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 Rachel Morgan lives in a world populated by vampires, witches, werewolves, pixies, demons, and fairies. Forty years ago the supernatural creatures were exposed after a genetically engineered virus, hiding in an innocent tomato, killed half the world’s population of humans. Now they exist in an often uneasy truce. Rachel, a witch, is a runner with the Inderland Runner Services, policing supernatural crime throughout Cincinnati. Unfortunately, the calibre of Rachel’s assignments has vastly decreased recently, and she is fed up. She decides to break her contract with the I.S. and start her own runner agency, scoffing at the rumors of consequences. That’s until she discovers that she has been marked for death and she must find a way to save herself before it’s too late.
In case you haven’t noticed by the reviews which are popping up around here, the end of my dissertation was accompanied by some serious light reading. Urban fantasy is an awesome variant, and this book in particular was a pleasant surprise.
First of all, it’s fairly long and it has an excellent plot, at least I thought so. Once Rachel quits the I.S., it gets going and I really wanted to find out what would happen next. Since she’s in constant danger of her life, she’s often on the run and dealing with difficult situations. She only makes things worse for herself later on by entangling herself in another dangerous plot. It’s a little zany, but it works!
Rachel herself is a character I liked almost immediately. She’s stubborn and doesn’t back down, even when she should, but I felt her reasoning was good and her fears were very human. The secondary characters were also fairly well-rounded. Ivy is a dangerous vampire but with a strangely compassionate side. We never really figure out why she’s so interested in Rachel and determined to back her up, but that must be a story for one of the next installments. Jenks the pixie is a hilarious sidekick and adds just that much more to the book. The third character, who pops up around the middle, is also a welcome addition to this series.
It was also refreshing to find that there isn’t much romance in this installment. I can feel it coming, but I’m getting a little tired of romance at the moment and I’m looking for something else in my fantasy. This book fit the bill perfectly.
If you like urban fantasy, Dead Witch Walking would be a great addition to your library. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
 This is book two in The Hunger Games trilogy.
I’m going to follow everyone else’s lead and totally skip plot summary for Catching Fire. This is a thoughts post more than a review. I don’t want to give anything away, so we’ll just say that Katniss is back home but her troubles are greater than ever. She has a lot more riding on this than just her own survival. I had no idea where this book was going and I was thrilled about that. It’s another heartstopping, breathtaking ride. And no, the prose isn’t great, and to be honest the beginning is a little slow, but when I hit the middle nothing else really mattered. I had to know what happened. The book went in a direction I hadn’t even imagined, which makes it all a much better experience. Of course, the cliffhanger is just as intense as I’d expected. I normally hate cliffhangers, but there was no way I was missing out on this. I was sure I was going to be spoiled and I wasn’t, so I’m grateful for that. At least I knew the cliffhanger was coming and I’m glad that Suzanne Collins is hard at work on number three. I must know what happens!
While I’m here, I’ll go ahead and declare I’m on
I’m not sure I’d have even realized there was a Team Gale if not for twitter! I can see the case for him, but I’ve always had a thing for adoring beta males.
I’d totally recommend this series. It isn’t great literature but it is an incredible, suspenseful story. Well worth reading.
 After the Civil War is over, John Bell Hood, defeated Confederate general, moves to New Orleans seeking a future. The war has irreparably scarred him, changing not only his view on life but his very body; he’s missing a leg and the use of one arm. In New Orleans he meets a woman to love, Anna Marie Hennen, has almost a dozen children, and finds himself enmeshed in a society and a history that is not his own, which he finds he must pull apart in order to properly understand, until the yellow fever takes everything.
Civil war fiction is always a tough sell with me and I have no idea why. Fleetingly, I hoped Robert Hicks could buck the trend, as a few notable authors had done before, but unfortunately this book did not strike a chord with me. Strange, because it focuses on a fascinating historical figure and his transformation from an arrogant man into a humanitarian one. New Orleans itself is fascinating and I found myself looking up its history as I went along (only on wikipedia, but still!). I really enjoyed the characters’ forays into the forests and the conflicts between the Creoles and the Americans, not to mention the depiction of changing attitudes towards race. A Separate Country has plenty of interesting hot button topics to consider, even more as the novel moves towards a conclusion.
The book is told through a trio of important characters. The first is Eli Griffin, an iceman, who would never have been in New Orleans or anywhere near General Hood if not for his family’s fate in the war. Eli has been entrusted with Hood’s book, a memoir, ensuring that it makes publication. Fulfilling Hood’s dying requests makes up his part of the book; other sections are told from Hood’s perspective from the war to his death and the rest of the chapters are from Anna Marie’s viewpoint, written to her daughter Lydia as she is on her deathbed. These are not spoilers, we gather this information in the first few pages of the novel.
I think overall the problem for me with the book is that none of these characters were particularly compelling. I find it difficult to sympathize with this Confederate general. His arrogance and blindness at times is overwhelming and even his moves towards a more likeable personality didn’t quite pull off redeeming him in my eyes. The worst, though, was Anna Marie, who admits that she is shallow, finds her children a burden after the first one, and inadvertently causes misery for almost all of her friends. Normally I like when characters are made more human due to their flaws, but to be honest, these had me driven up the wall.
I do think there is a good book here. It just is not a book for me.
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