Category Archives: Urban fantasy

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

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Stars: 3.5 out of 5

This book has been languishing on my TBR list since 2013, and even though I own the book, I never got around to reading it. So thank you for the Cleaning out your TBR challenge for finally giving me the push I needed to tackle it.

All in all, I actually liked the story. It has that magical realism that I love in Neil Gaiman and Garth Nix’s books, where the characters live in a seemingly perfectly normal and mundane world, but sometimes elements of the supernatural infringe upon their existence. Or blend with it, like it happened for most of this book.

I also loved Polly. She is an excellent main character. She is complex and fleshed-out, and really likeable. I can understand why she would be so taken by Mr Lynn – he is the only adult, apart from Granny, that showed her the least bit of care and interest. The more you learn about her home life, the more you realize just how horrible and self-centered her parents are. To them, having a child is an obstacle to their happiness. And the culmination of that is when her mother sends her packing to live with her father… who didn’t even have the courage to tell his new wife that Polly was coming to stay for good. And what kind of father just leaves their daughter at the train station without making sure she has a ticket and enough money for a snack, or actually seeing her off on that train?

Polly was a neglected child who craved for someone who would care about her, so she clung to Mr Lynn who had shown her a little kindness, but most importantly, who listened to her and cheered for her accomplishments, no matter how big or small they were.

So yes, I liked this book, but there is one factor that I simply can’t overlook. That’s the fact that Mr Lynn used her. An adult purposefully befriended a ten year old child and continuously insinuated himself into her life over the years. Yes, you could argue that he had a magical reason for this, and was hoping that she would save him from the fairy queen he was indentured to, but the fact stays – he was grooming her. He knew exactly what he was doing, and it’s not like Polly could give her consent to this. Not when she was a child. And that’s something that I simply can’t overlook. It makes my skin crawl. So I am taking 1 star off my score here.

However, I am glad I finally got around to reading this book, and I will check out other books by this author.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy, YA

The Archived (The Archived 1) by Victoria Schwab

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Stars: 4 out of 5

Another book scratched off my oh so long TBR list. This one has been languishing on it since 2014. 

I really liked it. The world is interesting. The existence of an Archive where all the memories of people who die are kept is fascinating. Though I would like to know who created it and for what purpose. Since technically, the Histories just kind of stay there and should never “wake up”, and should never escape into the Outer world. Yet they do, and they go bad every single time. I wonder why? 

And I definitely could relate to Mac’s pain and her struggle to come to terms with Ben’s death. I understand that she blames herself, no matter how absurd that is. I think for her the grief of loosing her little brother compounded with the grief of loosing her grandfather, with whom she was a lot closer than with her parents. Grief can make you do some stupid things. I also understand how having to keep her job as a Keeper secret isn’t exactly conductive to creating strong friendships. Honestly, I don’t envy Mac her life. It’s lonely, having to lie to everyone all the time. Having to put on a mask for others and never ever show them your real self. 

All in all, I was also pretty okay with our protagonist, though I question her grandfather’s decision to pass his mantle of Keeper to an 11 year old child. This is not just irresponsible, its downright cruel. Not to mention that a child, at least in  normal family, would not have the freedom of movement necessary to do this job. Are you seriously telling me that Mac’s been sneaking out of the house at all kinds of hours of day and night and coming home with cuts and bruises, and nobody noticed? Her parents didn’t sound the alarm? Her teachers didn’t suspect child abuse and call child protective services?

I understand that they might pay less attention to Mac after the tragedy that struck them with Ben, locked in their own grief as they are, but she’s been a Keeper for 4 years before then. Are you telling me that her parents never called her on her lies? Never questioned why she is hurt so often? That was the thing that was the hardest to suspend my disbelief on.

This book also suffers from the usual YA trope where the characters simply don’t talk to each other about important things. A lot of the problems Mac had to deal with were created or made worse by her unwillingness to confide in others. She could have told Wesley about what’s happening in the Archives. He isn’t stupid. He’d figured out that the uptick in woken Histories wasn’t normal. She could have told him about Owen and asked for his help. Instead, she chose to lie and stubbornly try to deal with the situation on her own. Well, we know how that turned out.

We also have the incompetent adults trope that made me roll my eyes a couple times while reading this book. It’s so old and tired that it gives me the hives now. It would honestly make for a much better story if the adults and young adults worked together. Then again, we might not even have a story, because if Mac’s parents paid enough attention to her, she wouldn’t be a Keeper, because she would have been grounded the first time she’d snuck out at night and came back with bruises and knife marks. Oh, and in therapy.

But all in all, I actually really enjoyed the story while I read it, and all those questions didn’t really bother me until AFTER I had finished the book and started thinking about it. And I will definitely read the next book in the series to see if we get more answers about the Archives.

books, Fantasy, Ghost Story, Reviews, Urban fantasy, YA

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co 1) by Jonathan Stroud

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

I watched the Netflix series based on these books and liked them, so I decided to check out the original works as well. Especially since there was a lot less backstory and worldbuilding in the tv series then I would have liked. Well, I’m glad I picked up the books, even if they are technically YA. This is quality storytelling, and I loved every minute of it.

I also noticed that while the tv series follow the first book almost word for word when it comes to the events that happen, they are a lot less effective at describing the character motivations. I honestly thought that Lockwood was a pretentious ass when I watched the series. And an ass who constantly puts others in danger to boot. Well, I’m glad to say that he isn’t like that in the books. Reckless, yes. Excitable – definitely. But also brilliant, smart, and with nerves of steel. I actually liked his character in the book while in the tv series I found him mildly irritating at best. 

Same goes for George. The way he is and the way he behaves in the book is much more natural than how they portrayed him in the series. And I’m not against race-swapping characters, but they could have found an actor who fit George’s description a bit better. After all, the fact that he is overweight and not particularly handsome weights heavily on his character and his behavior. That’s where a lot of his insecurities come from. And that opportunity was completely lost in the tv series.

Also, is it me, or is the book a lot more scary and more… cinematic, shall we say? I mean the Red Room episode in the series just made me shrug, but when I was reading about it in the book, I literally had shivers. That whole night in the most haunted house in England was extremely well-written. And showed all the team members at their best, especially Lockwood and Lucy. The whole Annie Ward story was also better presented than in the TV series, in my opinion. 

I also loved that we get a lot more backstory on the Problem and more examples of the Visitors, as well as how everyday life is in a world where nights aren’t safe, and ghosts that the majority of the population can’t see can still seriously harm and even kill them. I would like to know more about this. I also would like to know if this Problem is only local to England or if it spread to the rest of Europe as well. It was mentioned that it had started in London and was slowly spreading into more rural parts of the country over the last fifty years, so maybe it hasn’t made it across the Channel just yet. 

I’m sure I will get answers to at least some of my questions if I continue with the series, which I most certainly will!

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

A Murder of Crones (London Bones 2) by S.W. Fairbrother

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Stars: 5 out of 5

I am loving this series so far! The world is so unique and well-integrated. I mean, I can “see” something like that really evolving if supernaturals lived alongside us. 

The first book introduced the world and our protagonist and had her solve a murder mystery involving one of her co-workers. This book goes a lot more personal. It dives deep into Vivia’s childhood, and I can tell you that’s stuff nightmares are made of. We finally discover where the hags came from, who her mother was, and why her sister had to die. 

Since the story is more personal, it had more impact, at least on me, because I happen to like Vive as a protagonist. She tries really hard NOT to be like her mother. And seeing how Desma behaved with her daughters (and everyone else that wasn’t Desma for that matter), I can understand why. Had her family been fully human, child protective services would have taken the two girls away immediately and charged Desma with aggravated child abuse. But as it stands, nobody cares what happens to some supernatural kids. It’s a reminder of what often happens to children who aren’t part of the main demographic in our world right now, sadly.

I found Vive even more relatable in this book than in the first one. She is faced with impossible odds – trying to solve a decades old murder before her time runs out, and trying to undo the hex that is killing her sister… again. And to accomplish either of those things, she is forced to dig through her often painful past. Also, the revelation about the origins of the hags are rather heartbreaking. It’s horrible to discover that you were just a means to an end, that you were never loved by the person who created you.

And while I’m glad that this situation was resolved in a (sort of) happy ending, it seems to me that Vivia lost more than she gained in the end. She lost her mother, she all but lost her sister, and she lost her youth. Yes, she gained freedom, but that seems like a very high price to pay for that, especially since she was paying for the sins of her parents. Literally, as it turns out. 

I will be interested to see where the series goes in its final book. Now that Vive finally paid all the karmic debts her family had accumulated over the millennia, I would like to see her build a life for herself that is not dependent on her mother’s teachings and abuse. I want to see her happy and accomplished in what she does.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

A Matter of Death and Life (Gideon Sable 2) by Simon R Green

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Stars: 3 out of 5

You have to put a specific lens to enjoy this series. If you are looking for an intricate story with life and death situations and complex characters, this is probably not a book for you. But if you are looking for a quick and fun romp through a seemingly impossible heist, then by all means, come right in. 

I like the world this author created. It’s full of weird and unusual things, places, and people. Just take the Moonlight Express, for example, what a wonderful concept. And all the weird and terrible characters we encounter in these books are simply fascinating. Some of them are even more interesting than the main crew doing the heist.

And hence lies my issue with this book. The main crew is… okay, I guess, but they don’t really evolve much compared to the first book, with the exception of Lex. Annie is still anybody but herself, Johnny is still on tedious terms with reality, and Gideon… well, Gideon always has a plan. Problem is, we don’t learn much more about who Gideon is, or, more importantly, who he was before he stole that identity. There is  mention of the fact that he used to run with Switch it Sally before, and that the big bad in this book had two of his friends killed. But that’s it, we don’t get more details. We don’t get any more insight into this character other than he has a few tricks in his pockets and always has a plan.

I would have loved to learn a bit more about him as the series progresses, but as it stands, he is the character that has the least personality in this crew. I see the mask he’d donned, but I don’t see the real person behind it, which is disappointing.

The pacing is also a bit off in this book, even though it moves rather quickly. What I mean by that is that we spend too much time assembling the team. I mean we don’t get to Las Vegas and start the con until almost 70% into the book, so this whole portion feels very rushed. It’s a whirlwind of action that introduces all the villains, sets up the stakes, executes the con, etc. There is never a real sense of danger or realization that the stakes are high. Plus, Gideon always has a plan.

In fact, this book follows exactly the same blueprint as the first book did, but it worked in the first book because we were being introduced to all the characters for the first time. Here however, we already know them, so there was really no need to putter around for over half the book. I would have been more happy if they had gotten to Vegas earlier and infiltrated the casino gradually.

But all in all, this was a quick and fun read. A good palate cleanser between longer books that have more substance to them. So I think I will check out the next book in the series as well.

PS: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

A Plain-Dealing Villain (Daniel Faust 4) by Craig Schaefer

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Stars: 4 out of  5.

I think this series is getting better with each new book, which is an exciting occurrence. I’ve seen too many series putter out after the first few books because the author didn’t plan the overarching arc well enough or just ran out of ideas, but has contracted to write more books. I’m glad to say that it’s not the case here. It really feels like there is a solid plan behind these books and things that seemed unimportant or barely mentioned in previous books suddenly come to play in the next books. I like it when I can trust the author to take me for a wild ride and not loose sight of the destination.

My only compliant here is that it starts a bit slow, with an aborted robbery and way too much time being interrogated/shadowed by Harmony Black in the beginning of the book. Once Faust arrives in Chicago and the action picks up, the book become a lot more interesting. 

What I have noticed is that I only truly get invested in these books when the gang is all together. Daniel Faust by himself tends to charge in without thinking, make a complete mess of the situation, then try to fix what he broke in the first place. Like Pixie told him in this book, you never fix anything, you just try to mitigate the damage. The true magic happens when Cormy and Mama Margaux and Pixie and even Caitlin are there to help him. That’s when the cons come to life, that’s when the books become an adrenaline-packed ride. And it’s a true joy to watch them work together, help each other, trust each other and pull of seemingly impossible things. 

I am also glad that the insta-love between Faust and Caitlin is finally qustioned in this book. I’ve been saying since book one that this felt unnatural to me, and it seems that I’m right. I hope this gets further development in future books, because this is the definition of a toxic relationship – when one of the participants is basically manipulated into feeling what he does. I don’t care about justifications or that Caitlin loves him too now, this relationship started with a lie. This at least needs to be addressed between them if there is any future in this.

There are some interesting new plotlines to explore in future books, like the looming hostile takeover of Las Vegas by the Chicago Outfit, which would definitely be a bloody affair. And of course this new shadowy figure pulling the ropes behind the latest heist. Who is he and what is his end goal? What kind of ritual are his minions preparing for? And how will Daniel clear his name from the murder he’s been framed for, and will he do it in time to help his friends?

I am definitely picking up the next book in the series.

books, Fantasy, Horror, Reviews, Urban fantasy

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

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Stars: 5 out of 5

I am continuing my dive into my TBR list. This book was languishing on my list since 2014, and I’m really not sure why I didn’t read it sooner. I even had the ebook on my Kindle and all that… Anyway, I finally got to it and I’m happy that I did.

Neil Gaiman is an absolute master at writing books about children that are interesting for both children and adults. I loved his Coraline and the Graveyard book. They were engrossing and at times horrifying, but also very genuine. Same happened with this book. 

The author has a rare gift of capturing the magic of childhood without turning it into something extraordinary. In fact, the very ordinary way he describes some rather extraordinary (and often terrifying) things that happen to his characters is what makes his books so impactful. This books brings me back to my childhood, when the world was new and I didn’t know the rules, so even most ordinary places could be magical doorways to other world. A tree in the backyard could be a castle and the pond at the end of the lane could be an ocean.

Children see a lot more then adults do, because they haven’t accepted the norms society and adulthood imposes on them yet, and adults readers should be reminded that there still wonders in this world that science and technology cannot explain. And that those wonders aren’t good or evil, they just are. They behave in accordance to their nature, and they don’t particularly care about human norms and rules, so interacting with them is always a gamble.

I loved that our protagonist is just a little boy who loves to read and is more comfortable in his own imaginary world with his books than with other children. He isn’t a genius. He isn’t the chosen one. He is just a kid who stumbles into something extraordinary and tries to cope with it the best he can. He isn’t particularly brave or strong, but he has enough courage to stand up for himself and say it when the situation doesn’t feel right. And standing up to an adult, especially if that adult is your parent, is the most terrifying thing in the world when you are a child. Most of us forget that when we grow up. 

That’s why the most terrifying experience in this whole story wasn’t even Ursula or the hunger birds. It was the fact that his father tried to drown him in the bathtub. Whether he was enthralled by Ursula or she’d just played on his baser instincts doesn’t matter. When the person who is supposed to protect and support you tries to kill you, it shatters something inside of you. I’m glad the Hempstock snipped that night out of his memories.

All in all, this is a wonderful story about the fact that the extraordinary lives next door to us, you just have to look carefully for it. Question is, do you really want to venture down that lane?

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

The Best Thing You Can Steal (Gideon Sable 1) by Simon R Green

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Stars: 3 out of 5

I love me a good heist and I am always excited to read about London in urban fantasy. It’s such an ancient and wonderful city that adding a magical element only adds to it’s fascination. So I dived into this series without reservation and read this book in a day. 

So what’s my verdict? It’s popcorn stuff. It’s a fun little romp through a fictional magical London, full of action and never a dull moment… It’s also pretty light on substance. I mean the whole book is about introducing the team, then explaining the plan, then executing the heist. Pretty straightforward.

And that’s the biggest drawback of this story, I think – I would expect a plan to fail, things to go wrong forcing the team to improvise. And while it does a little, none of the drawbacks seem dangerous or earthshattering. Ultimately, the plan goes exactly as formulated in our protagonist’s head. I never worried about the characters being in danger, because they really weren’t.

Part of the issue is that all of the characters are so overpowered that it’s hard to imagine that anything can truly hurt them. I mean the Damned has the armor of angels. The Wild Card can alter reality as it pleases him. The Ghost is a ghost, so bullets can’t hurt him. The only real humans are Anny Anybody and our protagonist, but the author never puts them in real danger. 

Finally, the villain himself is rather underwhelming all things considered. We spend the whole book building him up as this ruthless horrible person, someone extremely overpowered and who is in possession of unimaginable artifacts… What we get at the end is a mustache-swirling Bond villain who monologues about how villainous he is for about 10 pages, then gets beaten by a McGuffin. 

As I said, don’t read this book if you are looking for a memorable villain and edge of your seat action with high stakes and life and death situations. However, if you are looking for a quick read to take to the beach with you or to your morning commute – this definitely fits the bill. And while I seem critical, I did like it well enough to continue with the series. 

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

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Stars: 3 out of 5.

I feel bad giving this book less than a stellar rating, because it raises some pretty important issues about inclusion and the casual mistreatment of those who are different. It also talks about trauma and healing and finding your purpose in life. So all the things that should be right up my alley, right? Yes this book left me pretty much cold. 

I see several problems with the narrative that made it so this book didn’t work for me.

First, there is too much going on. There are demons ready to buy your soul and the competitive world of violin music. There are aliens escaping the collapse of a distant civilization. There is a traumatized transgender kid who is trying to find her way in this world that has never showed her kindness. There is the Queen of Hell, who already damned the souls of six of her most brilliant violin students and only need to collect one more to buy back her own.

On each own, all these stories would make a wonderful book. Reading about Katrina finding her own voice and melting the Queen of Hell’s heart in the process would have been wonderful. Reading about Lan Thran building a new life on Earth for her family and finding a modicum of happiness. And also realizing that music might be just the thing that could heal the soul of her dying civilization. Or even reading about the strange and cutthroat world of violin competitions and the violin repair shop owner who had the power to repair and exorcise cursed violins. And it is also a story about immigrants and refugees who are trying to rebuild a life on distant shores, as demonstrated by the Asian diaspora in California. 

Unfortunately, mashing them all together into the same narrative did a disservice to all of the stories. First, it felt like a clash of ideas, but more importantly, there wasn’t enough time to develop each story to the extent that it needed to be developed. There were too many characters to keep track of, as a result, almost none of them felt fleshed out. I could honestly say that the only two characters that felt “alive” to me were Katrina and Shirley. Ironic, isn’t it, considering Shirley is an AI?

As it stands, I felt like all the stories were underdeveloped then forcibly woven together to create a happy ending. 

Also, I found that for a book that seemingly had such high stakes – the souls of two women in jeopardy, aliens fleeing the destruction of their civilization, etc. I never felt any urgency in the narrative. We are told that the stakes are high, but we aren’t shown that. Apart from that last competition where Katrina plays her heart out, I never felt like any of the characters were in real danger. 

It might also be because violence is glossed over or threated with a passing shrug and nothing else in this story. Katrina is raped by her roommate and it is barely mentioned afterwards. I mean, she was betrayed by someone she trusted, yet again, but we will not dwell into that? Or when Lan’s son casually kills a civilian and then Lan just disintegrates his friends so that they wouldn’t go to the police? There is no aftermath for her for that. Oh, we just killed four people. Oh well, moving on. That felt very callous to me, especially in a story that talks about how music can heal our souls.

The ending is also something I didn’t like about this book. I understand the author’s desire to end the story on a good note, to create a happy ever after ending. Unfortunately, it cheapens Katrina’s sacrifice and self-realization during the violin competition, and also Shizuka’s real sacrifice after it, when she chose to forfeit her soul instead of damning Katrina. Shizuka was bound to Hell. That was the choice and the sacrifice she’d willingly made. It would have made for a heart-breaking, but beautiful ending of the book. One that I would have remembered and praised. Getting her out of that bargain by cope out space aliens was wrong, in my opinion. It sends the message that no matter what horrible things you did in your life, you can always escape punishment if you have the right friends. 

I would also argue that the way this book treated Katrina’s trauma was very “fairy tale” ending as well. She has severe PTSD from all the abuse she’d suffered from her family and those around her. She has self-loathing and self-image issues. Winning one competition and finding her music won’t solve all that. Finding one person who loves and support you helps, but doesn’t eliminate the trauma. Katrina needs serious therapy and years of work and recovery to be whole. Yet that part is completely glossed over. 

So yes, I like all the ideas in this book and a deep dive into violins and music was fascinating. I just didn’t particularly like how they were blended together in this book. 

PS: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance 3) by Naomi Novik

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Stars: 3 out of 5

This book, even though it was a satisfactory conclusion to the trilogy, felt less well structured than the previous two. Also, it dragged. Hence the 3 star rating where the previous two books were solid 5 stars for me. 

I think my biggest problem is that this book spends too much time spinning its wheels. We pick up right after the awful events at the end of book 2. El is safe. El is back home with her mom, but El’s world has crumbled. She is traumatized by the events of the graduation. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She is depressed. So she spends a lot of time mopping around. Granted, that was very true to El’s character, since she tends to overanalyze everything to death and circle around the drain, but it makes for rather boring reading. 

I also felt that the middle part of the book dragged and lost its focus a bit. Yes, we learned some big revelations, especially about the correlation between mawmouths and enclave creation, but it felt like we were retreading the same ground again and again after the attack on London. The whole middle part could easily have been condensed and made more fast-paced and exciting without loosing any of the impactful reveals and character development. This is the first time in this series that I was tempted to skip forward and just skim through the pages. 

I loved the confrontation at the gates of the Scholomance. It really felt like this was the culmination of all the threads so carefully set up in the previous books. This was the culmination of Orion’s story. Of the mawmouths and the enclaves, and of the Scholomance itself. I think it would have been a better book if the author had decided to end it right there and then. Unfortunately, she didn’t…

I understand that she wanted to leave her character for a happy-ish ending, but it felt rather forced and shoehorned into what was a rather bleak story at times. I liked how Orion’s arc was resolved at the gates of Scholomance. I would have been happy with him being bound to the school, because that’s what El and all of the wizards had asked of him and the school itself – stay and protect our children. The fact that suddenly he can travel freely everywhere he wants and still has his ability to “eat” mals even though El killed the mawmouth inside him… it feels like a cheep copout. It cheapens the sacrifices and hard decisions both had to make during the battle of Scholomance. 

I also wasn’t completely happy with the solution they found for the enclaves. It’s not sustainable in the long run. After all, El is not immortal. One day she will be gone and there will be nobody there to kill the mawmouths. And yes, people will always choose the path of least resistance if they can. Building Golden Enclaves is harder than normal ones and requires more mana investments from the builders. So give it a generation, and wizards will revert to building modern enclaves again. 

In order to get rid of that practice, there needs to be a huge shift in how people think. Unfortunately, I don’t think the ending of this book laid a good enough foundation for that. So this is a hollow victory, because nothing has really changed. Which is a little disappointing.

It was still a good read though. All in all, I liked El’s growth and emotional journey and the fact that she finally found a modicum of peace.