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 Twelve-year-old Kat Stephenson is looking for adventure. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be) she doesn’t have to look far, as she’s just discovered that she and her two older sisters may have inherited their mother’s talent for magic. While Kat is clearly a guardian, as she discovers very early on in the book, her sister Angeline has inherited her mother’s witch magic. Combined, the sisters represent a threat and a lure to many magic users in their version of Regency England. When Kat’s eldest sister Elissa is determined to sacrifice herself to ensure her family’s happiness, Kat decides that drastic action is required.
I don’t have all that much to say about this book – I remember reading quite a bit about Kat, Incorrigible when it came out in the US, so when the UK version I’m reviewing here appeared on Kindle for a small amount of money, I decided to read it for myself. I got exactly what I expected – a light, fun Regency story about a young girl with magic. I liked Kat’s relationships with her sisters and her antics were fantastic to read about.
I also liked that it wasn’t just Kat who made for an interesting character. I think her second oldest sister, Angeline, also had a story of her own, as did Elissa, and their stories would have fallen a bit more into my interest range, as they both had a fair bit of romance involved. With the focus on Kat, the book is more appropriate for younger readers, and does mean that the author can have fun with her main character while still hinting at some of the internal feelings of her older, more mature sisters.
A Most Improper Magick was a fun read that I’d recommend to younger fantasy readers who would appreciate a bit of history in with their magic. I’d have loved it when I was 12, and I think many pre-teens and teenagers would feel exactly the same.
 Bobby Dollar – or the Angel Doloriel – helps guide souls to Heaven once they’ve passed on. It’s his job as an advocate to battle the minions of Hell in a courtroom for each soul’s afterlife, fighting to save as many souls as possible, even when they have to spend some time in Purgatory first. But when a soul disappears, right underneath his nose, without ever having appeared to himself or Hell’s advocate, and then keeps happening, normality is uprooted and both sides are in crisis. Dollar feels compelled to investigate, but as he gets closer to the truth, he finds himself accused of theft, chased by an ancient monster, and madly in lust with Hell’s most attractive demon.
Compared to Tad Williams’ epic fantasies, this book is a speedy, exciting read, a cross between a thriller and a detective novel with a whole lot of fantasy mixed in. The concepts behind the novel are actually quite epic in themselves; we get a full description of his version of Heaven and Hell, and Bobby frequently tries to describe what Heaven’s like (since he is an angel). He might be in an improvised courtroom, but he does in fact help determine the eternal fate of people, which is not a small-town job in the slightest.
As an angel, Bobby is naturally somewhat tougher than a normal human, even though he wears a human body; he can still be killed, but usually angels reincarnate in new bodies. He’s done it before, but it’s never a guarantee, which means he is relatively careful and does try not to get too badly beaten up in the pursuit of answers. It’s really common in practically all urban fantasy novels for the main character to not sleep and suffer severe injuries that would probably kill another character, so this little caveat is very handy.
I didn’t love this book as much as I’d hoped, unfortunately; compared to the pace of a normal urban fantasy, I actually found parts of it moved slowly, and there was a lot of description as the world was built. Bobby is a good character, with a snarky attitude, but I wasn’t really drawn into his feelings towards Casimira, the demon, or his attitude towards women in general. I felt as though the book had a huge amount of potential, but never really swept me up and carried me away as a good book should. I’m hoping that subsequent books in the series stop with so much description and make me feel more attached to the characters in general. It’s been known to happen and I certainly hope it happens here.
The Dirty Streets of Heaven would be a good choice for a reader who already enjoys Tad Williams’ work and is looking for something a little less like a doorstopper, but it’s not quite up there with some of the other fantastic urban fantasy series. It could be, but he’s not quite there yet.
All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
 Andrea Nash is broken. Still traumatized in some ways by her childhood as a beastkin, kicked out of the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, and seemingly single after losing the love of her life, Andrea has no direction. She finds herself sleeping in cupboards, avoiding her friends, and hiding from her true nature. She’s trying to put her life together, in part by running a new investigative firm called Cutting Edge with her best friend, Kate Daniels. One of the first cases that she needs to handle is an investigation at a dig site run by that former lover, Raphael, the alpha of Clan Bouda. Several shapeshifters have lost their lives and it’s Andrea’s job to find the killer, setting her feelings aside for the good of the Pack and all of Atlanta.
This excellent expansion of the Kate Daniels universe is expertly well crafted, giving us a new main character who is distinctly (thankfully) different in voice from Kate and a real character in her own right. Andrea is clever and interesting but hurting constantly, and parts of this book definitely had my emotions in tangles. Her real problem is her nature as beastkin; her father was a hyena first, which means she’s considered a target by much of the shapeshifting world, as she can’t shift properly. Instead, she becomes a hybrid human and hyena, more beautiful and natural in appearance than a normal shapeshifter’s “warrior” form, but discriminated against because of her father’s beast-like nature. Her inability to accept who she is due to this discrimination has led to many of the problems she’s facing and a big part of the book is her acceptance of who she really is and just why she should be loved.
As usual with the rest of this series, the novel is action-packed. I loved the way that Andrea and Raphael interacted; I have always been a fan of them as a couple, but this novel in my opinion took that to new heights. Raphael’s quest to win Andrea back, knowing that she harbored feelings for him, was fantastic. One of my favorite moments was when he carved “MINE” into her kitchen table, a perfect summation of shapeshifter feelings and courtship. If she hadn’t loved him, this might well have been creepy, but in the book it works perfectly, as does Andrea’s retaliation.
Overall, I didn’t find that Gunmetal Magic ever really reached the heights that the books featuring Kate do, mainly because it didn’t quite give me that feel of desperately saving the world that Kate’s books usually manage, but I sincerely hope that there are more featuring Andrea. This could be the start of a fantastic spin-off series.
Also included in this volume is the novella Magic Gifts, which does feature Kate, and lines up with the story in the first part of Gunmetal Magic. Some reviews have advised to read this first; I didn’t read those reviews, so I read this one second. I did think it would probably have been better first, because those parts would have been fresher in my mind, but I certainly wasn’t complaining. I missed this story when it was posted on the Ilona Andrews website (I have since become a devoted follower) and I was very happy to get it, and a little bit of Kate, at the same time. It helps that this story is a good one and brings Kate and all of her gathered crew together to save a little boy from a choking magic necklace.
All I have left to say, really, is when is the next book coming out again? I’ll be first in line to buy it.
All external book links are affiliate links. I bought this book.
 Chess Putnam is a ghost hunter, a member of the Church of Real Truth aiming to save humanity from the risen dead. Her job is to investigate hauntings and banish the ghosts that arise, reimbursing citizens for their genuinely reported spooks. But Chess isn’t all good; she’s seriously addicted to drugs and in debt to a dangerous drug lord, Bump. When Bump needs her help with a very dangerous job, Chess has no choice and must oblige him, but with corruption in the church and an alarming attraction to Bump’s lead enforcer and a rival gang leader, she’s in for trouble.
I’ve never managed to say no to more urban fantasy, and when I stumbled upon this book half price at the Strand in New York City back in April, I really couldn’t resist buying it. At first I found it more difficult to get on with, but the origins of a new fantasy world are always daunting. There are new rules of magic to learn, characters to get acquainted with, and bad guys to worry about. Once I was 100 or so pages in, I started to get invested in the story and, as usual, really enjoyed my latest foray into a more city-focused world of magic.
This book is definitely set in the underworld, despite Chess’s job as an ostensible protector of the public. I was really surprised by the fact that she has a drug addiction and that she is severely torn between two different men. Love triangles are fairly typical in books like this, but the fact that she’s attracted to and goes relatively far with both men was a surprise for me. I’m used to the tamer conflict in the October Daye series as an example, where there are competing love interests but the feelings are somehow subtler. With Chess’s drug addiction on top of this, I was surprised I liked her at all, since she’s a person so completely different from me; but I really, seriously did, and I wanted the best for her. I also managed to have a favorite of her two love interests, of course, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out in subsequent books.
I also liked the historical component of the ghosts and the reason behind the haunting that she investigates for Bump; there is a lot of mystery going on here, although I did manage to guess the culprit of one of the mysteries well before Chess managed to figure it out. By the end of the book, I became very swept up in her story and completely sympathetic to her, and I immediately wanted book 2 (and 3, and 4) of the series so I could continue. I’ve read reviews and I know it gets even better, so I’m definitely looking forward to delving even deeper into this world.
Recommended for urban fantasy enthusiasts, Unholy Ghosts is a dark yet enthralling read that will immediately leave you craving more.
All external book links are affiliate links. I purchased this book.
 In Gujaareh, it is the Gatherers’ job to shelter innocent civilians and lead them to a peaceful death once their time has come. Their tithes allow the city to run smoothly and peacefully, while the remains of their dreams are given to the sick who deserve healing and longer lives. Gatherer Ehiru has Gathered souls under the Dreaming Moon for most of his life when he slips and makes his first mistake. Already doubting himself, Ehiru soon finds himself in an even deeper conspiracy, as a woman he was sent to kill instead reveals damaging truths about his world. Now Ehiru must protect Sunandi in order to prevent the war which threatens all he’s spent his life working towards.
N.K. Jemisin’s debut, the Inheritance Trilogy, was a fantastic set of books that explored concepts of godhood in serious depth. Once again, with The Killing Moon, Jemisin has written an engaging book that looks closely at religion, and what the differences between religions are, in a setting reminiscent of ancient Egypt. Her book is centred on two city-states, Gujaareh and Kisua. Ehiru and his apprentice Nijiri are Gatherers from Gujaareh, while Kisuan Sunandi is fundamentally opposed to them due to her inherent and insistent hatred of their religious practices, a hatred and disgust shared by her people. Yet this trio finds common ground as they try to prevent their homes from flying headlong into war.
Because Jemisin always aims to do something a little bit different (she explains in an interview in the back of my edition why she eschews more typical medieval based fantasy tropes), her books come with a little bit of a learning curve. She likes to throw her readers right into her books, which means there is some learning to be done about the world and culture. Even though this is based on Egypt, it didn’t really *feel* to me like ancient Egypt. It certainly didn’t feel typical, but nothing about it was shouting “Egypt” – instead, it felt like a new fantasy world, and one which intrigued me as I settled deeper into the book.
What I always like about Jemisin’s books are the relationships between characters and how well they work. All of them feel very natural; Nijiri’s love for Ehiru, for example, is something that would bother many people in our culture, as a young man in love with one who is much older, but it is something here that is viewed as completely natural. And I liked the way they both interacted with Sunandi, and she with them, as they all struggle to get over their prejudice and accept each other as human beings.
Jemisin delivers another wonderful epic fantasy with The Killing Moon. I’m now looking forward to reading The Shadowed Sun and finishing this duology!
I received this book for free for review from Amazon Vine.
 These are my thoughts up to the fifth book of this series. It does continue to a currently available sixth and soon to be released seventh book, but the first five fill a natural plot arch, and seemed a good time to jot down my thoughts on the series. I have reviewed the first book, Spider’s Bite, in with some other mini reviews.
All the books focus on Gin Blanco, who begins the series as The Spider, so named for the silverstone runes that were embedded in her flesh during an attack on her family when she was just thirteen years old. The attack destroyed her family home, orphaned her, and landed her in the street, where she was saved by Fletcher Lane, the man who turned her into the assassin that she is. We learn that the culprit, incredibly powerful Fire Elemental Mab Monroe, is the leader of the gang that effectively runs Gin’s town of Ashland, and that Mab would certainly kill Gin if she connected her with her real identity, Genevieve Snow. Throughout, Gin has to deal with a number of lesser criminals, love affairs, and the complications inherent in most urban fantasy series.
I’ve had a lot of fun with this series, and around the third book, became so addicted that I had to acquire the next two immediately in order to keep going. I’ve read most of it within the space of a couple of months, and have become attached to the characters and very curious about what’s going to happen next. I’m reasonably satisfied with the conclusion of this particular plot arc, but I’m also intending to follow it through to the actual conclusion.
One of the highlights of the series, for me, is Gin’s intense relationships with the people she cares about. She didn’t really need her shell to break down for her to care about people, as she’s been connected closely with Fletcher and Finnegan Lane, Fletcher’s son, since before the book’s beginning. But as the series progresses, we really get to know all of these characters, and to an extent understand why Gin feels the way she does. Her family is full of many different types of people, but all of those are interesting, from Jo-Jo and Sophia, the dwarf sisters, to the flirtatious Finnegan.
 The book also has a number of detailed descriptions of food; Gin is a cook and a baker, and she’ll often prepare a dessert for her friends while discussing some important plot point. This will make you hungry and longing for the various things she’s cooking, whether it’s steak-cut fries (one of her favourites) or some sort of chocolate brownie and ice cream. I did enjoy these and wish I was eating what she was talking about as soon as she started.
One of the big negatives of the series for me, though, is the repetition. The same things are described in every single book at the beginning. Mab is always the Fire Elemental. I learned how Gin got those silverstone runes in her hands, and about the silverstone knives she carries secreted in various places around her body, multiple times per book, I think. I’m not sure if the author assumes we have an impossibly tiny attention span or is simply trying to get new readers into the groove, especially with the plot summaries at the beginnings of each book, but for someone addicted enough to read them right after each other, I will admit that this did get annoying. Gin also has a habit of describing her boyfriends and saying “Mmm” at the end, like she was eyeing a tasty dessert, which put me off as well.
Regardless, this is a series I’ve enjoyed greatly, and would certainly recommend to someone looking for another light urban fantasy read. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to continuing Gin’s adventures.
 Verity Price is a cryptozoologist and a competitive ballroom dancer. Living in a world full of cryptids, or species that aren’t humans or animals as we know them, it’s her job discover those which aren’t harmful and the protect them against the Covenant, a group whose aim is to eliminate as many of them as possible. Her family, the Prices, were formerly members of the Covenant, and as such any Covenant member is not likely to view her favourably. When one of them invades on her territory in New York City, she immediately feels threatened, and launches into action to protect her city and the cryptids from any potential threat. But, as always, it’s not the handsome by-the-book Covenanter who threatens New York; it’s a much greater danger that could place both of them at risk.
A new urban fantasy series by Seanan McGuire? Wild bears couldn’t keep me away. She’s authored one of my two favourites, the October Daye series, and has also written the Newflesh trilogy (my review of Feed) under the name of Mira Grant. I completely trust her talent at this point and I simply can’t resist the prospect of more of her writing. I immediately bought this book on release day, and savoured it once I’d read it. Here once again, McGuire proves her talents by creating a book that is fun, different, and very much worth your time.
Like most urban fantasy series, a kickass heroine lies at the heart of this book in Verity Price. She’s not exactly your average kickass heroine though; her hobby is ballroom dancing, and she competes professionally alongside her job at a waitress at “Fish and Strips”. Her family is absolutely laugh-out-loud ridiculous, trained as they all are to combat standards; as an example, her grandfather disappeared years ago, and her grandma still trawls alternate dimensions with grenades trying to find him. The funniest part for me, though, has to be the Aeslin mice, a sentient breed of mouse that lives with the Price family and concoct festivals for every mundane event that happens in Verity’s life. It did at times feel that McGuire was intent on fitting every humorous line she’d come up with into the book, and not all of them resonate perfectly, but for the most part, I was far too busy laughing to mind.
As the first novel in a series, the world has to be set up, but the way this is done is overall so creative that I barely noticed. There is no learning curve; the book is simply fun and enjoyable from cover to cover. I loved the fact that Verity actually had a family who loved her; that she did something completely different and feminine alongside her fighting skills; and that the romance was subtle and woven into the overall context of the story, rather than the other way around.
Sure, Discount Armageddon is still a little bit shallow in parts, especially regarding the love interest, but I felt like this was a fantastic start to something that is yet again that much different from McGuire. Definitely recommended, and I will most certainly keep reading anything Ms McGuire writes.
 Everything bad that’s happened in Briony Larkin’s life is all her fault, for one simple fact; she is a witch. It is she who burned down the library, who caused illness in her family, who must then protect her sister Rose from all harm. As such, she is no longer going to the swamp, where she might ask the fae to do harm for her by accident, and instead stays close by the parsonage to protect her sister and keep to the right path. But when a young man, Eldric, comes to live with them, and worms his way into her family, Briony’s life and assumptions are turned upside down.
I loved this book. I read several excellent reviews from a number of other trusted bloggers, enough to make me buy it, but I didn’t actually understand how much I’d love it until I began reading it. Billingsley uses one of my very favourite devices, the unreliable narrator whose worldview changes radically as he or she realises some important truths, and combines that with a delightful mix of fantasy, romance, and elegant writing to make a truly outstanding novel.
The book starts out slightly confusing. Briony is a narrator that lives very much inside her own head, and as a result the story is told fractiously; it takes a while for us to work out exactly what she is talking about, why she feels threatened by Eldric and his family, and about Rose’s peculiar behaviour. But once hooked, I couldn’t stop reading, and devoured the entire book in a single evening. I loved the atmosphere, which was very much like England a hundred years ago and with more magic. The swamp reminded me of the way the fens were in Lady of the Butterflies by Fiona Mountain, although the books themselves are wildly different; a magical and mysterious place that no longer exists in the modern world, long past drained to produce more land for houses, farms, and monetary gain in general.
It was the relationships and how they grew that really affected me, though; I absolutely adored Eldric and the way he bonded with each of the characters, especially Briony and Rose. He really causes her to question all of the assumptions she’s built up over the years. Backing him up is Rose, who seems to understand more about everything that’s happened despite her own peculiarities. I loved how Eldric and Briony so clearly made one another happy, too, and the completely organic way their relationship grew over the course of the narrative. It’s completely in contrast to the other young male character, Cecil, who attempts to bully Briony into marrying him.
In fact, just talking about Chime makes me want to read it again, which for me is a sure sign of an incredible read. It immediately secured its place on my new “to be re-read” shelves, and as such I completely recommend you make space for it on yours, too.
 One for the Money, Janet Evanovich
My mom recently started reading this series on the recommendation of some of her friends, and when I was visiting she lent me this one to give the series a try. Not wanting to disappoint, I did so, and I could pretty easily see why this has become so popular.
Stephanie Plum is a young woman who has got herself into a tough spot. She needs money to pay her rent and bills in her apartment in Trenton, New Jersey, and soon, so when her family tells her that her cousin has a job up for grabs, she goes for it. That job is for a bounty hunter, but the inexperienced Stephanie, lured by the promise of $10,000, decides to go after the most dangerous criminal of them all. He is a man with whom she has a past, and a man she’d very much like to get revenge on.
For me, this had a very typical mystery feel to it – if it had had magic, it could have been the start to an urban fantasy series, which usually starts out with some sort of mystery at the core. It was certainly fun, albeit a bit gory at times, a book I didn’t mind reading and sped through very quickly. My favourite parts were probably Stephanie’s interaction with her oddball family; I think I can see where the series is going with the two potential love interests, too.
I am not really dying to read the second book, but I wouldn’t turn it away if my mom put it in my hands again, either. Like most series, I suspect it gets better as you go along and get more acquainted with the characters and the history of the books, but it’s down to preference; I prefer the variety of mystery that involves either fantasy or history.
 Web of Lies, Jennifer Estep
Having read and enjoyed the first in this series, I figured I might as well buy the second and keep on going. Urban fantasy is definitely becoming my stress relief reading; whenever I’m not sure what I want to read, one of them jumps out at me with the promise of ever-more-epic storylines, consistently developing characters, and usually a fair bit of romance, too. In short – all of my favourite things, and this series isn’t an exception to the rule. In fact, I found the second one improved on the first as I fell deeper into Gin’s world.
Ostensibly retired from her job as an assassin, Gin Blanco has settled into running her murdered benefactor’s restaurant, the Pork Pit. But trouble won’t leave her alone, and it walks into her restaurant in the shape of two people; Jake McAllister, who attempts to rob her, and Violet Fox, who knows that benefactor and who is in danger. Gin’s own personal lust interest, Donovan Caine, is back, but thrown into the mix is another potential partner this time, as the stakes for Gin are as high as ever.
I liked this book a lot; it was a fast and easy read and I found myself liking Gin a lot better than I did in the first book. I liked that she was a devil-may-care contented assassin before, but I think her heart is coming out a lot here, and she needs to figure out how to operate without Fletcher around at the same time. Probably the only part that I didn’t like was Donovan Caine, the cop who simply won’t let his morals go enough to be with Gin. He doesn’t even seem that interested in knowing her – there is plenty of lust between them, but for him, he’s not curious about her and simply shuts off when he realises she’s going to kill someone else. I much preferred Owen Grayson, the new guy, and I’m looking forward to seeing where that goes next.
 Adoulla Makhslood is the last real ghul hunter in the city of Dhamsawaat. All he wants is to retire, but protecting the city is a job that one cannot retire from. The threat is worse than ever, and Adoulla and his partner Raseed, a god-fearing young warrior, have their hands full. These two ghul hunters, plus a young girl who has lost her Bedouin-like tribe and has the ability to turn into a lion, and Adoulla’s friends, are soon swept up with preventing a devious plot to take the throne from its rightful heir.
I’m going to admit something completely, 100% shallow; I became interested in Saladin Ahmed because of his name. The Saladin who fought against the crusaders in the Middle Ages has long been one of the people in history who fascinates me, and so this author’s name stuck in my head far easier than others had been able to. I listened to a couple of his stories which were available for free online, enjoyed them, and pre-ordered this book. As you may be expecting, I was rewarded.
Far from the typical pseudo-European fantasies (which I’m not disparaging, as I love them very much), this one is set in the middle of a desert, in a pseudo-Middle East, although still at the same time period as most fantasies. This makes the book feel very distinctive immediately; and so does the fact that the main hero is over 60, approaching retirement, but still spry and brave, determined to fight. He is balanced out nicely by his younger partner, Raseed, who is so religious that it stifles his emotional life. Together, they make a formidable team, but potentially not formidable enough for the enemy they face.
Despite the very short length of the book for a fantasy novel, each character is distinctive and well-drawn, and reading about them and their world is a pleasure. The plot is not particularly complex but it does draw the reader in, as it is certainly life-threatening and suspenseful for the characters, and they are the stars of the show here. Raseed wrestling with his religion and his desires, Zamia’s quest to avenge her tribe, Adoulla’s longing for a rest and for the love of his life, and almost all of the characters’ love for their city and homeland – this is what makes the novel a worthy read.
An adventure fantasy novel that seems to delight in turning some of the conventions of the genre on their heads, Throne of the Crescent Moon is a worthwhile read, and Saladin Ahmed is an author to watch for a lot more than his name.
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