Reviews by Vanessa

In FIREBRAND (EBR Review) we met the Sithe brothers Seth and Conal. They were exiled beyond the Veil to the world where full-mortals live, as part of a promise to their queen that they would find the bloodstone. By the time BLOODSTONE (Amazon) begins, four hundred years have passed, and Leonna, Conal’s mother, is coming to the conclusion that they will never find what they’re looking for, that it doesn’t exist.
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Noon Onyx is a waning magic user–the same magic used to control the demons who won Armageddon. Her magic is not what’s extraordinary, it’s that she’s a woman with an ability that manifests only in men. In the series’ first book, DARK LIGHT OF DAY (Amazon), Noon had to come to grips with her ability and be trained so she wouldn’t be a danger to herself and others.
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Atticus and Granuille are in trouble. Of course. But the stakes are higher than usual. The Norse god of mischief, Loki, is on the loose and needs to kill Atticus before he can start the Apocalypse. At the same time our favorite Druids are being tracked by the goddesses of the hunt themselves–Artemis and Diana–in retaliation for giving Dionysus grief in TRAPPED (Amazon). The only safe place for them is in the world of the Tuatha De Danann, but the only way they can get there is to find a gateway on English soil, and they must run fast across Europe if they want to live.
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It’s Risa Jones’ fault that the first key to the portal of hell was found and used, and why dark energies are beginning to leach into the world. OK, maybe it’s not all her fault, but she’s convinced that none of it would have happened without her interference. Or her existence.
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You were first introduced to Isabella Camherst in A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS (EBR Review) in what Steve called a fantasy version of Downton Abby… kinda. I would also like to point lovers of Novik’s Temeraire series, and even those who enjoy Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody series, to this exciting new world Marie Brennan has created.
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DJ Jaco, the sentinel for New Orleans, has proven her mettle. In ROYAL STREET (EBR Review), Hurricane Katrina changed boundaries with the Beyond, flooding the area with preternaturals, her mentor disappearing in the chaos. In RIVER ROAD (EBR Review) she solves a wizard’s murder and settles a mer feud. Now in ELYSIAN FIELDS by Suzanne Johnson (Amazon), it appears that one of the historic undead has emerged from the Beyond to continue what he started in 1918… as a serial killer.
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Thousands of years in the future humans have created an inter-planetary empire, and they’ve done it by using powerful starships to take over human and alien planets. While the starship officers are human, the crew is comprised of ancillaries, people who resisted empire annexation of their home planets, taken into custody and stored for future use. An ancillary’s mind and identity is wiped when they’re hooked into the ship’s central AI–in essence, an ancillary is the ship.
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Luna Masterson can see demons. Unfortunately most other folks can’t, so she’s concerned that everyone thinks she’s crazy. Like her brother, Seth, who is patiently skeptical. She lives with him and her one-year-old niece so she can help out after his wife abandons them. Luna does her best to not shake things up so she can be there for her family.
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One hundred years ago Telsharu was imprisoned after a failed attempt to kill the emperor. Telsharu still lives, and in the opening pages of THE TALE OF TELSHARU (Amazon), he secures his escape from prison in order to finish the quest he began all those years ago.
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James and his wife Linda are scientists at the famous biotech company GeneFirm, where they’ve engineered a gene therapy that will eradicate cancer as we know it. But the world’s population may not get the chance to enjoy a cancer-free future when a deadly supervirus outbreak becomes a world-wide pandemic.
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