Reviews :: Book Genre :: Urban Fantasy :: Page 6

Gideon is the Incarnation of War. Yes, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. One day he was in Army Ranger training, doing a routine parachute jump… only, the impossible happens. Neither his chute nor his back up deploy like they’re supposed to and Gideon hits the ground, dies, and is miraculously resuscitated. But that’s not the only inexplicable event to happen. Despite severe injuries, he’s back on his feet a week later, a new cuff on his arm seems to be part of his body, and then demons show up at his sister’s college party.

Daryn, a strange girl who convinces him that the demons are after him, gets him to safety and explains what’s going on. Some renegade demons want a key to a realm where they can escape Hell and set up their own purgatory. One such key was nefariously stolen and now the four horsemen–or at least four teenage boys who can currently wield their powers–are summoned to protect the key until it can be returned to its rightful angelic owner.

Phew. Did you catch all that? In RIDERS we are taken on a wild ride–and not just because Gideon is afraid of his crazy war horse.
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Faith has a secret. Years ago she was forced into an impossible choice: use her powers to kill or hand them over to her husband to use. Rather than kill those she thought innocent, she fought against her husband and accidentally killed him. It’s more complicated than that, however.

You see, Atlantis existed, and there were survivors, and they all had one of three kinds of magic: Seer, Channeler, and Warrior. But the survivors blame each other for its demise and are convinced that killing each other off is the only way to ensure future survival. Faith is a channeler, with the rare ability to manipulate stone, and now everyone wants her to use the three Atlantian stones of power to wipe out their enemies.

Darius is a seer, gifted with empathic abilities. His family has one of the stones of power and need Faith to use her magic and heal it of the impurities it’s collected over the years. After a run-in with people who want to force her to help them, Faith decides to accept Darius’ offer of safety and money so she can get back on her feet.
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This book immediately caught my attention when I first saw it. The bright colors and dark, almost rorschach-testness of the images were immediately arresting, and the summary on the inside cover did even more to get me excited about reading this one. The impression as a whole was one of weird stuff in the modern world, which falls into the category of Urban Fantasy, although I don’t know if it really fits into that subgenre wholesale. Regardless, this book like any other had a job to do when it landed in front of me:

1. Catch my eye
2. Get me to open the cover and read
3. Catch my interest with its premise
4. Start me reading Chapter 1

And it absolutely succeeded on all those levels. If I had been a regular schmoe, bumming around the book store, looking for the next good read, this book would have had some serious mojo for me to try and ignore for it to not end up in my hand when I got back into my car. But past that point, what is it’s job? And how did this one stack up where it really matters: inside the content of the book. Check it out.
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Me to Vanessa: “I can’t wait to find a real gem, a diamond in the rough, some unknown phenom.” Ding, ding, ding! I’ve think I’ve found one in HALF-RESURRECTION BLUES (Amazon), Daniel José Older’s first in a new series of dark urban crime fantasy, Bone Street Rumba. This ghost story diamond has plenty of polish, its facets expertly cut within the dirt and grit of its setting.
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There’s something so incredibly satisfying about reaching the end of a great series. Fourteen books (and a few short stories) of Kitty, Cormac, Ben, et al. We’ve come to know and love these people, their friends, and the work they do for the greater good. And now they have to try to save the world.
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Claire Connolly lives in a New Orleans we wouldn’t recognize. Seven years ago the veil between our world and the world of magic was ripped open. The paranormal waged war on humans, but the humans won and repaired the veil. The paranormals left behind were rounded up and interned in what they call Devil’s Isle, where they aren’t allow to use their magic. Some humans exposed to magic become Sensitives, and if discovered are immediately taken to Devil’s Isle, where the magic eventually burns their minds and they become wraiths.

Claire inadvertently discovers that she’s a Sensitive, but hides her ability, risking not learning to control her ability–she doesn’t want to be sent to Devil’s Isle. Despite being careful, she’s seen using her powers by Liam Quinn, but fortunately he decides to help her. But that’s a risk in itself, because Claire knows little about Liam or his motives.
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Camellia is a high school sophomore who lives with her adopted mother, who happens to be a witch. But witches are only ever wicked, as evidenced by the spell Cam saw the witch perform when Cam was five years old. She still doesn’t like to talk about it.

Growing up with a witch stinks, since their M.O. for child rearing includes really terrible punishments. Like turning fingers into noodles. Or turning the child into a pile of rotten tomatoes for the afternoon. And forcing them to gather weird ingredients such as goats blood, pigs ears, and… eggplant?

But now the witch is planning to take over the town using Phoenix fire, and needs Cam’s help to manage the demon she summoned in order to do it. Cam wants to undermine the witch’s plans AND pass her Algebra test at the same time, but she’s not sure that’s possible.
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DJ’s life is full of the good and the bad. For example: bad–last month she was bitten by a loup-garou; good–she was kept from changing by elf magic; bad–that meant a blood bond with the most annoying elf in existence; good–she was able to keep her friend Jake from getting in trouble. Bad–at the opening of PIRATE’S ALLEY (Amazon) she’s still injured and homeless as a result of the events in ELYSIAN FIELDS (EBR Review). Good–she’s living at her best friend Eugenie’s place, Alex is still her boyfriend, and she’s been able to avoid Rand for the most part.

But DJ knows that any of that can change in a heartbeat. Like when she discovers that Eugenie is pregnant with Rand’s child. But it turns out that’s not all she has to worry about.
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Luci Jenifer Inacio das Neves–Lucifer, for short–isn’t the kind of teenage girl you’d find at any given high school. Beyond the mundane such as her unusual name, living on her own in a dump of an apartment, thieving for a living, and avoiding the authorizes, there’s the fact that she knows about magic while the rest of the human population lives unawares. She makes it clear from the beginning that she doesn’t have magic, but she can use magical items. That’s where the thief part comes in: she steals these magical items from bad people.

It turns out that even though she’s not technically an adult yet, she has insider knowledge of a world few know about. So when a policeman’s daughter, Gina, is kidnapped by a witch in a mirror, only Lucifer knows how to navigate the strange and mystical in order to bring the girl home.
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So we apparently never reviewed this novel. Oops! With the paperback edition of MONSTER HUNTER NEMESIS recently being released, I looked back over our reviews and discovered the absence. So, yeah. Here we are.

If you’ve paid attention to this site, you already know that MONSTER HUNTER NEMESIS (Amazon) was one of EBR’s top novels for 2014. For me personally, NEMESIS is my favorite Monster Hunter novel. Why? Because Agent Franks is the main character.

When Franks was introduced in MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL (EBR Review), he became an immediate favorite of mine, and a huge portion of Larry Correia’s readership. As book by book went by, we got more pieces of info and came to realize Franks wasn’t exactly human. But we still didn’t have all the answers.

Well now we do. And the answers made for one of the most entertaining reads of 2014.
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