The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charlie Davidson, #12)

The Trouble with Twelfth GraveThe Trouble with Twelfth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250147554
Series: Charlie Davidson #12
Publication Date: October 31, 2017
Pages: 289
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Charley Davidson never signed up for all this. But since she was the one chosen for this job, Charley’s going to be the best Grim Reaper she can be—even if her life becomes a living hell. Literally. Not only is she trying to fight off an entity brimstone-bent on destroying the world, she must find a way to domesticate the feral being that used to be her husband. Would it kill him to sweep Charley off her feet every once in a while? Really? Meantime Charley is also tasked with uncovering a murder—as well as covering one up. Add to that her new occupation of keeping a startup PI venture out of trouble and dealing with the Vatican’s inquiries into her daughter and Charley is on the brink of crying uncle. But when someone starts attacking humans who are sensitive to the supernatural world, Charley knows she must step up to the soul-saving challenge. If only her number-one suspect didn’t turn out to be the dark entity she’s loved for centuries. But all’s fair in love and eternal war, right?


I love this series – especially the later ones – and even though I enjoyed this one enough to read it in one sitting today, it was not one of her best.  Mostly because the plot(s) were utterly transparent.  There was never any doubt in my mind what Reyes was looking for, or what would happen when he found it (although the third member of the showdown was a delightful surprise).  There was never any doubt in my mind who was responsible for the killings either, although the ‘other’ murder plot, while not central to much of anything, was interesting and its resolution unexpected.

There are also a few story elements that keep getting repeated in the books – honestly, it’s like hell has a revolving door – but Jones still manages to write a captivating, and hilarious, story that expands on biblical mythology while honouring its structure and its spirit.  So in spite of not being everything it could be, it was exactly what I needed today.

Lake Silence (The World of the Others, #1)

Lake SilenceLake Silence
by Anne Bishop
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780399587245
Series: The World of the Others #1
Publication Date: March 6, 2018
Pages: 416
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

 

I wasn’t even going to read this one.  I was sure I didn’t want to leave Lakeside and the characters in that courtyard.  But this was one of those rare times when advance press got me to reconsider. I don’t even remember what I read, but it was enough to make me think that maybe Lake Silence would be worth a read.

Squee!  It was!  Much to the detriment of my sleep.  I started it yesterday afternoon and, true to previous experience, I almost didn’t put it down again – I finally lost the battle at 1am, but was up again at 7am, book open, real-life rudely put on hold, until it was finished.

Turns out it’s not Lakeside I’m attached to; it’s the Others.  I’m enamoured with their morality, to put it bluntly.  Honesty and good faith keep you alive.  Shady dealings and selfishness get you killed.  Every. single. time.  No second chances.  In a world that’s constantly pissing me off because people do bad things and get away with it, or dodge the consequences, if not immediately, than eventually (Pete Rose trying to get his lifetime ban lifted; Australia’s cricket vice-captain caught cheating and already publicly stating he hopes to play again), I find this world of the Others refreshing.  Unfortunately, even in a work of fantasy, humans can’t stop being selfish and exploitative, in spite of clear cut rules, and consequences that are meted out consistently and immediately, and brutally.

The setting for Lake Silence is completely different, with an entirely new cast of characters, although there are a few cameos.  This is a small town that’s always been owned by the terre indigene, where the human residents fool themselves into believing the Others keep themselves to themselves.  Vicki is a new resident, trying to make a go of an old abandoned resort she got as part of her divorce settlement, not realising the true purpose of the resort and her role as caretaker.

As in previous books, I just got sucked in; the characters, the setting, all of it.  The only discordant note, and the reason it’s not the full 5 stars, were the villains; they were the most 2 dimensional characters in the story – so much so they were caricatures, and that made it hard to take them as seriously as the story deserved.   Vicki is also an emotionally broken character, and that’s starting to make Bishop’s MCs feel formulaic.  While Meg’s fragility was logical, given her background, Vicki’s felt gratuitous; I don’t think the story would have suffered at all, or worked less well, if she’s been a relatively well-adjusted, independent woman getting on with her life after a divorce.

Doesn’t matter in the end; I loved the book and lost sleep over it, and I’ll gladly snap up the next one without reservations.

 

This was my final read for Kill Your Darlings, and I used it for the card Crime Scene: Planet Camazotz, as it is a book that takes place in a different world.

Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega, #5)

Burn BrightBurn Bright
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 0425281310
Series: Alpha and Omega #5
Publication Date: September 27, 2020
Pages: 308
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

I love this series; I love it even more than the Mercy Thompson series.  I think it’s because I find Charles far more interesting than Adam.

Burn Bright ticked all the right boxes for me too; its entire setting was in Aspen Creek, which was a nice change from the previous books, where they were always somewhere new, with a new cast of supporting characters each time.  In Burn Bright,we get more information about the Marrok’s pack, and a smidgen more insight into Bran (some of it I’m not sure I like knowing – tiny bit of ick).  I also enjoyed the small mysteries to solve along the way that aded up to the big plot point – I felt like it kept the pace fast without feeling ridiculous.

Each of the books in this series and the Mercy Thompson series all work together, each one contributing to one of many over-arching plots she’s got developing in this universe.  It makes it impossible to be able to recommend reading this series out of order, or honestly, without reading the Mercy Thompson series as well.  The latter isn’t strictly necessary, but it’ll definitely enhance the reading experience.

Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charlie Davidson, #11)

Eleventh Grave in MoonlightEleventh Grave in Moonlight
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250078216
Series: Charlie Davidson #11
Publication Date: January 24, 2017
Pages: 310
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

My entire life can be summed up in one sentence:
“Well, that didn’t go as planned.”
—T-Shirt

A typical day in the life of Charley Davidson involves cheating husbands, errant wives, missing people, philandering business owners, and, oh yeah...demons, hell hounds, evil gods, and dead people. Lots and lots of dead people. As a part time Private Investigator and full-time Grim Reaper, Charley has to balance the good, the bad, the undead, and those who want her dead.

Now, Charley is learning to make peace with the fact that she is a goddess with all kinds of power and that her own daughter has been born to save the world from total destruction. But the forces of hell are determined to see Charley banished forever to the darkest corners of another dimension. With the son of Satan himself as her husband, will Charley be able to defeat the ultimate evil and find a way to have her happily ever after after all?


Darynda Jones is quickly becoming the second author alive for whom I’d go out of my way to have a conversation with.  Folded into a zany, quirky, funny urban fantasy series is some deeply well thought out theology; hidden amid the rapid-fire one-liners, Jones tackles head on the issues of God, free-will, and why He “allows’ pain and suffering.  And she doesn’t take it lightly, and she doesn’t go for easy answers or glib reasoning.  She’s successfully mixed silliness and the very opposite of silliness and I’m a little bit in love with her for pulling it off.

Eleventh Grave… clears a lot of the ongoing questions up, and I’d go so far as to say it brings the major story-arc to a close.  The climatic scene was so shattering, the resolution was almost an afterthought.  This is by no means the end of the series, as far as I know – there’s still a lot of questions unanswered so it had better not be.

It was mostly excellent but my complaints are twofold:  The first – we don’t find out what happened to Strawberry Shortcake’s brother.  I hate unresolved stuff like that.  Second:  I have to preface this with the disclaimer that I’m not a prude.  Sex scenes don’t bother me in the slightest, but Jones went a little too far for my comfort in one of the scenes here.  It wasn’t that it was deviant in any way, but after 11 books I feel like I’ve come to know Charlie and Reyes; like an invisible, unacknowledged member of the gang.  And yeah, I’d rather not know as much about Charlie and Reyes as I got from that scene.  At one point it stopped being sexy and started being really awkward.   On the flip side, she wrote a hell of a homage to When Harry Met Sally in another scene.

Awkward sex aside, I’m with Jones and Charlie until the wheels fall off.  I’d say until hell froze over but apparently, that’s a thing.

 

Page count:  310
$$:  3.00

Etched in Bone (The Others, #5)

Etched in BoneEtched in Bone
by Anne Bishop
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780451474490
Series: The Others #5
Publication Date: March 7, 2017
Pages: 397
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: ROC Hardcover

 

Every book in this series have been marathon reads for me, and Etched in Bone was no exception.  I picked it up yesterday morning and pretty much did absolutely nothing else until I read the last page about midnight last night (although I did stop, in the name of marital harmony, to shovel some dinner down; luckily, there was a footy game on last night, so the shovelling went largely unnoticed).

I have loved every moment of this series; been sucked into this world so thoroughly that interruptions leave me hazy about reality and I have been as attached to these characters as much as, or more, than any others.  Possibly more than real people I know.

But… this one; this final book concerning Meg and Simon, was not as great as the first 4.  Because this book deviated from the rules the author created for The Others.  In any of the other books, Jimmy would have been a stain on the sidewalk before chapter 3.  I get what she was trying to do here, I get what she wanted to explore, but it was not done as gracefully, and the effect felt forced; its execution more heavy handed.  In short, Jimmy got on my nerves; I stopped being horrified and started getting irritated and mumbling ‘why isn’t this man dead yet???’.

Still, I’d recommend this to anyone who likes urban fantasy and/or parables.  Because this whole series is one giant parable about the human race: our capacity for grace, our capacity for vice, and our wholesale destruction of everything in our path as long as we remain unchecked.  As horrifying as The Others are, I can’t look around at what’s going on today and not sort of wish our Earth had Naimid’s teeth and claws to protect her.

I’m attached so thoroughly to these characters in the Courtyard, I’m not sure I’ll read the next book; which is apparently in the same universe but with a different setting and characters.  I want more Tess!  But I’ll definitely be re-reading these.

Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson, #10)

Silence FallenSilence Fallen
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780425281277
Series: Mercy Thompson #10
Publication Date: March 4, 2017
Pages: 371
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

Attacked and abducted in her home territory, Mercy finds herself in the clutches of the most powerful vampire in the world, taken as a weapon to use against Alpha werewolf Adam and the ruler of the Tri-Cities vampires. In coyote form, Mercy escapes–only to find herself without money, without clothing, and alone in a foreign country.

Unable to contact Adam through their mate bond, Mercy has allies to find and enemies to fight, and she needs to figure out which is which. Ancient powers stir, and Mercy must be her agile best to avoid causing a supernatural war.


2021 Update: Still my favorite book, with very few flaws.  I’ll add that I loved the inclusion of Kabbalistic myth, although her twist on it was … twisty.  But what I appreciated most was that this was a book about a woman who saves herself.  She still needs Adam to come to her aid, but the aid she needs from him is more administrative (passport, money, etc) than damsel needing rescue.  Thoroughly satisfying no matter how many times I’ve read it.

Original review: Mercy is kidnapped by vampires and is taken to Europe, where she escapes, but has no clothes, no money and no passport and must stay on the run until Adam can find her and neutralise the threat to herself and her pack.

I’ll admit I was less enthusiastic about this one than I normally am about the books in this series, because my first thoughts ran along the lines of ‘oh, yay.  Woman in peril who must fight to survive and over come obstacles over and over again.’

I could not have been more wrong.  Yes, there are perils and obstacles, but they are more than balanced out by moments of control and action and intelligence.  This book was also far more about political negotiations and intelligence analysis, if you’ll excuse the out-of-place term here, and I loved that.  This felt like a far more intelligent novel that the previous books.

And for the first time in I can’t even remember how long, I was totally blown away by the twist.  Never. saw. that. coming.  I actually exclaimed ‘holy sh*t!’ out loud.  Well played, Briggs.  Absolutely brilliant.

There wasn’t anything I didn’t thoroughly enjoy in this book; I had no complaints at all.

The Big Over Easy (Nursery Crimes, #1)

The Big Over EasyThe Big Over Easy
by Jasper Fforde
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: Nursery Crimes #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
Pages: 398
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

 

This book…  I have so many random thoughts about this book.  In no particular order:

1.  Easily the most highly quotable book I’ve ever read.  Including books of quotes.
One of my favourites:
Mr. Pewter led them through to a library filled with thousands of antiquarian books.

‘Impressive, eh?’

‘Very,’ said Jack.  ‘How did you amass all these?’

‘Well,’ said Pewter, ‘you know the person who always borrows books and never gives them back?’

‘Yes–?’

‘I’m that person.’

Don’t know why, but that cracked me up.

2.  I’m pretty sure Fforde had no intention of writing a satire (based on what I’ve found on the interwebs) about the sensationalism of the free press, but this is definitely a case of current events shaping a reader’s interpretation of the text.  I had a really hard time reading this and not drawing parallels.

3.  I’m equally sure he definitely meant to write a satirised murder mystery and this was easily the closest I’ve ever read to my blog’s namesake movie, Murder By Death, which in my totally biased opinion is the acme of mystery satire.  Which brings me to another quote:

Dog Walker’s Face Body-Finding Ban
Anyone who finds a corpse while walking their dog may be fined if proposed legislation is made law, it was disclosed yesterday.  The new measures, part of the Criminal Narrative Improvement Bill, have been drafted to avoid investigations looking clichéd…

Now this is legislation I can get behind.

4.  I wish I’d picked this book up directly after reading The Well of Lost Plots.  It makes no difference to someone new to Fforde’s books, but I think those that have read TN would feel a stronger connection to the characters here when The Well… was still fresh in the memory.

5.  Prometheus has an incredible monologue on pages 271-273.  A popular fiction novel that can weave serious philosophy into its narrative always earns huge bonus points with me.

6.  Oh, yeah – good mystery plot too!

Off to order the second one…

The Curse of Tenth Grave (Charley Davidson, #10)

The Curse of Tenth GraveThe Curse of Tenth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250078193
Series: Charlie Davidson #10
Publication Date: June 4, 2016
Pages: 342
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

If one door closes and another one opens,
your house is probably haunted.
—Bumper Sticker

As a Part-time PI and fulltime grim reaper, Charley Davidson has asked a lot of questions throughout her life: Why can I see dead people? Who is the hot supernatural entity following me? How do I get gum out of my sister’s hair before she wakes up? But, “How do I trap not one malevolent god, but three?” was never among them. Until now. And since those gods are on earth to kill her daughter, she has little choice but to track them down, trap them, and cast them from this dimension.

Those are just a few of the questions Charley must answer, and quick. Add to that a homeless girl running for her life, an innocent man who’s been charged with murdering the daughter of a degenerate gambler, and a pendant made from god glass that has the entire supernatural world in an uproar, and Charley has her hands full. If she can manage to take care of the whole world-destroying-gods thing, we’re saved. If not, well…


Ah, this is much better.  We’re back in New Mexico, Charley’s home and she has more than a couple of very cool cases.  She’s owning who she is in a rather fabulous way; neither all good nor all bad and only either when it’s necessary.

The only bee in my bonnet was the whole relationship let’s-not-talk-about-what’s-bothering-us trope, and it was followed up by what should have been a fabulous scene consisting of several pages of Charley and Reyes talking everything out and uh…other stuff.  In fairness, it was a good scene, but at that point I was itching to move the mythological story line along, so it was definitely my impatience, not Jones’ failure.  On a side note, I’m totally going to use the Twister idea the next time my nieces are fighting (read the book; it’s not as weird as it sounds).

Jones kept me waiting for the mythology, but when she delivered, she delivered big.  Fascinating stuff, tons of reveals, although it seems she’s going further than just stretching classical biblical mythology, using it instead as a springboard for a much larger polytheistic mythology of her own.  I think she’s missed the point of Jehovah’s true nature, but I’m still on board – I want to see if she’ll take forgiveness as far as it actually goes.  Lots of good theological conversation starters here.

Can’t wait for 11!

The Dirt on Ninth Grave (Charley Davidson, #9)

The Dirt on Ninth GraveThe Dirt on Ninth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250074485
Series: Charlie Davidson #9
Publication Date: January 16, 2016
Pages: 326
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Charley Davidson is living in New York City as Jane Doe, a girl with no memory of who she is or where she came from. So when she begins to realize she can see dead people, she’s more than a bit taken aback. Strangers who enter the diner where she works seem to know things about her…Then she is confronted by a man who claims to have been sent to kill her. Sent by the darkest force in the universe. An enemy that will not stop until she is dead. Thankfully, she has a Rottweiler. And the diner’s devastatingly handsome fry cook, who vows to protect her even though he seems to be lying with every breath he takes. But in the face of such grave danger, who can Jane/Charley/whoever she is trust? She will find the truth even if it kills her…or the fry cook. Either way…


My personal health reality includes sleeping medications, so I rarely suffer from anything that could be called insomnia.  Except on very rare occasions when they fail, and last night they failed spectacularly – I never went to sleep.  I finally started to nod off when MT’s alarm went off and I briefly contemplated instigating a domestic disturbance.

The good news – I guess – is that I finished The Dirt on Ninth Grave in one sitting.  I was engrossed enough in the story to not want to put it down, but I’d have preferred not feeling like a zombie on toast today.

I definitely, thoroughly, enjoyed this book but I liked it the least of the nine books so far.  It was the amnesia thing.  We finally got to a place in the story arc where we had answers and a clear goal in site and then this book comes along and we’re temporarily rebooted to Charley not knowing anything.  I thought this would only last a few chapters… maybe half the book at the outside, but nope: Charley doesn’t snap out of it until the end.

I saved this book until The Curse of Tenth Grave was released because I’d read from several places that Ninth Grave ended on a cliffhanger.  I’ll argue this ending isn’t a cliffhanger though, because the action comes to an end; the story is paused.  A major story-arc plot twist is revealed, but it’s more a ‘how will this affect the arc’ twist, rather than ‘ohmigod is someone gonna die in chapter 1 of book 10?!?’.

…I think.  Thankfully, I have the next book sitting here waiting, so I can find out.  After I take a nap.

(I might use this book as the Book with a terrible cover Summer Book Bingo square.  It’s not objectively terrible, but I don’t like it.)

On the Edge

On the EdgeOn the Edge
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780441017805
Series: Novel of the Edge #1
Publication Date: September 29, 2009
Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

 

I love the Kate Daniels series and the synopsis for this one sounded pretty good; a place where two worlds overlapped – an in-between space only certain people could live.  Intriguing.

But… no.  The writing is solid, descriptive, evocative.  But this is much more a paranormal romance than an urban fantasy and animal cruelty is just treated too casually for me; it’s not graphic, but it’s prevalent.

This is also a book that would lose a lot of readers in the first half, especially those with low tolerance for male posturing and non-consent (no rape, to be clear, just the whole ‘I will have you! crap).  Andrews’ here is a bit too clever for their own good (what is the proper pronoun usage for 2 people writing under 1 name?!?):  a lot of readers won’t have the tolerance to stick around and discover just how wrong perceptions are in the first half of the book.

Overall, I’m not sorry I read it, but I won’t read it again and I won’t read the second book (I think there’s a second book…).  I’ll stick with Kate and Curran.