Sweep with Me (Innkeeper Chronicles Novella)

Sweep with Me
by Illona Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781660140022
Series: Innkeeper Chronicles #3.5
Publication Date: January 14, 2020
Pages: 136
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: NYLA Publishing

"Thank you for joining us at Gertrude Hunt, the nicest bed-and-breakfast in Red Deer, Texas, during the Treaty Stay. As you know, we are honor-bound to accept all guests during this oldest of innkeeper holidays, and we are expecting a dangerous guest. Or several. But have no fear. Your safety and comfort is our first priority. The inn and your hosts - Dina Demille and Sean Evans - will defend you at all costs. But we hope we don't have to."

Every winter, the innkeepers look forward to celebrating their own special holiday, commemorating the ancient treaty that united the very first inns and established the rules that protect them, their intergalactic guests, and the very unaware/oblivious people of planet Earth. By tradition, the innkeepers welcomed three guests: a warrior, a sage, and a pilgrim, but during the holiday, the innkeepers must open their doors to anyone who seeks lodging. Anyone.

All Dina hopes is that the guests and conduct themselves in a polite manner. But what's a holiday without at least one disaster?

Fun; brief, but it packs a punch at the end. This one is for those who’ve already read the other Innkeeper Chronicle books, though there’s enough ‘tell’ sprinkled throughout that a first-timer wouldn’t be totally confused. They would be totally spoiled for the others though, as there are spoilers to previous plots in the text.

A lot of the secondary cast are ‘away’ for this story, so Orro gets a bit more attention, and it appears Dina is making new friends. Not sure if we’ll see them again, as this novella has a pretty tidy HEA ending, but they’ll be welcome additions to any future Innkeeper books.

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave (Charley Davidson, #13)

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250149411
Series: Charlie Davidson #13
Publication Date: January 15, 2019
Pages: 292
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Charley is dead angry. She’s been kicked off the earthly plane for eternity—which is exactly the amount of time it takes to make a person stark, raving mad. But someone’s looking out for her, and Charley’s allowed to return after a mere hundred years in exile. Surely not that much has changed since then…right?

She’s missed her daughter. Reyes. Cookie and Garrett and Uncle Bob. Now that Charley’s finally back on earth, it’s time to solve the burning questions that still need answering. What happened to her mother? How did she really die? Who killed her? Is a batch of cupcakes the best medicine to mend a broken heart? The epic showdown between good and evil is about to begin. . .

The last book in the series; the one meant to wrap up all the loose ends, and it does so admirably.

When I read the first book, I liked it for the mysteries and the humor, though the humor was a little over-played (her penchant for naming everything grated on my nerves, and though she never stops doing it, it plays a much smaller part in the narratives of future books). As the series progressed, I still read them for the mysteries and I enjoyed the humor more because it became more balanced, but I also got stuck into the mythology Jones was using for the overall series arc. And I genuinely became attached to the wacky cast of characters that surrounded Charley.

This final book winds up the arc concerning the prophecies involving Charley and Reyes – and keeps the possibilities open for a future series featuring their daughter and her prophesied battle against Lucifer. Since the 13th book was meant to be the finale, there are no loose ends or questions – though there were a couple of didn’t-see-that-coming twists, one full-blown M. Night Shyamalan shocker, and a single misty-eyed moment I’m wiling to admit to.

The only bit that left me disappointed was the end-end; the part where we find out what Charley and Reyes do. It’s not anything short of a happy ending, but I didn’t like it. I get it, and I get why it was the perfect ending, but I still didn’t like it, and mostly for juvenile reasons.

View Spoiler »

While I’m sad to see the story end, and sad I won’t see the gang anymore, I’m happy with the series ending now rather than past its prime, and Darynda Jones has a new series coming out next year that sounds like it might be fun, so perhaps I’ll have a new series to love and look forward to.

I read this book for Halloween Bingo’s 13 square. 13 in the title, and 13th in the series.

Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson, #11)

Storm Cursed
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780425281291
Series: Mercy Thompson #11
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
Pages: 358
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

My name is Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, and I am a car mechanic.
And a coyote shapeshifter.
And the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack.

Even so, none of that would have gotten me into trouble if, a few months ago, I hadn’t stood upon a bridge and taken responsibility for the safety of the citizens who lived in our territory. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. It should have only involved hunting down killer goblins, zombie goats, and an occasional troll. Instead, our home was viewed as neutral ground, a place where humans would feel safe to come and treat with the fae.

The reality is that nothing and no one is safe. As generals and politicians face off with the Gray Lords of the fae, a storm is coming and her name is Death.

My rating would indicate I wasn’t all that thrilled with this book, but I was. I thought it was a very solid entry in the series – it holds its own – though it isn’t the best.

I had, overall, three disconnects with the book that stick in my mind after 24 hours. From least important to most they are:

1. The blurb set up an unreasonable expectation for me. The blurb, coupled with the cover, made me think of the scene in X-Men 3, where Jane Grey unleashes the mother of all temper tantrums. The reality in this book, while horrifying in itself, is rather underwhelming in comparison; it’s not really a storm so much as it’s a killing spree.

2. I get it: Mercy really doesn’t like being bound to Stefan, even though she freely admits she consented and that he’s never, ever done anything to abuse her trust or exploit said bond. To Mercy I say: get over it already.

3. And this is really the stickler, the reason I rated a story I mostly enjoyed so low: animal cruelty and death. I get it – the story is about black magic that feeds on suffering – and I don’t care. I did not like the long swaths of descriptions; the story didn’t need it either – it was horrifying enough without Briggs putting images in my head I’m really not happy about. I frankly skipped large sections of the book when I discovered she was running with this “theme”. I can’t believe I didn’t DNF the damn thing, though the rest of the story was good enough that I’m glad I didn’t. But I’ll vet her next books far more closely in future and I’m skipping any that appear to revisit this crap.

Beyond those things, the story really was good. I loved Sherwood’s part in the story even though it was shades of Bran; Briggs still made it work well. I found Larry the Goblin King sort of funny, and definitely intriguing – I enjoy stories about, if not underdogs, people who are underestimated. It sounds like the goblins are woefully underestimated. I have mixed feelings about Elizaveta, though I’ll probably not miss her, and I enjoyed Mercy finally figuring out that her own strengths were unexplored. It took her long enough, but at least she got there in the end.

Overall a strong story if you can overlook the animal cruelty, which I can’t. My enthusiasm for this series has suffered a significant hit; I won’t go so far as to say I’m done, but I’m certainly looking at the next release with a lot more circumspection.

Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)

Wild Country
by Anne Bishop
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780399587276
Series: The World of the Others #2
Publication Date: March 5, 2019
Pages: 384
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

Relative to the rest of the books in The Others universe, this one was ‘meh’. But ONLY relative to the rest of the books. In general it’s a great story and Bishop continues to create incredibly readable stories centered in a world where humans are resoundingly not an apex predator. Or, at least, not the apex predator.

This is the second book in the off-shoot series called “The World of The Others”, but its placement on The Others Universe timeline puts it chronologically in front of the 1st book, Lake Silence; thankfully the author’s note at the start explains this and that the events in this book take place simultaneously to events in the last book of the original series, book 5, Etched in Bone. Given that it’s been a few years since I read Etched in Bone, I needed to re-read it first to reacquaint myself with the characters and events. Which then prompted a re-read of the entire series.

Wild Country is the story of the aftermath following the complete eradication of all the humans of Bennett, a small town in the western part of the continent (alternate universe, alternate names, but it’s generally based on North America). The residents were members of the Humans First and Last League, and responsible for the wholesale slaughter of an entire Wolf pack. After the Others retaliated, they took back the land Bennett sits on, and went about re-creating the town, bringing in a mix of Others, Intuits (humans, but humans persecuted for their uncanny intuitiveness) and select humans, experimenting to see if they could create a more cooperative community.

I was engrossed in this storyline – some of my favorite non-lethal bits of these books is how Bishop shows these wildly differing life forms working together cooperatively, finding ways to respect the differences and keep the similarities working harmoniously. But then she went all Wild West on me and I’ve never been enamoured of the whole Wild West genre. The showdowns, the gunfights, the cattle rustlers… meh. I’m not saying that she didn’t do a good job with it, only that it wasn’t my jam, and towards the end it just lost me a little bit. It also felt a tiny bit like satire; like an homage that put a toe over the line and got a little silly.

Still, my bias is just that; a bias. Overall the story was great and kept me up, along with a taco dinner I made way too spicy, until 2.30am. I hope Anne Bishop’s imagination is chock full of stories of The Others and their battles with the selfish gits that make up entirely too large a proportion of humanity, because I’m nowhere near tired of reading about them.

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

The 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 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 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 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 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 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.