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).

This volume follows immediately on the heels of the previous one, and the same storylines dominate. Sasha’s mother was born on Earth, in the 20th century, but she went through the World Gate to live on Sartorias-deles (a pre-industrial world with magic) and marry a prince; they had Sasha, and then civil unrest started. Sasha’s father disappeared, and Sasha and her mother went to hide on Earth. At the beginning of the previous volume, they go back to Sartorias-deles (specifically a country called Khanerenth) unwillingly; from there they are thrown back into the mess of politics and have to try to unravel what’s going on.

Yet again, we have Sasha’s mother, Atanial (or Sun), who kicks more butt than anyone else in the story. She even manages to kick butt while having hot flashes. Her ’60s idealism comes in very handy when she needs to organize a large group of people; she even compares it to a 1968 peace march. She’s definitely my favorite character, although that’s a little bit unfair to Sasha herself (who also kicks a severe amount of butt). Atanial has a backbone of steel, along with an amazing amount of loyalty to and belief in causes and people. She never waivers. I would absolutely love to grow up to be her, although I think I’d have to grow about nine inches taller and become a blonde for that to happen.

As I mentioned before, Sasha’s pretty awesome herself. In addition to all the butt-kicking and sword-fighting, she has a great sense of humor. I think at some point in the book she uses the phrase ‘teh bomb’, which was amusing to see in print. Yes, it’s a very current phrase, but twenty years from now, it’ll be understood as Earth slang. It doesn’t quite matter what phrase she used, because the humor was a language barrier one, not a different-time one (someone using 2000s slang in the Victorian era, for example — it’ll all look like old slang in 2100). She also wins over a number of friends in proper fashion: by not holding herself above them. At two points (one in this book and one in the previous), she even uses her old skills as a server.

Overall, this is a very satisfying ending to the story, although perhaps not quite as appealing as the first half. There’s a lot more strategy and warfare; for a large section of the book, Sasha is effectively derailed and not moving forward. There are many more romantic moments in this volume, though, and a lot more drive towards the finish. I’d definitely recommend reading both halves at once; in essence, reuniting them as one book. I’m still sort of amazed that I managed to wait an entire month between volumes. It’s definitely recommended for other fans of Ms. Smith’s works, as well as those looking for an easy entry into her multi-series world, or those who just like pirate stories with strong heroines. 4/5 stars.

Apparently Tobias Druitt is the pseudonym of Diane Purkiss and Michael Dowling; they’re mother and son. She’s an Oxford tutor (professor-type); he’s thirteen (probably fifteen by now) and supposedly a Child Genius. They have published a trilogy (of the which this is the first book) and are working on a next book that involves Tarot cards. This volume was released in 2005; the following volumes came out in 2006 and 2007. Diane Purkiss apparently enjoys baking bread, and Michael Dowling’s favorite colors are dark red and black, because they’re macabre.

Corydon is, so he thinks, a normal shepherd boy, but he has one goat leg, and his city threw him out as a scapegoat because of this. He gets captured by pirates shortly after that — pirates who are putting together a freak show full of monsters. There end up being about ten monsters on the island, including Medusa, the sphinx, and Lady Nagaina (who has five heads). Eventually Corydon helps them escape, but the leader of the pirates finds Perseus and convinces him that there’s a good reason to go kill all the monsters. Thus begins a war. At the same time, Corydon is trying to figure out who he is, since he’d never really considered it very much before then. Why does he have a goat-leg, and why do so many people feel that he’s the prophesied one?

The book is told in omniscient third person, mostly focusing on Corydon and Perseus. The Corydon parts are bittersweet and mostly without humor, but the Perseus parts are strongly steeped in irony and sarcasm. I enjoyed it, although there were occasional burst-the-fourth-wall moments of anachronism. As amusing as they were, occasionally they’d throw me out of the story. Generally speaking, they used them well, though. On the other hand, the vocabulary was a little odd. The authors would use various Greek terms (pharmakos, haima) for various concepts (scapegoat, blood), but then they’d use the word ‘freak’ in a context as a twentieth or twenty-first-century person would. I understand the word isn’t exactly new, but sometimes their phrasing would slide into what I read as slang.

Medusa is probably the best character in the book. Corydon is fairly obviously just the Hero; as far as that goes, he’s basically wallpaper paste. I didn’t really have any good reason to like or dislike him. Medusa, on the other hand, grew a lot as a character; she had motivation other than just to save the world, and hers was a very conflicted character. Not every single thing she did was actually good, despite the fact that it might have looked ‘bad’ at some point (unlike Corydon). There were other characters I enjoyed, including Kharmindes and the other two Gorgons; they were all more complicated and more personable than Corydon.

All that having been said, it was an enjoyable, straightforward romp; there were parts of it that might have philosophical underpinnings (the nature of monsters and the idea of scapegoats). I can’t say the book particularly made me think, but just as a story, it was fun. There was, however, a significant amount of death and even some sex that was merely mentioned (completely euphemistically) but integral to the plot. That, plus its short length and fairly young protagonist (although I have no idea how old he actually was; his relationship with Medusa was ambiguous) would suggest that it might be a middle-readers book, but I’d recommend it more towards the top of that age range or to YAs. It was interesting, though, to see the Greek gods and heroes as the bad guys. 4/5 stars.

Cat Midhir is a best-selling fantasy writer; she lives an extreme of the writer’s life, though. She has very few friends and rarely leaves her apartments. However, her fantasy works are incredible and have gotten her a very large fan base. Her great secret, though, is that her inspiration comes from dreams: very vivid dreams that she feels as if she experiences firsthand. However, recently these dreams have stopped, and she finds herself with a case of writer’s block; she simply cannot write without the dreams. Why has she stopped having these dreams? And why is she getting dark dreams, dreams that contain a shadowy dark stalker?

Cat is one of Mr. de Lint’s earlier waifish female heroines; she’s an only-child writer who lives alone and rarely goes out. I think the only place I really remember her showing up on a regular basis was a bookstore. She didn’t have an easy childhood (of course, neither do most of his heroines) and so far, other than ridiculous luck with her first three or four books, her adulthood has been solitary, albeit not exactly difficult. It’s got to be rather miserable for her that the point at which she loses her ‘muse’ (so to speak) is right in the middle of a book. From the way that her dreams usually work, it wasn’t terribly likely that she’d ever get that one back again.

Obviously Cat’s writing skills are well-developed, but having been gifted with this nearly magical (well, OK, it is magical) ability to dream truly, she never quite developed her skills to come up with an idea out of her own imagination. I strongly suspect that a good number of writers feel like this at some times: that their ability to come up with story ideas is a ‘gift’, and when they get writer’s block, the ‘gift’ has been taken away. I’m not really qualified to decide whether a talent of story ideas is a ‘gift’ or not, since people use the word ‘gift’ to mean several different things, but in any case, this book is (in many ways) an extended metaphor about writer’s block, or a block in any sort of creativity.

Cat’s other problem, her reclusiveness, is perhaps a little bit of a harder problem to solve — not more difficult per se, but one involving actual mental and emotional work on her part, rather than a Big Mythical (External) quest. She meets a man at some point, and a romance develops, but it’s not without its pitfalls and difficulties. She has to learn to trust people, and that’s always difficult. Overall, it’s a shortish book (250ish pages in the trade paperback), especially compared to Moonheart, but that does not make it less worthy as a read, or less de Lint-ish. It’s got mythology, the Otherworld, a petite heroine, and that fine sense of the fantastic that you’ll find in nearly every Charles de Lint novel. 4.5/5 stars.

This screenplay was based on his 1969 novel of the same title. It concerns a man named Joe Chip, who is employed by a man named Glen Runciter. Runciter’s corporation uses people with peculiar psionic talents that mostly block the invasive talents as a security system for big companies. For example, the people from Runciter’s company can block telepaths from stealing company secrets. Joe works the machines to make sure that the employees of the company are actually accomplishing something. However, something awful happens, and there’s an explosion. Glen Runciter dies, and then Joe’s world starts falling apart — literally. The cigarettes are all stale; the cream is rancid and moldy; parts are falling off of things. Then the objects start regressing — cars turn into older versions; televisions turn into radios. What on earth is going on? And what is this Ubik product?

I spent the first three-quarters of this screenplay feeling really stupid, like I’d completely missed something. Fortunately, I hadn’t really; the characters also spent the first three-quarters of the book not knowing anything and trying desperately to figure it out. I thought maybe I was also having trouble since it’s a screenplay, and perhaps details that might make it easier for me were left out in adaptation, but most likely not. It’s a 180-page screenplay; just a bit too long, if I’m not mistaken, which might explain why it hasn’t been made. I would say it hasn’t been made into a movie due to its bleak outlook on life, but Blade Runner wasn’t exactly puppies and sunshine either.

One thing that’s always amused me is how wrong people predicting the near future have been. The book was written in 1969; it’s set in 1992. Well, sorry, Mr. Dick: in 1992, we didn’t have psionic corporations. Appliances are mostly chrome these days, but we don’t have to use loose change to use any of them. We also haven’t colonized the moon. America still exists as a country; we haven’t been taken over by Wal-Mart quite yet. I guess I could excuse this by saying that he’s predicting an alternate 1992; one where psionic powers exist. I should also let him off easy, as he’s been deceased since a few months before I was born. However, I remember when I watched Blade Runner a few months back and said, “Wow. Why did no one predict the cell phone properly?”

I don’t know that I actually liked any of the characters. There were two major women in the novel: one was extremely evil, and the other was nearly an angel. I couldn’t exactly identify with either of them. The males ranged from Joe, who was deeply flawed, extremely human, and not altogether pleasant, to Glen Runciter, who was almost all-powerful and actually functioned a lot more as a hero in the novel than Joe did, for me. There were a few other characters who came across as too stupid to live (and in some cases they didn’t). I don’t think I ever really want to re-enter this world that they live in, a world of death put off by a weird half-life frozen procedure.

There’s a lot of symbolism in the book, and the biggest symbol is Ubik, itself, whatever it is. I won’t go into what it actually is, since it sort of gives away significant parts of the novel. There are other symbols, of course, and some of them are not exactly subtle. However, there’s a deeper theme in the book, and I have to admit I couldn’t actually articulate what the main idea was until I read the afterword (by Tad Williams). I’d recommend it to hardcore PK Dick fans; I haven’t read the novel, so I can’t compare it, but it’s definitely more concise and, from what the foreword says, has a good deal of nice additions. They include more descriptions of some of the characters and his idea for the soundtrack (it’s primarily Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. Again, bleak, but definitely thought-provoking, and I know the Sub Press edition will be beautiful. 4.5/5 stars.

Prince Orasmyn is the son of the Shah of Persia; he is symbolically a religious leader as well. He has chosen to help with a ritual sacrifice, and when, at the last minute, they discover that the animal has a scar, he decides it’s okay. It’s not okay, though; it’s against the rules of Islam, and a spirit (a djinn in Arabic, but a pari in Farsi) rebukes him for harming the poor animal (who had already been harmed) and turns him into a lion. He will not be returned to human form until he can find a human woman who loves him. How will he ever make that happen? He cannot speak — he’s a beast!

This is, quite obviously, a retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.” Apparently in Charles Lamb’s version of the story, he gives the Beast a name — Prince Orasmyn — and states that he is from Persia. Those two elements gave Prof. Napoli the basis of her story; the rest of it is a tight third-person view of Orasmyn’s life, and travels, prior to meeting Belle. She doesn’t actually show up until the last 75 pages of the book. In many ways, the book isn’t so much about Beauty as, of course, it is about the Beast. It’s a little bit different; the story as we mostly know it is primarily about Belle, and while this Belle shares many traits with all other Belles (she likes books, she’s practical, she fulfills her role in the story), she’s a degree removed.

An important element of the story is actually religion. It is messing with the strictures of the religion that gets Orasmyn in trouble in the first place, but he is incredibly religious throughout the book. He fasts for the first few scenes in the story; he worries about eating blood in animal form. He actually still does all his required daily prayers, even as a lion. The abasement looks a bit strange in that form, but he still does it (although he cannot actually speak out loud). Belle is French and Catholic, and while this is in contrast to the Beast’s Muslim prayers, they both confirm to the other that there is only one God, although they have slightly different ways of worshipping Him.

I enjoyed this one a great deal more than The Great God Pan. It was slightly longer, and in so many ways seemed less pretentious and more realistic. Orasmyn-the-lion has to kill nearly every day; he eats on stage a lot. He even mates with a lioness, although it is described rather vaguely. The language was slightly poetic, but it wasn’t irksomely so. The best part, I thought, was the last 75 pages with Belle, but before that was a good deal of characterization-building as he learned to live as a lion. There was precious little humor in this book (only a fox kit that was a tragic figure anyway), but it didn’t drag me down by the end. I’d actually recommend reading this one to YAs and adults; there’s enough interest in the story to hold almost everyone, as long as one isn’t too biased against first-person, present tense. 4/5 stars.

I honestly thought I hadn’t read this book before; it was still in my head as ‘a book I need to read’, so when I found an inexpensive paperback copy, I grabbed it PDQ. Then, of course, I read the first twenty pages and thought, “This sounds awfully familiar.” I guess I did read it, or at least the first part of it, at one point a few years ago, but luckily I didn’t remember every single part of it. Edith Pattou is American; an Ohioan, to be precise (like me!); she has written two other YA books and one picture book. I don’t see that the third book in the YA trilogy ever got published, which is unfortunate.

(Ebba) Rose is the last of eight children; her mother is superstitious about birth direction, so all eight children were born facing different points on the compass rose. Rose, however, was not the east-born child they told her she was; she was actually a north-born, but her mother does not want to believe it because of a prophecy. The prophecy said that a north-born child of hers would die covered in ice and snow after a long journey. When Rose was old enough to make her own decisions, the family had a good deal of misfortune. Their (rented) farm was sold out from under them; an older daughter, Sara, became ill as well. However, a white bear (polar bear) comes and says that if Rose comes to live with him, their troubles will be ended. Rose’s mother is certain this will lead to her death, but the bear promises her safety. So Rose goes. Will she be safe? And why does the bear want her to live with him?

The story is told from the point of view of Rose, her father, her next-older brother Neddy, the white bear, and the Troll Queen. Chapters are fairly short, in most cases (Rose’s are the longest) and there are a lot of them; in the paperback version, it’s nearly 500 pages. Because of the many chapters, though, it’s a quick read. The many changes in point of view are not jarring, actually; it isn’t so much because the characters are that similar, but mostly because after the first 50 pages or so, they start fitting together like pieces in a puzzle, or facets of a gem (or some other hackneyed cliche). It’s a fairy tale retelling: the story “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”, which I didn’t hear as a child and had never read as an adult. It’s apparently a Scandinavian tale, specifically Norwegian. The story is set in Norway, and, as we find out in the afterword, in a specific time: the sixteenth century.

Rose is spunky, of course, but mostly just very determined. Her extraordinary skill is weaving; she practices so much that she weaves incredibly quickly and incredibly well. I don’t know enough about weaving to know if what she does is possible, but it doesn’t seem to matter. This is a fairy tale retelling, after all. Her siblings are mostly flat, but Neddy is not. He starts out trying to write poetry as an adolescent and eventually grows into being a steady, intellectual young man. He gets a job, towards the end, with a scholar, working on a history of Njord and Danemark, in a monastery, and it suits him perfectly. The other characters I really enjoyed included a young troll named Tuki, Rose’s parents, and the white bear himself.

It’s a book strangely grounded in reality, for all that it is a fairy tale. Rose gets cold. She needs a good deal of supplies to make it on her trip. A ship captain, later on, is only decent at captaining when he’s sober (which he rarely is). Rose and her family are very practical, of course, being farming types; while in the castle with the white bear, Rose ends up washing her own clothing, to stay grounded. I mean, there’s still an ice bridge and trolls and a talking white bear, of course. However, the story balances itself very well. Overall, I’d recommend it to fairy-tale-retelling fans, as well as people who enjoy Scandinavian-derived fantasy, and overall solid works of YA literature. 4.5/5 stars.

This novel is set in a country called Ischia; they believe in ten or so gods, nine above and one below. The capital is set right near a volcano; there’s a gem, the titular fire’s stone, that keeps the volcano (with a lot of magic) from erupting and ruining the entire city. Darvish is a prince of that city; Aaron is a thief who broke into the royal palace to steal a giant emerald; Chandra is the princess of an adjoining realm that was sent over to marry Darvish at some point in the near future. Unfortunately, then the Stone gets stolen, and while those three people aren’t very fond of each other — Darvish is a drunk, Chandra is very young and arrogant, and Aaron is traumatized and suicidal — they’re chosen (or choose themselves) to go find it.

A good deal of this book, although a lot is sublimated, is the formation of an odd threesome — and I mean that in the romantic sense. Darvish will sleep with anything that moves, and he is supposed to marry Chandra, but Chandra doesn’t particularly want anything but the political aspect of a marriage. Aaron comes from a culture wherein homosexuality is absolutely verboten, but due to a spell he’s expected to spend a long period of time within about ten feet of Darvish. Since they’re both wounded souls and very needy, it sounds like a recipe for fireworks, after one fashion or another. Aaron’s backstory is the stuff of an opera; he ran away, and he had been Clan Heir prior to that. But there was a forbidden love flogged to death in there, and he’s still hurting for it. Chandra and Darvish are both the normal generally-ignored children of aristocracy/royalty; Chandra, being an academic and intellectual (a wizard), didn’t care, but Darvish started acting out.

In any case, though, it’s not a romance novel; it’s an adventure story. There’s a timer on their entire adventure; if they don’t get the stone back by a certain time, the volcano will explode and take out the entire city and more. There are boats, foreign countries, disguises, magic — lots of magic, actually — and peacocks. Generally speaking, the adventure part of the story is primary, but there’s an awful lot of interpersonal and intrapersonal drama driving the story along. I first read this story quite a few years ago, and what I remember, primarily, is the personal conflicts.

It’s definitely an interesting novel. I liked the religious structure; each of the nine gods represents some aspect of reality (justice, etc.) and the priests choose one god to serve, in both the positive and negative aspects. I also liked a good deal of the minor characters; there’s an old woman in the first few pages of the book who is colorful, and several servants, sailors, and random people our three main characters run into that all add to the story like bits of ceramic or glass in a mosaic. Ms. Huff also does a very good job of balancing the heavy emotions of Aaron’s and Darvish’s healing with Darvish’s one-liners and Aaron’s occasional self-deprecating humor; Chandra also makes sarcastic remarks, both in her head and out loud. Overall, it’s still a bit heavy, emotionally; I wouldn’t precisely recommend it for humorous, light reading, but it’s worth it, if you need a catharsis. 4/5 stars.

Miss Artemisia Faith (or Fitz-Willoughby Weatherhouse) is a student in a girls’ school in an alternate England, around the turn of the nineteenth century. She was not terribly miserable there, until one day when she hits her head and it jogs all her memories loose: memories of her mother, Molly Faith, called Piratica — the greatest female pirate of her day. Now, of course, she’s miserable in a place that makes her powder over the streak in her hair; that makes her walk around with a book on her head in a dress when she should be taking over her mother’s position (Molly passed away, which was how she got stuck in that school). She escapes pretty easily, and now her goal is to get the band (the pirate troupe) back together.

This book is terribly funny. Nothing is quite as it seems, from beginning to end. There are heartfelt moments, and even a few moments of real danger, but when it comes down to it, the book is borderline farcical. I loved that aspect of it; it seemed more like a fanciful tale (a tall tale?), and changed the tone to one where it didn’t matter that Art was borderline unrealistic, and Felix was intentionally an enigma. Actually, it wasn’t so much that those things didn’t matter; it turned them into a feature. The background cast of characters was as colorful as one would expect in a story with this much humor in it, and added to the tone. Even the ending was very amusing and yet satisfying, as both a comedy and an Epic Tale.

I loved Art. First, she insisted on being called ‘Art’ rather than ‘Artemisia’, which reveals that she is Spunky and Not At All Fussy; however, those are both great qualities in a pirate captain. Second, I mentioned above that she was borderline unrealistic: she really is. She has an incredible amount of skill with weapons, despite never having handled them (or at least not for six years between ten and sixteen). She already knows how to sail a boat, because she did when she was a kid. She has chestnut-brown hair, with a streak of marigold orange in it. Her only flaw, as far as I can tell, is stubbornness and a lack of patience. Of course, those are ‘flaws’ that are often regarded as virtues: perseverance and no tolerance for fools, in their kinder forms. I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a Mary Sue — she’s not an avatar for the author, I feel certain — but she is a sort of legendary, epic Hero, rather than a human being.

Amusing pirate books aren’t exactly rare, but this one had such a lovely, satirical (yet warm-hearted) tone that it’s been my favorite of them so far. Sorry, Jacky Faber, but I’m generally not a big fan of first-person narratives, and the action in Piratica was just enough over-the-top that it was utterly delightful. I don’t think I’ve read that many dead-serious pirate books, either, but this one had a level of humor that really entertained me more than I was expecting, going into it. I can’t remember if I’ve ever read any other humor by Tanith Lee, but I’d be very interested in reading more. Fortunately, there’s two more in this series alone, although book III only seems to be available in the UK. (If someone wants to send it to me, I’d be thrilled.) 4/5 stars.

Tony’s been promoted to trainee assistant director on Darkest Night, the low-ish budget vampire detective show he’s been working on for nearly a year. (Oh, come on; that’s not a real spoiler.) Unfortunately, since they didn’t replace his old position, that doesn’t mean much. In any case, a stuntwoman named Leah comes in to fall off a building for them, and he sees something weird behind her head — a silhouette of a very large man with antlers. What’s going on? And why is Lee (the ridiculously attractive costar) acting so strangely?

I think perhaps this is the weakest of the three books, as it sort of recycles the idea of demons that Ms. Huff has used before. However, we definitely get a new and interesting view of demons, from the immortal human Demongate, to the method of sending them back to the hell they came from. It’s as if she took the demon from Blood Price and expanded the whole idea so much that it was almost made anew. Of course, readers who haven’t read the ‘Blood’ books won’t notice this so much, but I did.

Leah’s definitely an interesting character. While she’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie, it seems as if she’s mostly a stuntwoman for the money (and the fact that she can’t so much die while doing it). She’s also nearly irresistible to anyone male and attracted to women; fortunately, that doesn’t include Tony, but it does include Henry. There’s a bit of a conflict there; Henry, being a vampire, can also do the immediately-irresistible thing. She vaguely reminds me of Georgina from Richelle Mead’s Succubus Blues, mostly in personality and minor lack of morals.

Tony finally comes fully into his own in this one; I won’t exactly go into how, but among other things, it has to do with his independence from Henry (or, sometimes, lack thereof). There’s also a lovely resolution of all the sexual tension that has been going on for the last few volumes; it made me ridiculously happy. Readers who have enjoyed the first two volumes will definitely want to read this one, to tie up all the loose ends; it doesn’t stand alone at all, but I suppose that’s just fine for a book 3. 3.5/5 stars.