, literally, exploding her demons. In the mean time she has to try to come to terms with her own parasitic nature, trying to balance her job as a therapist helping people overcome their trauma, and her soul-calling as the leader of the personal demons, who feed off the pain and emotional hurt of humans.
If that wasn’t bad enough Meg, on the precipice between human and demon, between accepting her own darkness and trying to deny it by helping others deny theirs, gets pulled back into the chaos of the family she walked away from and learns startling, disturbing truths about what made her become the woman she is.
I have to start this one with a purely personal response—I have never read a sex scene that made me cry before this book.
The raw emotional pain of Meg, raised in one of the worse imaginable environments, and struggling to come to terms with that as an adult, even if she tries to hide her coping behind her role as a therapist, is overwhelming. Meg is absolutely compelling as she tries to convince herself that she is a good person, despite dating a demon, being part demon, not to mention a demon queen, and the strange cravings for very inhuman things that begin to overcome her. Her own personal darkness, a textbook example of the damage childhood abuse does to an ordinary person, is delicately, but firmly tied into her struggle with the nature of the demons tied to her.
The level of emotion is incredibly high in this book. It’s hard to stomach, hard to watch and impossible not to experience along with Meg.
But despite the sheer desolation there’s a victorious element, because Megan might not be what her family wants, or what her partners in the practice want, or even what her demon followers want, but what she is under the damage is a core of molten steel trying to survive the inferno of emotions and rise in a world where she can be loved, respected and valued.
Demon Inside isn’t a book for everyone, but for those who connect with Megan because of similar pasts and emotions, it could be the sort of book that unexpectedly changes you and therefore is very highly recommended.
27
Jul
Paperback: 78-0-9550631-3-8
Bizzaro fiction is something of a new experience for me. I’ve read small bits of it before, but it’s not a genre I consider myself well versed in so this is going to be a less neutral review that takes the experiences of an inexperienced reader into account. What I’m looking for in a good weird story is intelligence despite absurdness, a story I’m capable of understanding despite skewing the idea of reality and an emotional response with some aspect of the story.
Polluto # 2, dubbed “Apocalypses & Garden Furniture”, is a hefty collection of tales.
24
Jul
Paperback: 9780778326816, $7.99
With her life no longer at the whims of the werecat alphas, Faythe Saunders, the first female enforcer, and if things work out the first female Alpha in North America, thinks she’ll be able to focus on helping her father face a political battle that started (last book) with his top enforcer and her lover being kicked out of the pack. Instead she finds herself escorting Manx, a female werecat Faythe rescued from a pack of strays who were using her as a breeder, to her own trial for killing her captors. Almost as soon as they step into the Free Area west of the Mississippi river they get caught up in an ambush, and a deep, dark plot that centers on Marc, Faythe’s exiled lover.
With long running series the threat is that readers and the author will become so attached to the characters that the book loses bite as both side don’t want to see harm done to or death of loved characters. But not only does Vincent skirt the edge between independent female lead and anti-baby, anti-family rebel, she holds true to the spirit of the series, which gives no guarantees that everyone will live. Prey is hard forged into a delicate place between gender roles and genres, without ever losing the balance that makes the characters and setting so interesting and compelling. Furthermore the book is nearly 400 pages long, but at the end it’s not going to be enough for readers, leaving off on another cliffhanger. This series far surpasses so many others in terms of each book presenting individual situations and mysteries, yet all the books being so tightly tied together that a marathon reading session would leave very little room to pause.
I can’t ever recall reading a series so tight, so interconnected, before. To top things off there’s definitely a thriller/edge-of-your-seat feel to every book, not to mention a delectable, cliff-hanger end to each volume.
21
Jul
Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com’s Werewolf Month.
Red by Paul Kane
Skullvines, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9799673-5-1
Available: New
Red is a fairly short, straightforward retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” that breaks both the monster and the fairy tale form back down to their horrific beginnings. Kane’s monstrous wolf is a creature out of our nightmares, all appetite, both sexual and digestive. He’s a true shapeshifter, a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who takes on the forms of people around him in order to get closer to his victims. Also true to the first fairy tales, this isn’t a light-hearted tale with magical creatures that is tied up in a nice happy bow. It’s a brutal tale of stalking and hunger. The only down side is that it doesn’t deviate from the traditional story much, making it a simplistic and quickly read tale. Recommended for private collections due to the sexual content and cost vs. length factors.
Contains: Violence, gore, sex
16
Jul
Paperback: 0451458923, $6.99
The previous book in the series, Grave Peril, was the kind of book a fan reads just to find out what’s happening next with the characters, so it was with some caution that I picked up my copy of Summer Knight. I was, honestly, afraid that the momentum and pure fun Butcher whipped up in the first two Harry Dresden books was destined to only make for a slow, disappointing slide.
And I was very wrong, thankfully.
In Summer Knight Butcher hits that perfect stride between adventure, mystery, a touch of romance and plenty of humor that was off in Grave Peril. It opens with Dresden, nearly mad and driven to his own destruction over the tragedy that befell his girlfriend Susan in the last book, investigating a literal rain of toads at a Chicago park. While there Dresden barely escapes a hit, aided by a werewolf buddy, and returns home to meet a would-be client. Only the client turns out to be none other than the Winter Queen of the Fairies, who has bought his debt to his fairie godmother and in return wants three favors from him.
The first, which he is told he has full permission to decline, is to seek out the true killer of the knight of the Summer court, clearing the Winter Queen’s name. But while still considering whether he’ll take the task or not Dresden meets with the White Council, part of which is trying to blame him for starting the war between wizards and the Red Court of vampires. The Winter Queen, the Council finds, is willing to give the wizards aid in their fight against the vampires, if Dresden completes a task for them. Conveniently enough the White Council, less friendly than Harry would like to admit to, demands that he fulfill the Winter Queen’s task as he never did have a proper quest to become a full wizard in the first place. The quest will kill two birds with one stone, if it doesn’t kill Harry first.
Only the quest isn’t as simple as find the killer, something neither the White Council nor the Winter Queen (or even the Summer Queen) realize is going on, and Harry, the only one who can find the truth, is facing a full on Fairie War as well as a magical imbalance of the seasons that could rip the mortal world apart.
As always Dresden is in over his head, but is stubborn, sarcastic and determined to do what is right by the people around him, the people who depend on him one way or the other.
Summer Knight comes together with smoothness and wholeness that Grave Peril lacked. The stakes are just as high, the losses potentially just as bad, but the parts all fit together in a way that makes this addition to the Dresden Files an incredibly satisfying read.
Paperback: 9780786951116, $6.99
This book, decorated with a simple dark cover featuring what can only be described as a clockwork angel (piqued your interest yet?), gets two reviews because it’s nearly two books in one.
As a fiction book Heaven’s Bones is a historical steampunk fantasy with prose that betrays its author’s poetic prowess. It paints a beautiful picture, with a precision that brings both the fantasy aspects and the historical aspects to life. In some books the world building is explicitly detailed, in this one while the setting is rich and full, it’s the characters which are explicitly detailed. In fact, so much character building is done that it leads to the book’s only flaw, that being a front-heavy feel with a slow progression of the over arching plot. The Angels, from the cover and the blurb, which likely sell the book to readers, don’t even materialize until over a hundred pages in and all the character’s relationships and associations aren’t fully revealed until after the 200 page mark.
It’s easy to fall for the pretty prose, but become frustrated with the scattered feel of it.
But this isn’t just a fiction book. Heaven’s Bones is actually a Ravenloft title. The aspects of the popular role play setting are integrated with just as much care and skill as the Victorian era, steampunk, and Civil War era time lines. There is no blatant connection (in fact I found myself second guessing whether it was meant to be a tie in at all) which, as a reader who is first being introduced to Ravenloft, allows for more eagerness to try the book, and an easier immersion into some of the concepts. The only familiar feature I spotted was The Mists, so delicately written that they became a character all their own, which of course is the main tip off that the reader (or the player, in the case of the game) might be venturing into Ravenloft.
This also shifts the previous complaint, making seemingly ineffective storytelling become catering to readers who love characters and concepts over solid things, like plots. Seeing as readers of RPG fiction love to read about the character but like open ended possibilities (need I mention the Drizzt Do’Urden saga?) this makes Heaven’s Bones’ seemingly slow opening pace just as deliberate of a plot element as everything else previously mentioned.
All in all, Heaven’s Bones is beautifully written, does indeed have steampunk Victorian era Angels, as well as psychics, cursed twins and someone suspiciously similar to Jack the Ripper. It has major crossover appeal but not only will it have gamer readers feeling clever for recognizing the “in-joke” Ravenloft elements, it will have non-gamer readers much more willing to take the plunge since the book doesn’t make them feel like they’re missing twenty years of back titles needed to understand what’s going on in this book.
And did I mention the prose was pretty?
Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com’s Werewolf Month 2009
Damnation Books, September 2009
Trade Paper Back: 978-1-61572-032-3 $8.29
Ebook: 978-1-61572-033-0 $4.50
While Symptoms of a Broken Heart is a solid fit into the shape shifter category, the “change” in this book is a metaphor for many of the characters’ innermost desires, rather than a power or curse. It’s an interesting application that is almost a throwback to older werewolf tales where the monster represented the fear of giving into such desires.
Lisa and her soon-to-be-married sister attend a Full Moon party, meant to be one last hurrah before they settle down, but they get more than they expect when it turns out to be an actual full moon party thrown by actual shape shifters. Tragedy strikes, and one sister is left alive and seeking the power of the attendees in order to save her own rear and cover up the other sister’s death.
This is a fast, hard read with two strong female leads, neither of which are flat stereotypical female characters or stereotypical horror-fiction lesbians. Erotic, dark and spiked with a creepy aftertaste that will stick with readers, this is a novelette worth snatching up.
Contains: graphic sex
Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com’s Werewolf Month 2009
Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
Ace Fantasy, 2006
ISBN: 0441013813
Available: New and Used
Mercy Thompson is unconventional from the beginning. She’s a mechanic for a small town, not to mention a tattooed skinwalker who can become a coyote at will. Mercy was orphaned by a magical father before she was born, and fostered by werewolves, and although she doesn’t truly belong with them, Mercy feels a connection to the wolves, no matter how intense and violent they might become.
When a stray werewolf shows up at her shop begging for a temporary job, she gets sucked into a plot that threatens the lives of the area alpha as well as the werewolf Merrok (ruler) who helped raise Mercy. Mercy is not necessarily violent or intense. She is weaker than most of the supernatural creatures around her. But her calm, somewhat defiant persona makes her an easygoing viewpoint character surrounded by werewolves and vampires that are straight out of horror movies. Mercy is the calm point of the dark, violent world. She knows when to fight back, when to let strong characters handle things, and how to quietly defy the big bads without having their ire crash down on her.Something of a softer dark urban fantasy book, due to Mercy’s charm, the world is no less bloody, violent or horrific than most other werewolf books. This one is likely to catch the eye of readers who love dark fiction that’s not unrelenting in terror or gore.