Hounded

And then there are the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. Wow. Harry Dresden done young and Irish and sexy. In Arizona. With a goofy name. Loved it all!

Seriously, I very much enjoyed Hounded, the first of the Iron Druid books. Atticus O'Sullivan is a compelling hero (and kind of a babe). The author's take on the Druid religion and its relationship to the earth was original and interesting. The first book in a series can be a little tricky to plot because you have to do so much world-building, but this one moves right along. And there's a really cool dog, who gets all the best lines. If I have a quibble, it might be that it stretched my imagination a bit when the third (or fourth?) really hot goddess threw herself at Our Hero, but maybe I was just a wee bit jealous. I would definitely recommend this book, and will be checking out the sequel from the library asap.

Last night I read Candace Proctor's Midnight Confessions. Ms. Proctor is also C.S. Harris, and I reviewed her book Where Shadows Dance a couple weeks ago. Midnight Confessions is billed as a romance, but it's also a mystery, and I just love Ms. Proctor's style. She's so smart, and it always feels like she gets the historical details right. I can easily recommend her work no matter what name she's writing under.

Where Shadows Dance

Where Shadows Dance by C. S. Harris is the 6th in a series of mysteries set in Regency England. Her website describes the main character, Sebastian St. Cyr, as a cross between Mr. Darcy and James Bond. I'll buy that. Sebastian is young, smart, and rich enough to stand by his own principles. Ms. Harris is a smart lady and Sebastian is an intriguing character, which makes these books a lot of fun to read.

The thing I've been thinking most about since reading Shadows Dance is how Ms. Harris has kept the series interesting through six (or seven, since she's got the next one nearly done) books. Each book has its mystery, but there are story lines that evolve across books that make the whole series richer. I've read series that get tired after this many books, but I don't think that's the case here. Shadows Dance was more romantic that the earlier books in the series, and while that smoothed out some of the more interesting character kinks that I'd gotten used to, it made for a satisfying resolution of one particular story line. While they exist in a very different world, these books remind me of Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series, both in the quality of the writing and the author's knowledge of time and place.

Discovery of the week was Right Hand Magic by Nancy A. Collins. This book was published in 2010 and is says right on the cover "First in a new series". Sign me up. I loved the scope of Ms. Collins' imagination. The main character, Tate, is a trust fund baby from New York who wants to be taken seriously as an artist so she moves to Golgotham when she finds a place with cheap rent. Golgotham is the New York neighborhood where magic is the main currency. There are interesting ideas at work here about race and class and finding your place in the world, and if the plot is a little predictable, I was willing to forgive because it was so much fun reading a fresh take on the urban occult genre.

Speak Daggers To Her

So the theme for the week is witches. I've been taking a fabulous workshop titled Witchcraft for the Paranormal Author and run by Deborah Blake (www.deborahblakehps.com), and one of the first lessons gave us a bunch of different books with witch characters. As a result, I ended up with a bunch of witchy books on my hold list at the library.

The first one to come in was Speak Daggers To Her by Rosemary Edghill. It's a murder mystery published in '95. I thought the plot was just okay but the characterizations were very good, and the author's understanding of the occult/pagan/Wiccan community(ies) was incredibly nuanced. She got the politics right, or at least made a very convincing case for how people who call themselves witches operate in the real world. This is the first of three Bast mysteries (named after the main character), and I have one more from the library in the T.B.R. stack.

The other book I read this week that also had a witch as a main character was The Native Star by M.K. Hobson. This did not come off the workshop list, but is a book I picked up on our Portland/Powell's sojourn last month. It's set in a Steampunk alternative Wild West, and the main characters are a witch and a warlock. I thought the mystery was fairly compelling the plot moved along, but the romance was a little light for my tastes (Wow! They kissed! Twice!) and the whole thing was undercut by a final chapter where two of the minor characters sit down over tea and have a conversation that implies that the main characters are little cogs in a much bigger machine. Okay, I get that you want to set it up for a sequel, but don't disparage the satisfying conclusion you just reached. I guess if fate plops the sequel in my lap, I'll read it, but I don't know that I'll go out looking for it.

The Radleys

(SPOILER ALERT)

So I skipped a week, because I was traumatized by the newest Charlaine Harris book, Dead Reckoning. I LOVE Ms Charlaine, I LOVE Sookie Stackhouse, and I LOVE the first seven or eight books in the series. This one is book 11. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it exactly, but I did think that Ms Charlaine might be watching a bit too much True Blood. I liked Eric better when he was a flirtatious asshole. Now he's just an asshole. And I did hate the scene where Alcide turned up in Sookie's bed. I simply didn't believe that the character Ms Charlaine created in the earlier books would do that. Sorry. It also bugged me that never once did a shifter shift into their animal form, and never once did a vampire bite anyone. The fairies got a little busy, but other than that it was the most normal paranormal fiction that I could imagine. It wasn't a bad book, but I didn't love it.

I did, however, love The Radleys by Matt Haig. In this book a family of four, parents married 17 years with two teenage kids, have something cataclysmic happen. The book explores how they each deal with it, how they are changed by it, and how they come to grips with their new reality. It's a delicate character study, with a truth that resonated for me. I found the wife, Helen, especially heartbreaking as she and her husband cope with the distance that's grown between them. Oh, and they're all vampires. 'Nuff said. It's a quick read, a fun read, a must-read.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

So my first thought when I finished Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride was, "Oh, what a sweet book." Which was an interesting reaction, because the Big Bad character is SO evil. He's so powerful and sadistic that there were parts that I found hard to read. Now, anyone who likes Anita Blake as much as I do must have a stomach for twisted stuff, but the main characters were young, in their late teens, and that made it harder for me. In the end, though, the likability factor outweighed my squeamishness. The title kills me and the main character's voice is fresh and clear and entertaining. The dialogue is hilarious and I loved that it was set in my own neighborhood in northeast Seattle. I didn't expect that. I chose the book because it was recommended by one of the employees at Powells and had it on hold at the libarary forever, but now I'm going to buy a copy so my kids can read it if they want to.

Mercy Burns.....or the night my life was saved by Keri Arthur and St. James

Any time you gather a group of humans, politics will break out. Last week was an especially bad example of that. There was an implosion of sorts at St. Rhododendron's, where my daughter goes to school. At the same time, a set of circumstances evolved at Holy Holy Holy Church, where I'm part of the music program. It was no one's fault, but my feelings got hurt. The two situations were completely unrelated, but together it was enough to make me question some fundamental things, like, do I really believe in God? Remember that last week was Holy Week, which for a church choir geek like me meant that I was scheduled to spend quite a bit of time singing my praises to Him (or Her). Problem.

I was committed to singing at St James Cathedral for the Good Friday service, but before that I had to go to St. Rhododendron's for the live-action Stations of the Cross, because my daughter was going to be one of the crowd mocking Jesus and she wanted me there to see it. I really didn't want to go sit there and pretend I wasn't pissed off at half the people in the pews. I made it, though, and the 7th graders did a nice job of the Stations. Afterwards we ran down to the QFC to get some sushi for lunch (no meat on Good Friday, right?). While we were there, I cruised the paperback shelf and found a new one by Keri Arthur. It was called Mercy Burns, and it's a one-off romance that doesn't look like it's part of any of her series.

I like Keri Arthur a lot, having read almost all of the books in her Riley Jensen series. She's from Melbourne, Australia, which makes her books feel a little different. She creates entertaining characters, her plots move right along, and the Australian background is a lot of fun. Mercy Burns is set in San Francisco, which to me was its only weakness. It felt like she'd gone to California for a vacation, knew enough to get the place names right, but didn't have an adequate feel for the place to make it real. The rest of the book was good, though. The characters were clever and the plot was well-constructed. And honestly, reading a romance on Good Friday afternoon might not work for everyone, but it helped me re-set my internal state so that when I got to St James for the evening service, I was in a much better frame of mind than I otherwise would have been. Sitting in the Cathedral, among a huge crowd of believers, with the early evening light drifting down through the oculus, it took about three minutes for me to figure out that, in fact, I do believe in God. His imperfect human followers, not so much. I walked out of there feeling healed, and that energy carried me through the rest of the weekend. It might not have been everyone's path to peace, but it worked for me.

Blessedly, the day after Easter, the family and I made a road trip to Portland. With kids in different school systems, their vacations rarely line up, so it was a short trip and meant one kid missed school while the other was on Spring Break. Our hotel was two blocks from Powell's Books - okay, that was a deliberate choice - and I thought I showed admirable restraint in only bringing home nine books. Could have been worse. While we were there I read The Witch's Daughter by Paula Brackston. It's a historical occult fantasy, and while those elements are usually a win for me, it took me a while to get into this book. In fact, I almost gave up somewhere between pages 48 and 50. She also broke my cardinal rule in killing off characters that I cared about, but the deaths were entirely necessary for the plot and done in such a way as to minimize the drama, so I could handle it. In fact, those events were what drew me deeper into the story and kept me reading.

She tells the story of Elizabeth in flashbacks. Elizabeth is a witch who has spent 400 years dodging the evil warlock who made her. The author had a good command of each period in history that the story visited and she also integrated Wiccan lore throughout the story. I was actually less sold on the Wiccan elements than the historical details; they felt learned and taught rather than an organic part of the story. Overall, though, it was a good read, and I'm glad I stuck with it.

The big win for the week was the first of my Powell's pick-ups. I started reading it in our hotel room, read it all afternoon after getting back from Portland, read it at the bar in a (very!) fancy east-side restaurant while waiting for my friend to meet me for dinner, then stayed up till 2am to finish it. The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook just plain rocked the socks off me. It's a steampunk fantasy with really interesting things to say about genetic engineering and a woman's place in society. Oh, and a really compelling romance. It was one of those books that I started re-reading as soon as I was done with the last page. I re-read the last chapter, then opened it about 3/4 of the way from the end and re-read 10 or 15 pages, then said Screw It and started again from the beginning. I could pick apart the plot a little, if you made me, but overall the world she creates is so absorbing, the characters are so fascinating, and the ideas she's playing with are so intriguing that any little quibbles fade away. There's already a line forming to borrow it....

Bloodsucking Fiends

I read for entertainment. Just wanted to make that clear, in case you were still uncertain about my motivation. If I want spiritual enlightenment, I'll go to church. If I want heartrending drama, I'll go to work. Books are the place I go to have fun, to laugh, to get turned on, you know, to go on little mini-vacations that are cheap and don't require packing.

All of that is to justify why I read about vampires. Nothing makes me happier than finding a good vampire book by an author that's new to me. This week I came across one of those finds. The book is Bloodsucking Fiends, and the author is Christopher Moore. Mr. Moore has written a number of books about vampires and other demons. He has a sort of wry, 'in on the joke' voice that reminded me of A. Lee Martinez. I don't remember much about the story; a San Francisco office worker and "serial monogamist" runs across an ancient vamp who deals with boredom by randomly turning people into vampires then watching his fledglings flounder until he kills them. The action centers on her survival and her love life. It also involves turkey bowling. How can you not love a book that has turkey bowling? I liked this book a lot and would definitely look for other books by this author.

Then, for some twisted vampire action, I re-read Narcissus in Chains, an Anita Blake novel by Laurell K. Hamilton. Oh Anita, you have so far to go. 'Nuff said.

I ventured into cozy-ville with Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart. I was in junior high when I first read Ms. Stewart. I loved The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills and in my mind they're still the definitive versions of the Arthurian myth. I haven't really kept up with her since then, however. Rose Cottage reads like it was written a long time ago, though in fact the publication date was 1997. It's set in England in the year immediately following WWII. I could more-or-less figure out the plot early on, but the period detail made the book a fascinating read. It was worth the night I spent on it.