I’ve read more than a thousand books since I started this book blog back in 2011. By now, I’ve forgotten what I wrote in most of the reviews and am left only with an residual emotional memory of the books, like cooking smells clinging to my clothes after a meal. So, I’ve decided to do a little time travelling by book blog and re-read some of the reviews I’ve posted.
This is my twelfth and final Time Travel By Book Blog post. This month, I’m travelling back eleven years to February 2015. I was livingi in a small village on a hill above Lake Geneva back then and we were deep in snow
I didn’t know it then, but 2015 was to be a very busy year. I’d be travelling to Bangalore, Paris, London, Munich, San Francisco and San Diego. In February 2015 all I did was to travel to see family in England, where I saw this:
Despite all the travel, one of the biggest changes that year was in how I read. I finally moved mostly to digital media. The post below describes the change. It’s amazing how out of date the devices look eleven years later.
From the reviews I wrote in February 2015, I’ve picked out books from an Urban Fantasy series, a crime series and a YA Fantasy triology, all of which have stuck with me.
I’ve shared my impressions of them below. If you’d like to time travel with me, follow the links to the original reviews.
Future Atlanta is an interesting place to live: one moment magic dominates, and cars stall and guns fail. The next, technology takes over and the defensive spells no longer protect your house from monsters.
Here skyscrapers topple under the onslaught of magic; the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, prowl through the ruined streets; and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst for knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds.
Kate Daniels likes her sword a little too much, and she has a hard time controlling her mouth. The magic in her blood makes her a target, and she’s spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, she must choose to do nothing, and remain safe, or to risk her life by pursuing his preternatural killer. Hiding is easy, but the right choice is rarely easy …
I opened my 2015 review by saying:
“If you’re an Urban Fantasy fan and you don’t already own this book, buy it now. It’s everything the first book in an Urban Fantasy series should be and more..”
I stand by that. ‘Magic Bites’ is still one my favourite Kate Daniels book (and I’ve read all of them) and the best start to an Urban Fantasy series that I’ve ever read. I was new to the genre at the time and this blew me away.
Click on the link below to read my 2015 review.
In an Atlanta caught between magic and technology, every dark corner hides a danger. And when a fight breaks out at the Steel Horse bar, a local hangout right between shapeshifter and necromancer territory, Kate Daniels, working for the Order of the Knights of Merciful Aid, is sent to investigate the aftermath. What she finds is an opponent more powerful, ancient, and deadly than she’s ever seen; and way beyond her power to fight, known as The City Eater. She could ask for backup from Curran, the Beast Lord – but he just stood her up for their date. No way does he get out of that trouble by a nice, easy death. Not only that, but this fight is personal: because Kate soon discovers that the City Eater is family….
‘A Fatal Thaw’ is the Kate Shugak book that hooked me on the series, whch so far is twenty-three books long, and yes, I’ve read all of those too. It’s still one of my favourites. It’s also one of Dana Stabenow’s favourites.
This is the book in which Kate starts, reluctantly, on her path as protector of her community and instrument of natural justice. At the start of the book, Kate and Mutt take down a spree killer and the reaction in the town is that Kate is finally starting to live up to her potential as the granddaughter of the head of the Tribal Council.
The descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness and all its lethal beauty are vivid. Kate’s slow personal thaw is well-described and the ending at Potlach is just perfect.
Click on the link below to read my 2015 review.
From Book 1:
Fed up with her wild behavior, sixteen-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business.
She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. But Lex can’t stop her desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she encounters a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. Will she ditch Croak and go rogue with her reaper skills?
I wrote a single review the three books in this YA trilogy about hoodie-wearing, light-sabre-scythe carrying, dimension-shifting, ex-delinquent teens with attitude who get a kick-ass mission as Grim Reapers, transporting the souls of the newly-dead, because I consumed them almost back to back and because they form a single seamless story.
This starts like a typical young adult rites of passage story with a supernatural twist and then becomes progressively darker as Lex and her friends enter the adult world.
Here’s what I said about the book at the time.
“I read and enjoyed all three books. I wanted to know what happened. I liked Lex and her friends. BUT – the flawed after-life concept, the deceptions practised by almost every adult, the demand for duty-bound sacrifice – these things left a bad taste in my mouth.
It seems the message Gina Damico has for young adults is: – life is short – you can have fun along the way – but there is always a price to pay – often for the actions of the generation before yours.
At the time, I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Eleven years later, it seems almost like a prophetic warning to the young.
Click on the link below to read my 2015 review.
Mike Finn's Fiction 