I enjoyed Emma Newman’s Split World series quite a bit, so I was excited when I heard that she had a new series started. Brother’s Ruin is the start to the series, and the second book will also come out sometime this year, I’m really excited. I enjoyed Brother’s Ruin a lot, and I look forward to the next one. The book is set smack dab in alternate 1850s England, an alternate world where magic users exist. Unfortunately, the Royal Society of the Esoteric Arts […]
A witch, a vampire and a pixie walk into a bar
Rachel Morgan is an earth witch (which means she uses wooden charms activated with drops of her own blood to do magic, as opposed to layline witches who draw their power from laylines) and works for the IS (Inderland Security), a police force consisting of supernaturals like witches, living vampires, werewolves, fairies and pixies. They police the supernatural crimes, while the FIB (Federal Inderland Bureau) is its mundane, human counterpart. For the last year, Rachel has had a run of truly awful assignments and what […]
And His Name That Sat Upon Him Was Death
I first heard about this book during a podcast interview with Bryan Fuller, the awesome showrunner behind Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, and Dead Like Me (three of my favorite shows). He cited it as an inspiration for the premise of Dead Like Me. This did a pretty good job of selling it, even though I initially thought the idea was a bit derivative of Terry Pratchett’s Mort (although it was actually published 4 years before Mort) and thought it would be entertaining “Discworld Lite.” On a Pale […]
Who Knew Vampires Could be so Boring?
Book seven in the Chicagoland Vampire series is based on this premise: Two rogues vanishing without a trace. Someone is targeting Chicago’s vampires, and anyone could be next. With their house in peril, Merit and her Master, the centuries-old Ethan Sullivan, must race to stop the disappearances. But as they untangle a web of secret alliances and ancient evils, they realize their foe is more familiar, and more powerful, than they could have ever imagined. Once again, there is a villain to hunt down and […]
Circus of Inhumans
Yes, it’s book six in a series. You can probably go out and read the first five books before reading this one, but since this one takes a turn with a new character, Antimony Price, the youngest member of the Price siblings, you might be able to just read it on its own. Antimony is the younger sister, and the aimless one who has not found a vocation or career, and is still living at home with her parents. But that all changes when her […]
“I shield in the name of fashion. I accessorize for one and all. Pursuit of truth is my passion. This I vow by the great parasol.”
I am very late to the Parasol Protectorate party, which Gail Carriger threw from approximately 2009-2012, and celebrated the publication of a 5-book steampunk/urban fantasy series. Now that I have finally read the series, it’s evident that the fanfare is deserved. Carriger has a voice that is unique of her contemporaries, and while I consider all of my very favorite historical romance/fantasy books to have some measure of wit and humor, these books are on another level. If Wodehouse decided to dabble in the territory […]





