Tag: Books

Taking the Night mixes the mafia and magic and comes up with an adventure in the underworld, both criminal and magical. Selia Lascari is the daughter and employee of a well-heeled mafia boss. And she has a secret. But it’s not the kind of secret you might expect. Selia is highly trained in a number of ancient fighting techniques, and she controls magic. One evening on an errand, which she presumes is for her father and boss, she walks into a trap set by a rejected suitor. Between what she hopes is a subtle use of her magic, and New Campania’s mysterious vigilante crime stopper, the Sandman, Selia escapes the trap, but now faces a more deadly foe from her past as well as family members who will kill her for associating with the Sandman, their sworn enemy.

Other Rhodes is a far-future, deep space noir detective story and another fun genre mash-up from Sarah A. Hoyt. Our heroine, Lily, finds a cyborg in her airlock when she expected her husband. Now she has no option except to team up with the completely illegal creation to locate her missing husband. Additionally, with no other allies, she has to trust that her husband’s long-time friend is also her friend and will give her the help she needs. The book combines elements of classic noir detective stories (Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe) within a space-faring and high-tech universe.

This week’s book review is Alma T.C. Boykin’s Knowingly Familiar. It is Book 16 in the Familiar Tales series. And, until this week, was the latest in that series of stories about the magical community in Riverton. I like to think that the Riverton of the familiars is the Riverton my grandparents lived in and I visited frequently as a small child. The weather and some of the town features are similar…hmmm….but, back to the book.

This week’s book review is not an urban fantasy selection. It’s Bruce Dickinson’s autobiography, What Does This Button Do? Like many people, I have an eclectic range of interests when it comes to reading. Well, let’s be honest, I’ll pick up pretty much anything if it looks interesting. On a three-week backpacking trip through Europe after college I read five or six Jason Bourne novels…in a row. I discovered how formulaic they were, but they kept me engaged until the next hostel or pension. Hostels had (or may still, I don’t know) libraries that functioned as sort of pick up/drop off points for books (this was waaaaaay before phones and tablets or e-readers. Way before). Pick up a book in London, read it, drop it off at hostel in Edinburgh or Paris or Nice or wherever, and pick up another one. I read a lot of things in terms of genre and authors that I might not have otherwise. It was definitely a way to broaden my already wide reading horizons. All that is to explain why I read and write urban fantasy but end up reviewing a book by and about the lead singer of Iron Maiden.

The weekly book reviews continue! This week I’m reviewing Fiona Grey’s debut book, Paladin’s Sword, the first in the Professor Porter series. We are introduced to Dr. June Porter, newly minted PhD in folklore and military history, on her way to her first full-time position at Paladin University in New Hampshire. In addition to her new PhD, June is also in possession of magic which, unlike the PhD, she would like to put behind her. But the universe is a fickle thing, and it has other plans for her.