Deadtown - Nancy Holzner

Deadtown
Nancy Holzner
Ace

Urban Fantasy

Lots of parents like to think they’ve got their kid’s life mapped out at birth. For Victory (Vicky) Vaughn, that’s pretty much true. Long before she was born, her father, a Cerdorion – Welsh shape-shifter – received a visit in a dream from Saint Michael and Saint David, in which he learned that he would have a daughter, she would fight demons, and she would be named Victory. Unfortunately, when it came time to name their newborn, mom was woozy on painkillers and dad filled out the paperwork. So, Victory she is.

Like all Paranormals, Vicky – a demon-slaying shape shifter - lives in Deadtown. That’s not a choice; that’s a law. Ever since a mysterious plague hit Boston and created a large zombie population, the norms have been much happier with all the ‘scary stuff’ contained in one part of the city, surrounded by a sort of DMZ. Of course there are those fighting for the rights of Paranormal Americans (PA,) most definitely including Kane, a handsome attorney who works tirelessly to bring the issue before lawmakers and just happens to be a werewolf. And Vicky’s sometime-boyfriend.

The night’s job seemed fairly routine: get rid of a Drude, a demon haunting her client’s dreams. Once the demon is dispatched, something strange blows through the room. No one notices but Vicky. Later events reveal that a Hellion – a demon who causes and feeds on destruction – is somehow loose in the city. Vicky and this Hellion have a personal history. At their last meeting, it marked her, and she’s not quite sure what that means for her.

This is the first novel in a new urban fantasy series, so a bit of time is devoted to introducing the characters and their various histories. This time around, the author chooses to toss readers right into the middle of one of Vicky’s jobs. It’s and exciting and original sequence and sets the stage for the rest of the novel. We meet Vicky, and Tina, the eternal zombie teenager. The way it’s written makes the reader eager to uncover both past and future events. It’s an original take on zombies, both with regard to their creation and their future prospects.

Vampires and werewolves are present, but are handled in a unique way. It makes complete sense in our current society that a large population of paranormals would be lobbying for equal rights, and, sadly, it makes the same amount of sense that there would be those who oppose that. The author does a great job of balancing personal lives and broader issues; action sequences and necessary history; what affects one character and what affects everyone. Vicky is a great new character and I hope we see a lot more of her.

Rating: 8
January 2009
ISBN# 978-0-441-01813-0 (paperback)

Sleeping With Anemones - Kate Collins

Sleeping With Anemone
A Flower Shop Mystery
Kate Collins
Obsidian

Mystery

Keeping a small town economically viable is a balancing act. On the one hand, you need new businesses to set up shop, provide jobs, and pump new money into the local economy. On the other hand, if that new business is very big or corrupt in some way, you’re just asking for trouble. Understandably, opinions are split about Uniworld Food Corporation setting up a huge dairy farm outside of town. It’ll mean a lot of jobs for a lot of people. But, according to others, they inject their cows with growth hormones, affecting the milk and beef.

Abby Knight runs Bloomers, the local flower shop. But she’s decided to take on the fight against this corporation. At a Home and Garden Show, she uses her booth to collect signatures on a petition to keep Uniworld Food Corporation out of town. Free speech and all. Unfortunately for Abby, Uniworld owns the hall in which the show is held. Eventually, they ask her, with varying degrees of politeness, to leave.

After that, Abby is more determined than ever to stop the corporation. But, clearly, there are people working against her. It begins with your average “cease and desist” letters. Which she ignores. Then someone shoves a threatening letter under her shop door. A brick wrapped in burning paper comes sailing through a window. All of this makes Abby angry and ready to keep up the fight. Then, her teenaged niece, Tara, is taken. Possibly due to another case of mistaken identity; possibly for more nefarious reasons. The authorities wonder if perhaps, given Abby’s penchant for getting involved in murder cases, that the kidnapper might have nothing to do with the dairy farm and everything to do with revenge. Either way, Abby won’t let anything happen to her beloved niece.

The author really excels at creating situations that are new and interesting, yet still believable. That’s got to be difficult in a series set in a small town, but she makes it seem effortless. Bringing in a huge conglomerate to a small town is a fairly familiar situation for many people, so readers will be able to relate to the characters’ many and varied reactions. Abby’s reasons for getting involved come about naturally and never seem shoehorned in just for effect. Giving the story a Big Bad Corporation adds to the air of menace and provides a great backdrop.

Longtime readers of the series (EVIL IN CARNATIONS, SHOOTS TO KILL, A ROSE FROM THE DEAD, ACTS OF VIOLETS) will be pleased to see that characters continue to evolve. Abby and her boyfriend Marco have some serious decisions to make while dealing with some rather strong urgings from both families, for example. New readers will have no problems jumping in at this point in the proceedings, since the author manages to weave in pertinent history without interrupting the current plot. SLEEPING WITH ANEMONES may be the best installment of this series yet.

Rating: 7 ½
February 2010

ISBN# 978-0-451-22890-1 (paperback)

Devil May Ride - Wendy Roberts

Howl Deadly - Linda O. Johnston

Howl Deadly
A Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mystery
Linda O. Johnston
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Kendra Ballantyne was once a high-powered, go-go attorney. Now, she’s finding much more happiness balancing her life between her pet-sitting business and a much more laid-back law firm that specializes in animal rights cases. She’s also got a new flame. Dante DeFrancisco is the owner of HotPets, a national chain of pet supply stores. He also funds and operates HotWildAnimals, a wild animal sanctuary in the San Bernardino Mountains of California.

Aside from the lions, tigers, coyotes and other animals housed in the sanctuary, the star resident at the moment is a mother wolf and her three newborn pups. Kendra is understandably thrilled when she gets an opportunity to give a bottle to one of the pups. Unfortunately, the reason for the bottle is that mommy wolf is somehow missing from her enclosure. Everyone, from the director to the most junior of volunteers, realizes that someone would have had to let her out of the pen. Or perhaps someone took her to ransom back, knowing about Dante’s financial status.

While trying to find the missing wolf, Kendra meets Brody Avilla, movie star and a buddy of Dante’s. In fact, the two of them seem to prefer to have discussions without Kendra in the room, and clearly share some kind of past that they’re not willing to talk about with her. Ever resourceful, Kendra checks the history on Dante’s computer after one of these closed-door meetings and finds searches of a prison, the U.S. Treasury Department, and one of the senior caretakers at the sanctuary with the unlikely name of Jon Doe. Before she can make anything of this revelation, she finds Jon in the wolf enclosure. He’s dead, and there’s a bloody knife on the floor beside him. Even in a wildlife sanctuary, Kendra manages to find a murder mystery.

New readers will have no problems jumping into the series (MEOW IS FOR MURDER, THE FRIGHT OF THE IGUANA, DOUBLE DOG DARE, NEVER SAY STY) at this point. The author skillfully sketches in Kendra’s background at the outset. Longtime readers will be interested to see Kendra in a new setting, with a whole new group of suspects. Mystery readers and animal lovers alike will find much to enjoy in this mystery series. The mystery is tightly plotted and a bit of a departure this time around, making the story feel fresh while we follow Kendra, who always has the animals’ best interests at heart.

Rating: 7 ½
December 2009
ISBN# 978-0-425-23159-3 (paperback)

Heart's Blood - Juliet Marillier

Heart’s Blood
Juliet Marillier
Roc

Fantasy

The circumstances of one’s life can change in an instant. When she went to sleep one night, Caitrin was the beloved daughter of a master scribe, learning her father’s trade. When she awoke the next morning, her father was dead. Soon after, distant kinfolk arrived and took over, telling all and sundry that Caitrin was undone by grief. Alone in a house with abusive relatives, Caitrin finally found the courage to leave. Taking only a change of clothing and her writing box, she escaped.

Living on the road was nearly impossible without money. Caitrin soon heard of a job for a scribe at a local chieftain’s home, Whistling Tor. The job would last for some months. While the locals warned her away from the place, telling fantastic tales of a century-old curse and a supernatural host that wander the surrounding forest, to Caitrin it seemed the perfect situation: A place to hide and be safe, and a place to practice the craft she loves.

The job involves translating family historical documents from Latin to Irish, so that the current chieftain, Anluan, can read them easily. The locals warned Caitrin about Anluan, too. They told her that he was an ineffective and absent chieftain, physically afflicted and prone to anger. Caitrin’s first encounter with Anluan goes badly, with Anluan predicting that she’ll leave Whistling Tor like everyone else has done. Caitrin, who honestly has nowhere else to go, vows to stay.

The heart’s blood of the title refers to both a plant used to make costly purple ink for royal decrees and to the hearts of the inhabitants of the house, all of whom need a bit of healing. I don’t want to spoil the journey of discovery for readers, so I’ll say only that the household is strange in many ways. This story is written like a fairy tale for grown-ups, and I often found myself lingering over a passage or description, unwilling to rush the beautifully-written narrative. I wanted to explore the moldering library and uncover its mysteries along with Caitrin.

In truth, I was sad to see this novel end. It’s one of those rare fantasy novels that manages to divide itself between the fantasy/magical aspects of the story and the development of characters without sacrificing either one. The reader gets to know the characters as Caitrin does, and the unfolding of each individual is just as complex and interesting as the story itself. It’s no exaggeration to say that, by the end, I was emotionally invested in the outcome for each character. This is one that goes directly to the keeper shelf. It will be a pleasure to re-read and re-discover in years to come.

Rating: 9 ½
November 2009
ISBN# 978-0-451-46293-0 (hardcover)

Dutch - Terri Woods

Dutch
Teri Woods
Grand Central Publishing

Fiction

He’s not even thirty, but Bernard James, Jr (Dutch) is already one of the most notorious and feared criminals in New Jersey. He was stealing cars with his own crew since long before it was legal for him to drive one. That’s why his friends were confused about his job at a pizza joint. He started sweeping up just for food and a few dollars here and there. Later, it became clear that he was there because the owner of the place had mob ties. Dutch has always understood and respected power.

As the story begins, he’s on trial for his life, accused of a string of brutal murders. The prosecutor is hoping to make his career on this case. The defense attorney is just hoping to get through the trial. Dutch, as usual, seems curiously detached. The story is told mostly in flashbacks, going back as far as the riots of 1967 that changed his mother’s life and led to his birth.

Readers who have a problem with coarse language will want to skip this one, sadly. The dialogue is written very much in the style of what you’d expect to hear from young urban criminals. Dutch makes no bones about what he’s done and who he is and he asks for no sympathy from the reader or from anyone else. His friends are mainly from his youth, including the one female member of his crew, Angel, who later organized her own crew, dubbing them “Angel’s Charlies.” This world may not be familiar to most readers, but the characters are all complex and realistic. There’s more to come in this story, and I’m interested to see where the author takes things next.

Rating: 7 ½
November 2009

ISBN# 978-0-446-55153-3 (trade paperback)

Ariel - Steven R. Boyett

Ariel
A Novel Of The Change
Steven R. Boyett
Ace

Urban Fantasy

This is a reprint of a novel that is widely considered a classic of its kind. I missed it the first time around (1983) so I’m glad to have a chance to read it now. For those who read it for the first time decades ago, there’s an extensive Afterword by the author, discussing how the novel came to be.

About five years before the novel begins, on an ordinary day and with no warning, The Change happened. Everything powered by electricity stopped working. Cars and machines simply stopped. Most people thought it was some temporary power outage, but the power never returned. The laws of physics had changed. Creatures from fairy tales began to appear. There was no explanation for any of this; people were simply left to cope with the aftermath.

Pete Garey was in high school when it happened. Now he wanders the country, staying out of large cities unless it’s unavoidable. It’s just safer that way. He’s learned to hunt and scavenge. And he knows that magic exists. He’s heard of unicorns, but never got close to one. Until the day she arrived with a broken leg. She could speak to him. He named her Ariel and she became his Familiar. They traveled together until they made the mistake of entering a largish town. Too many people got a look at her and word spread. A unicorn’s horn holds immense power, and there are plenty of people who might want to get hold of it. One man in particular, a necromancer in New York City, is willing to do whatever it takes to get that power.

This novel was an urban fantasy before the term was coined. It’s part fantasy and part post-apocalypse road novel. There are things in the book that are clearly dated; that no longer exist. They in no way detract from the enjoyment of the story. It’s remarkable how realistic most of the characters are, given the setting and circumstances. There are fantastical creatures here; there’s magic; and there are very human emotions and interactions that have always been, and will always be, no matter what kind of world surrounds us.

Rating: 8
September 2009 (reprint from 1983)
ISBN# 978-0-441-01794-2 (paperback)