While impatiently waiting for the newest Kate Daniels book to come off hold at the library, I remembered that Ilona Andrews doesn’t have just one urban fantasy series, and that The Edge series in particular was recommended to me. So, I dove in.
Goodreads summary: “Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, between the world of the Broken (where people drive cars, shop at Wal-Mart, and magic is a fairy tale) and the Weird (where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny). Only Edgers like Rose can easily travel from one world to the next, but they never truly belong in either.
Rose thought if she practiced her magic, she could build a better life for herself. But things didn’t turn out how she planned, and now she works a minimum wage, off the books job in the Broken just to survive. Then Declan Camarine, a blueblood noble straight out of the deepest part of the Weird, comes into her life, determined to have her (and her power).
But when a terrible danger invades the Edge from the Weird, a flood of creatures hungry for magic, Declan and Rose must work together to destroy them—or they’ll devour the Edge and everyone in it.”
Just as in the Kate Daniels series, Andrews’ worldbuilding is imaginative, thorough, and exciting. Though parallel universes aren’t really a new concept to fantasy, I was intrigued by the particular detail of the Edge — that middle ground that absorbs and dilutes the magic from the fully supernatural world, but whose residents are poor, anarchic, and looked down upon by magic-users from the Weird, as well as by Muggle-types (sorry, the lingo just sticks) that are in the know about the non-magic world.
Rose was a very likeable heroine, and Declan was a kind of humorous smartass that is a weakness of mine, particularly in this genre. To his credit, he learns a lot from Rose and softens some of his innate prejudices from being not only a citizen of the Weird, but nobility there as well. They worked together very well as a team, and the development of the mystery unfolded at a great pace and kept me engrossed throughout; I took very few pauses reading the book. Since each of the Edge books are standalones within the series, I will probably space them out a bit and save them for myself as treats as my patience permits — but I’m looking forward to all of them!
