Broken Homes is the fourth book in the Rivers of London series, which is my number one go-to recommendation for fans of The Dresden Files who need something new to hold them over between books. Peter Grant is a PC in London and apprentice magician. There are a lot of spell-slinging detectives (private or actually on the force) in the world of urban fantasy these days. What makes this the next best thing to Harry Dresden, in my mind, is that like Harry, Peter could be described as a geek's geek. I've always thought that wizards/sorcerers/magicians/witches/take your pick were naturals to be a bit nerdy, since unlike other groups with supernatural powers like vampires or werewolves, the magic users may have natural talent but they have to study to be able to use it. Peter is a perfect example of this. His narration is peppered with Monty Python references, or notes that he resisted the urge to correct somebody on the name of a creature from Doctor Who, and the like. He's fun to spend time with, as is the cast of human, nonhuman, and questionable supporting characters.

That said, Broken Homes is not the one to start with. After an initial discovery of a murder following an odd traffic accident, one crime links to another and another through a chain of events that leads to The Faceless Man, and you're going to need the backstory in order to follow everything that's going on from there. So if you haven't read the first three books, locate The Rivers of London if you're somewhere you'd have the UK edition or Midnight Riot if you'd have the U.S. version (apparently rivers aren't exciting enough for us?) and start now.

Armed with all previous knowledge of characters and events, Broken Homes is still a twisty story that will keep you on your toes from one page to the next, and the end comes with a big twist that took me completely by surprise. I can't wait for the next book.

Overall grade: A

"Surreal Estate" is, if I remember correctly, the shortest of the Pax Arcana short stories so far, with under fifteen pages of actual text. It's really only a single scene, but it's an effective, self-contained one that pulls the reader in from the first sentence and conveys at least the basic concept of what John Charming is (not an easy concept to explain briefly) and his backstory while never detracting from the nonstop action.

Overall grade: A

Nick is known more as a lover than a fighter, but after one of the outside agents who is trying to track the psychotic Malcolm (recently discovered not to be dead after all) goes missing, he teams up with half demon Vanessa to find them.

Having recently read Angelic, it's clear that Kelley Armstrong has come a long way with her novellas since then. By necessity the pace is faster than a novel, but this time none of the action feel sacrifice, and although we're dealing with smaller story, for the most part it feels no less complete. The relationship between Nick and Vanessa is also given equal attention to develop without being pushed farther than seems natural with the amount of time they've had to explore it.

There's one thing I didn't care for, but it's a giant spoiler, so I'm going to leave a little space for it.




Are you ready? Spoiler in the next line of text.




Malcolm getting away feels like unnecessarily stringing us along for sequel bait at this point. When he initially reappeared in Thirteen and got away, it was clear that he was being saved for a novella, but I didn't expect hunting Malcolm to be a plot for multiple novellas. The Women of the Otherworld series never had reoccurring Big Bad before, not counting the Savannah trilogy which was a mini-series within the larger series. Old villains might pop up again but they weren't so obviously saved to fight another day at the end of one story.

All in all this was a fun, quick, action packed read.

Overall grade: B+

Angelic was the first Subterranean Press novella in the Women in the Otherworld series and was in extremely short supply. It took it this long for it to hit me that it might be available through Interlibrary Loan.

Eve has an arrangement with the fates; she serves six months as an angel and then gets to spend six months "off" as an ordinary ghost. She's supposed to be leaving on her vacation when they call her in to deal with a djinn uprising. Eve's getting tired of being expected to break the rules but then punished for it, and decides that she is going to get herself fired.

I know it's not fair to compare a novella against a full novel, but the bits of this book that seemed abbreviated were not the ones that one would expect. Summoning rituals aren't actually shown. Fights are glossed over. I can't help but think of the Pax Arcana short stories, which are much shorter, and yet which feel less condensed. Angelic was a decent way to spend half an hour, but it's short on action and doesn't advance the series, either, not that I'm sure I would want anything with major repercussions to happen in a limited run novella. It does clarify Eve's relationship to the Fates a bit. I don't regret reading it but I won't be buying it, even the more reasonably priced ebook, because I don't expect I'll feel the need to read it on subsequent series rereads.

Overall grade: C

This is the third book in the Immortal Empire series, and it's really impossible to talk about without spoiling a rather late revelation in the first book, God Save the Queen. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Xandra lives in a world in which the plague in Europe had the effect of turning the members of the aristocracy who survived it into vampires and werewolves and goblins live underground. It's the twenty-first century, but Queen Victoria, a vampire, still sits on the throne, and Churchhill was still alive when the series began. As a result, contemporary style and technology is mixed with the Victorian- the long-lived vampires and werewolves don't change their ways easily- and much of history is different. (I recall a passing reference to a German painter named Adolf something in one of the earlier books.) These creatures share the world not only with ordinary humans, with whom they don't mingle much and who have in the past risen against them, and with "halvies," the offspring  who are faster and stronger than humans but don't have the full abilities of the supernatural races.
Since God Save the Queen, Xandra discovered that in spite of her halvie appearance, she is actually a goblin, in spite of her ability to go out in daylight and her lack of fur, and at the request of the goblin prince William and the rest of his "plague" (or pack), she has taken the throne as the Goblin Queen. Naturally, this makes for a difficult relationship with Queen Victoria, who still rules over all the races of the empire. Now, a genetically engineered killer has escaped from a lab that briefly captured Xandra in the last book for experimentation, and since she did a serious number on Vex, the alpha werewolf and Xandra's lover, it's obvious that it will take everything Xandra and her friends can bring in order to stop her.
I love this series. Yes, Xandra is a bit of a special snowflake, but I like so much else that I'll let her specialness slide. Although she's overly impulsive sometimes, Xandra is  genuinely kickass, and I love that if she says she has to do something alone, it generally means that she knows that she can handle it and isn't setting up for her to be rescued later. In the series as a whole, she and Vex both come to each other's rescue at various times and their relationship is refreshingly equal in a way that doesn't normally come to mind when authors start tossing the phrase "alpha werewolf" around. Her relationship with her family is complicated, but her love for her sisters is always clear, and even the people with whom she has difficult relationships come across as believable, complicated people rather than pure villains. Plus, I just generally like the inventive worldbuilding in this series, which resembles no other urban fantasy series I know. (It gets marketed as steampunk a lot, and although I think it would appeal to a lot of steampunk fans, I actually think it is backwards steampunk. Steampunk is Victorian setting with more advanced technology mixed in; Immortal Empire is the contemporary world with aspects of Victorian life retained.)
There were some writing ticks that bothered me in this one that I hadn't noticed before, or maybe they're new. For example, how many times does Xandra need to talk about how often she raises an eyebrow? It's one thing to do it a lot and another thing to have her in the narration talking a lot about how she does it a lot, sometimes because somebody else in her family is doing it. That aside, I still heartily recommend it.
Overall Grade: A-

The only thing that I don't like about the Pax Aracana series is that I can't seem to find a website for it or its author, Elliott James, and I can't find out if any more full length novels are lined up yet to follow Charming. There are several digital exclusive short stories that I've been putting in as purchase requests at my library as they become available on Overdrive, and I see that there are a couple more of those coming after the new year. So far I've gotten the first and the third, "Charmed, I'm Sure" and "Pushing Luck." (The second, "Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls," managed to be checked out and have another request on it before I saw that it had been added to our Overdrive collection, so I'm still on the waiting list.)

One question that has to be asked about short stories that are part of a series is what the purpose of them is. Are they strictly fodder for the fans? Or are they meant to serve as an introduction to the series to lure new fans in? Both of these series are set before Charming, and if I understand correctly the other shorts are as well, and some of them were published before the novel. However, while they manage to pack most of the things I loved about Charming into twenty-five and thirty pages, respectively (folklore, snark, and action), they didn't do much in terms of explaining the world. Terms like geas are used in both with minimal explanation. "Charmed, I'm Sure" is slightly better at getting across the idea that John Charming is both a knight who protects people against supernatural creatures who threaten the illusion that they don't exist and that he is also a sort-of-werewolf. But if I read either story without having read Charming first, I'm not sure I'd understand how this universe works or who Charming is. Granted, I had to skip "Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls," so it is possible that all of the short stories are meant to be read in order, in which case I would have gotten a bit of exposition in "Charmed, I'm Sure" and a bit more in Waterfalls before understanding everything by the time I got to the third one. But whether the stories are meant to be read after the novel or read all together as a unit, they don't individually act as good introductions to the world. But they are wonderful for holding me over while I wait for the day when I know another novel is coming.

Therefore, I recommend that if you enjoy The Dresden Files or really any other magic detective style Urban Fantasy (even though that's not exactly what this is, it hits the same buttons), you read Charming ASAP, and then proceed to read the shorts.

My previous review of Charming can be found here: http://unreachableshelf.weebly.com/1/post/2013/10/charming-by-elliott-james.html

Overall Grade: A

John Charming comes from a long line of Knights, an order dedicated to fighting supernatural monsters if and only if they threaten the Pax Arcana, the force that keeps ordinary humans from noticing the magic world around them. But Charming was kicked out of the order and hunted by them when they discovered that he is a sort of half-werewolf as a result of his mother having been bitten while she was pregnant. (He has some werewolf traits but does not transform.) Now he's hiding out in Virginia working in a bar, when one evening a Valkyrie named Sig comes in, hunting a vampire who killed several young women in town. But the vampire Sig was following turns out to be the least dangerous of them, Charming joins Sig's eclectic band of hunters (including among others her aging psychic lover, a cop, and an ex priest) in tracking down the rest of the hive.

Elliott James's Pax Aracana world is steeped in folklore, grounding it in the details and giving it the sort of substance that's all the more necessary when you're dealing with fantasy. Charming and Sig are both strong, complicated leads. Sig's determination that she has to break things off with Stanislav before becoming involved with Charming- or even if she doesn't become involved with Charming- is a welcome change from the too often seen trope that it's ok for one of the leads to cheat on the lover they started with when they meet the other lead. That Sig and Stanislav's relationship is treated as a real thing with a history that grew and is now dying on its own rather than just an impediment for Charming also goes towards making her a sympathetic person in her own right rather than just Charming's prize.

I am eager to read more in this series.

Overall Grade: A

Again, spoilers for previous books in the Dresden Files series, and again, I buy these so I read them in paperback and it has been out a while.

Harry Dresden is back from the mostly-dead, which means there's no way for him to get out of the bargain with Queen Mab that made him the new Winter Knight. After recuperating and undergoing physical therapy that includes daily threats on his life, she gives him his first order: to kill somebody who ought to be immortal.

I will get straight to the point and say that I love this series. If you don't, then there's not much that I'm going to say about it that could possibly change your mind, but I love it. One of the things that I love about it is how Harry Dresden has to fight  to avoid being turned to the "dark side" by tapping into some of the powers he has access to, and there is tons of that in this book. Many, many tons, more than I can remember in any of the other books, because the mantle of the Winter Knight is violent in really dark, vicious ways, and we the reader are deep in Harry's head, so we're exposed to all of his worst impulses even if he resists them. With approximately nine books left in the series, I'm not even sure if Harry will successfully not turn evil, but by acknowledging the struggle Jim Butcher has convinced me that if Harry were to turn evil, it would be because it was a story about a wizard being turned evil, and not an unintentional he's-the-hero-so-it's-ok kind of thing.

And although Harry's demons have gotten stronger, he is showing some signs of learning his lesson. He's starting to learn to trust his friends more and to realize that he shouldn't always make decisions based on the idea that he has to save the world alone. I wouldn't bet on him making too much personal progress too quickly - again, nine more books to fill - but he seems to be on the right track, even if at the same time there are new ways he could be dragged backwards on it.

Overall Grade: A

This review is full of spoilers for Thirteen and the Women of the Otherworld series as a whole, since it is the last book. It has been out for a year, so I think it's fair game.

A war is going on in this world and the spirit world as supernaturals take sides for and against the revelation of their existence to the human race and demons pick teams. Savannah Levine has rescued her brother Bryce from testing, but he has been injected with a virus that may yet kill him. Savannah's once exceptional magic powers are coming back after having been taken at the end of Waking the Witch but they're still shaky, and creatures are entering our world that are not supposed to be able to cross over.

I loved all of the family relationships in this book. Savannah's mother Eve, who was a witch and a half-demon and has become a part-time angel since her death, is called back into the world in the flesh to be reunited with her daughter for the first time since Savannah was twelve. Eve's book, Haunted, was in its way a story about parents letting their children go as they grow up. A large part of this book was about a mother and daughter forming an adult relationship, and although both of these women have magic powers and one of them isn't technically alive, it's still quite relate-able. Watching the demons get involved in the lives of their children and grandchildren was also good for a lot of fun; mostly they see their mortal descendents as tools or pawns in their own battles, but Lucifer seems to genuinely care for his daughter Hope, who gets abducted by the villain in hopes to use her to lure him there, and for the new granddaughter that she has at the end of the story.

I've never cared for the concept of Savannah and Adam as a couple, not so much because of the age difference as because I can't believe that a woman of twenty-one would still be in love with the same guy she's had an unrequited crush on since age twelve. People grow and change in their teens and in their twenties, and I'd think that nine years later either her taste in men would be different or he would be different. But I'm resigned to it by now, and I do like the way they interact in this book, half new lovebirds, half longtime couple that's used to each other, and both thoroughly confident in each other's abilities.

What did bother me was when Lucifer told Hope that her daughter, Nita, would take some of her power, partly because it just didn't make sense to me that Nita would only have the visions but not the chaos hunger because the latter is a side effect of living with demons. Hope didn't live with demons, Lucifer did, but Hope inherited the chaos hunger from him. But what bothered me more was that although Nita wouldn't have the chaos hunger herself, her taking some of Hope's powers would reduce her chaos hunger. It seemed to me uncomfortably as if Hope had been "fixed" by motherhood. I'm uncomfortable with pretty much all of Bitten in all its stalkerish dub-con glory, so I can't really say that this came completely out of nowhere, although most of the series is much better and not icky. But since it wasn't Hope's book, one paragraph about her didn't mess it up too badly for me.

Overall Grade: A-

When our story begins Olivia Taylor-Jones is a young socialite who puts in full time hours doing volunteer work in a shelter whose biggest problem is that she wants to get her PhD in literature and then work for her living and her fiance, James Morgan, has just told her that people are talking about starting to groom him to run for senate. I don't entirely buy into those things being incompatible, considering that Dr. Biden's husband has gone from being a senator to VP and she's still a working English professor, but I digress and it doesn't really matter because Olivia's world is about to fall apart, anyway. Not only does it turn out that she is adopted, which her parents never told her, but her birth parents are Todd and Pamela Larsen, infamous serial killers currently serving life sentences.

Olivia's adoptive father passed away several years ago, and he was both the "strong one" and the parent that Olivia was closer to. She and her mother loved each other, but her mother tends to lean on Olivia to fix things and only knows how to fix things herself with money. She leaves for Europe to get away from the tabloids while Olivia is lying low. When Olivia realizes that she isn't going to be able to find a job with no references and an apartment that she can afford on the amount of her own money that is accessible in Chicago, circumstances lead her to a small town named Cainsville about an hour away. Cainsville is a strange town, covered with gargoyles but without a single church, even more insular than one expects from a small town and one where the elders still command great respect.

Pamela Larson's former lawyer, Gabriel Walsh, puts Olivia and her birth mother in touch. Pamela wants Olivia to bring reasonable doubt in the case of the fourth murder to the attention of nonprofits that work for the benefit of the wrongfully convicted. As Olivia and Gabriel investigate, Olivia begins to realize that she has a latent talent for recognizing and interpreting omens, and that Cainsville is strange in more ways than she understands.

The supernatural aspects in this book are subtle. The author includes a note at the beginning saying that if you wish to understand what's going on in Cainsville faster than Olivia does, Google the various foreign (Welsh, typically) words and phrases that appear untranslated in the text. I didn't Google any of them but I had a pretty good idea that fairies were involved from the first one that came up.

Olivia is not entirely likeable, but I'm not sure that she needs to be. Her desire to make her own way even before she has to speaks well for her, and it's an impulse to help somebody in danger that results in advice that she follows to Cainsville. But there's a level on which she is hardened, although she is also at times naive. She doesn't hesitate to use people for her own purposes any more than Gabriel the lawyer does, and there is something cold about her. Possibly a trait that she inherited from sociopathic parents, if they are guilty of any of the murders? Or a sign that she is not entirely (if at all?) human? I suspect a rather large amount of fairy blood in both Olivia and Gabriel, and if that is the case, their manipulative streaks are entirely fitting for a literally inhuman and often ruthless supernatural race. I have my theories about how this and some other information about Olivia's childhood could fit in with the murders, depending on the extent of her parents' involvement, but I don't want to get bogged down in the details here. Suffice to say that although I'm not sure I would want to spend much time with Olivia in person, I am eager to follow her through the rest of her books.

Overall Grade: A-