I knew very little about Faith Hunter when I started this book, except the fact that her name sounded like one of her characters. (What? She writes post-Apocalyptic fantasy, and her name is Faith Hunter. Legit, I think.) However, her website has informed me that she was born in the bayou and prefers fishing to cooking. She refers to her husband as the Renaissance Man, and apparently there’s even a role-playing game based on her world. Ms. Hunter is also a good friend (writing buddy?) of Kim Harrison, of Dead Witch Walking fame. There are two sequels to this novel.

Thorn St. Croix is a lapidary and jeweler in a post-Apocalyptic world. There are roughly four classes of beings: seraphs (or seraphim, depending on how formal you’re being), who came to the earth a hundred and some-odd years ago and started the Apocalypse; humans, who were pretty much wiped out by the plagues and whatnot; demons/spawn, who feed on human blood and live underground; and mages or neomages, who are (with the exception of Thorn) all licensed, registered, and hidden away in Enclaves where they are called upon occasionally. Thorn herself is a neomage, but she is a refugee from the Enclaves. She’ll die if she stays there. Anyway, Thorn’s very recently ex-husband is kidnapped, and of course she’s a suspect. Can she keep her secret hidden and still help them figure out what’s going on?

The mages (or neomages; the terms seem to be used interchangeably) are actually a separate race from humans, rather than humans who can work magic. They can’t quite breed with humans (they can, but the results are like mules: sterile, and often not quite complete physically); they’re smaller than humans but faster. Unfortunately, either I missed something obvious, something hasn’t been explained yet, or I found a plot hole. Female mages are not fertile unless they’re in the presence of a seraph (or other supernatural being, other than another mage — while mages can breed, a male mage cannot kick-start ovulation in a female) for a certain amount of time. This either means that mages and seraphs have to have evolved together (although mages and seraphs aren’t supposed to breed, they do sometimes, and the result is called a kylen), or that mages who were already on earth were severely changed by the Apocalypse such that this happened in less than a century. If anyone else has read this book as well and can explain what I missed (or something), I’d be happy to know.

I liked Thorn, although I keep calling her ‘Faith’ in my mind. I liked her friends, although it’s sort of expected that a kick-ass fantasy heroine will have a flamingly gay sidekick. (Another question, since the Ex and the Gay Best Friend are brothers: which came first, the friendship or the marriage?) Jacey was more interesting to me, another business partner/friend who makes glass beads. Ciana, her stepdaughter, will undoubtedly play a greater role in coming volumes; she’s only eight, but definitely a well-developed character and integral with a certain point of the plot. There’s also a cop, Thaddeus Bartholomew; I’m sort of annoyed that he calls himself ‘Thadd’ with two Ds, but otherwise he’s an interesting piece of verbal eye candy.

Her world-building, other than perhaps the mage-seraph issue mentioned earlier, was very well-done. The world is experiencing a minor Ice Age; Thorn constantly has to put on more layers of clothing. It’s mentioned a couple times that it’s so cold that people might freeze outside. When there’s an early thaw, the people take a half-day break to celebrate. Another thing I appreciated was the actual amount of humor. Rodney, the Gay Best Friend, had a handful of zingers, and there’s a scene involving chickens that made me laugh to no end. I wasn’t expecting humor, as the book was labeled ‘dark fantasy’, but it was a great addition. I’d recommend this for fans of Rachel Caine, Kelley Armstrong, and Kim Harrison, as long as the fans understand that there aren’t vampires per se. 3.5/5 stars, unless the mage-seraph issue is explained to my satisfaction (in which case she gets her half-star back, to 4/5 stars).