Review: Touch of the Demon by Diana Rowland, Book 5 of the Kara Gillian Series

 It was awesome, go buy it.

Why are you still here? Go go now! Go buy and read it?

Have you read it yet? Then what are you doing here? Get reading! Never mind sleep, read, people, read. What, you haven’t read the previous books? Go read them too!

Ok, now I’m assuming you’ve read it, you’re allowed a brief diversion before reading it a second time.

I can’t even begin to recap this – so much happens and to truly grasp it I’d have to spoil which would be a crime. Kara enters the demon world, finds out so much she knew was wrong, discovers a whole new reality, discovers so much more about her magic – and a lot more about the Lords, who she can trust and who she can’t.  There are many twists in that, some awesome world building, a great plot and some excellent characters.

There was so much to love here. Kara is plunged into the demon world where everything is so different yet so similar to Earth. The lands and settings are described beautifully, enough information to get a true sense of the place while at the same time not drowning us in unnecessary detail or pages and pages of over the top description. I just loved the setting here and how it, in turn helped describe the demons, the different forms, their lives, the way they behave (like the demon snowball fight – which was awesome) without needing to create Wikipedia articles about each kind. We got all the information about them and them much more filled out by these events and daily behaviour than ever we could through dry lectures.

And info dumping was always going to be a risk here. Kara arrives on this brand new world, she’s surrounded by every kind of demon and she discovers that a lot of what she (and other demon summoners) thought they knew about the demons and the demon world was laughably wrong (I loved that as well, how her old knowledge wasn’t infallible). Then we’ve got to learn about the 11 demon lords, what actually happened to Szerin, the past cataclysm that nearly destroyed the world, the blades, this alien force, the groves not to mention Kara studying bran new forms of summoning and using symbols.

There was a lot of information there and none of it was dumped. Of course some was lectured in a teaching situation but it was all really well balanced. The pacing was excellent, events prevented us having long screeds of info. When Kara is traumatised it is presented respectfully without Kara getting over it over night and without endlessly melodramatic pages of angst and navel gazing – and she has ongoing issues, especially about trust and her appearance, that stem from that. It’s a very natural, very real presentation of her as a survivor and, again, is balanced perfectly with the plot and the world building and the exploration to prevent us having pages and pages of repetition or dry exposition that just drags. Kara doesn’t trust people around her, for obvious reasons, but it never reaches a point of foolishness or the whole plot scuppering over Kara failing to see the obvious out of sheer mistrust – even though it takes a long time to ever gain her full trust. Again, an excellent and real balance.

Review: Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch: Book 3 of the Rivers of London Series

Peter Grant is back and he, Leslie and Nightingale are faced with the ongoing dilemma of wizards with dubious ethics wandering around London doing very very unpleasant things. It’s be useful to be able to focus on them – but, of course, other things arise.

Including a murder – a murder which Stephanopoulos and Seawall, doughty members of the murder squad that they are, believe involves funny magic stuff. Not that they ever use the m-word, nor do they expect it to be used around them; they just know it makes their lives much much more complicated. And to make matters worse and even more complicated, the victim is an American, and the son of a state senator at that.

It’s a case that takes them into the warrens of London’s underground –it’s sewers and it’s railways and it’s many many many many tunnels that go on for miles and have been centuries in the building. It’s a maze down there – and it’s beyond amazing what can actually hide down there, unseen, for so very long as they try to find the cause of the man’s death – and the many surprises awaiting them underground.

It’s another review of fulsome praise, I have to say. In some ways it’s easier to write a review with lots of dubious errors, pacing issues or diversity fails because at least you have something concrete to say. When a book is just awesome you’re presented with the difficulty of finding a sufficient diversity of superlative adjectives to try and fill a full review.

The book has an incredible feel of place. You can feel London in its pages, the attitudes, the people, the places, the procedures; this is London through and through.  The richness and authenticity of not just the places, but also the history really shows through the book and makes everything so much more real. Despite the fantastic elements, it feels more fact than fiction because there is so much realness there. And not just in the places and not even just in the people, but also in the police procedures, the different jurisdictions, the way different things are handled, the way they were handled – and not just the way they’re officially handled, but also the daily practicalities of daily life.

The book is also funny with constant little side-references, tangents and wry observations about life, the city and everything linked with a cynical acknowledgement of how things are with an amusing twits that makes me repeatedly smile and laugh out loud. I’m not sure how much of it travels outside of a British context and British understanding, but to me it was perfect – amusing, injected lightness and fun and added yet further to the strong British feel of the book.

Review: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch, Book 2 of the Rivers of London Series

Peter is back in another magical mystery in London. With Nightingale recovering from his bullet wound, Peter must pick up a lot of the slack on his own. And there’s some major events that call for his attention.

The discovery of vestigia on certain bodies points to a supernatural reason for the death of a large number of jazz musicians not just in the present but going back through history – and something that touches very close to his own life and family.

Or the series of men found with their penises ripped off – which in turn leads to another magical practitioner in London – perhaps even a whole cabal of them. It’s a discovery which leads to far more magical history and, more frightening, a true look at the extent of dark and dangerous magic in the wrong hands. We also see how it connects to London’s own underworld and corruption in the police.

Add in Lady Tyburn’s ongoing antipathy, Molly’s moods, a whirlwind love affair, his father’s musical come back and Leslie’s recovery and he certainly has a lot of balls to juggle

Reviewing this book is difficult for me, simply because I’m sorely tempted just to write praise after praise. It’s especially difficult after reviewing the first book because everything that book got right, so did this one. It’s a great sequel for building on that foundation and continuing the plot and the world development.

The first thing I like is that it is a continuation of the last book, the canon hasn’t reset and a lot hasn’t magically happened in the downtime. Lady Tyburn still hates Peter. Leslie hasn’t been magically healed and nor has Nightingale. Which is very surprising in so many series where people take a bullet wound then next episode/book are right as rain with nary a twinge.

We have another wonderfully real feel to London. The author is a Londoner and it shows in every word. The setting and theme are such that you could almost be there. The humour is constant, dry, wry and wonderfully snarky. You will smile. You will laugh.

The story itself twists back and forth and brings several plot lines together and they come together really well while still being separate. Sure Peter connects them and his connecting brings the storylines together. The depiction of the evil wizard is both frightening and really well described –the magical fight was epic yet the discovery of his den was truly and utterly horrific and carries the full level of that horror in the description. It was really well written and disturbing. The other storyline with the jazz musicians was a wonderful break in between, lighter but still vital and very very personal to Peter with his personal history. It also didn’t require you to know about jazz to follow, but you could feel the passion behind their music.

Review: Tricked by Kevin Hearne, Book 4 of the Iron Druid Series

Atticus is back for another excellent adventure. Now having left his home after killing Thor and a goodly part of the Norse pantheon he has some problems to handle. Firstly there’s the fact that the Norse want him dead and so do several Thunder Gods… just because really (they’re thunder gods, they don’t need a lot of explanation).

There’s also a problem of killing a large portion of the Norse pantheon. Seems that those gods were largely the reason Ragnorak wasn’t happening – and now you have Hel and the denizens of Niffilheim running around unchecked. Add in that Leif’s incapacitation means that there’s a whole lot of vampires flocking to the area to fill the void.

And Atticus owes Coyote a favour. Which is never, ever, ever a good thing. It seems simple enough (in an almost impossible way), Coyote wants to rebuild the economy in an area for the Navajo (Diné) people. But the Trickster has far more in mind than that – as you would expect – and Atticus soon finds himself up to his eyebrows in far more than he expected.

When I finished this book I was sad. Because it was over and I now have to wait months, MONTHS, before Kevin Hearne releases another awesome book.

To assuage myself I turned back to page one and read it a second time – I didn’t even put it down between readings. Alas, I have finished it again and, again, I am sad that it is over.

In short, this book is most awesome.

What? You want more?

The characters are amazing. I love Atticus and Granuaille and their relationship. Atticus engages in a lot of deep and fascinating introspection, grows as a character as he accepts his own arrogance and pride have tripped him up once too often. And, of course, he is utterly and unbelievably funny and awesome with amazing wit, clever ideas without them being ridiculously over the top and a powerful sense of both the ridiculous and righteous wrath.

Oberon remains beyond hilarious. And he gets to be the hero as well, showing he’s not just a witty, sausage obsessed doggy with the best lines. And Snugglepumpkin has a very very very amusing and likely accurate hypothesis.  The whole book is full off wit and humour that lightens

The world is incredible – the pantheons of the different gods and belief systems with creatures and beings from each pantheon and culture all apparent. And the mob attack by the collected thunder gods was worth reading over and over again.

Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews, Book 4 of the Kate Daniels Series

We have another new epic here. Oh yes we do. There's a new evil in town, a powerful ancient evil that spreads plague and destruction and death – that can make warriors run in terror, that can fight the greatest fighters in the city with ease and leaves a trail of magically sentient plague behind. Not even the best experts in the city knows who this threat is, not Saiman, not the People, not the Order – and it's already moved through several cities leaving a swath of destruction and death. And if that weren't enough – for Kate, this may be a family matter.

With a new epic bad guy in town Kate has to literally save Atlanta – and the pack. But she's also coming to more and more attention of the servants of Roland – the ancient and enormously powerful leader of the People of the Dead seeking to re-establish a new empire. He's looking for her and with every battle it becomes harder for her to hide.

And there's her rocky, tumultuous and explosive relationship with Curran – whether she wants to involve herself in the Pack, whether she can with her Order affiliation and, above all, whether she can deal with the demands Curran puts on her and whether he can tolerate her refusal to bend. And that's before you get to the inflexible and prejudiced Order that would deny humanity to the people she cares for the most

It's a lot to handle and, in many ways, an entirely new beginning for Kate. Epic battles, a new life and a whole lot of struggle.

Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews, Book 3 of the Kate Daniels series

Derek the werewolf is in over his head, having annoyed Loki's grandson and seeking to free a woman from the grasp of inhuman arena fighters, Kate Daniels finds herself dragged in to help him, save him, avenge him – only to find how much larger things are.

Starting out to save Derek from his love life and aid Saiman with his business dealings, Kate finds herself trying to solve a murder, save her friends life and then having to keep it all from the Beast Lord, Curran himself. The plot only grows deeper and more dangerous as enters the world of shady, underground gladiatorial combat – to the death. She quickly falls from just investigating to having to participate – and win - as the only way to save her friends, the pack and possibly all of Atlanta

As if there weren't enough at stake, her past returns to haunt her as she is driven to reveal more of her abilities and the far reaching plots of Roland, the Master of the Undead, begin to stretch into her territory. She has to chose between revealing her secrets that may cost her her life – or watch her friends and loved ones fall.


I love this book and love this series :). The world is incredible, rich, diverse, strange and unique – and steps outside so many of the standard moulds we have come to expect from urban Fantasy. We saw a lot of non-western cultural traditions in this book, with both the arenas and the primary antagonists – which drew heavily from Indian and far eastern cultural mythology. Both were explained pretty well, with lectures that managed to avoid being boring info dumps but managed to convey background without it just being “ a new magical creature with a foreign sounding name.”

Review: Tanya Huff's Victory Nelson Series

I only really started writing reviews relatively recently, certainly on books rather than on various issues that arise throughout a series. This has lead to a few regrets because there are a few books I would have liked to review in more depth when I read them and they were fresh in my mind – probably greatest of which are Tanya Huff's Victory Nelson series.

I have so far read 5 of the 6 books (the 6th is on my ever-growing reading list) and I wish I had written a review on each of them, because they are some of my favourite books. Not on par with Kevin Hearne or Kim Harrison (both of whom stand pretty far up the pinnacle) but certainly just beneath them. Since it's been a little while since I've read them and because I don't really have time for a re-read, I'm going to have to do a review of the series up to book 6. Hopefully my fellow bloggers will read my review and do their own reading and maybe add more individual book details  (*ahem* hint hint)


Victoria “Victory” Nelson was a police detective – and an extremely good one. Her nickname wasn't just a play on her name, it was an acknowledgement of her extreme skill. She and her partner, Mike Celucci, had a competitive, almost antagonistic but deeply connected relationship as they solved case after case. Then Vicky developed a degenerative eye condition. Her peripheral vision is shrinking and her night vision has reduced to almost nothing – and it will get worse and worse until she is blind. Facing this, Vicky quits her job because she will not accept a lowering of her performance or record and becomes a private investigator. Mike stays on as her contact, her friend, her sex partner – and someone she has marvellous blazing rows with.

As a private detective she stumbles upon the supernatural world – in particular she runs across Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, romance novel writer – and vampire. The two start investigating increasing supernatural occurrences that threaten Toronto, her with her vast experience and skills as a detective with his age, experience and knowledge of the supernatural world. Over the books they investigate demons, sorcerers, mummies, werewolves, werewolf hunters and even mad wannabe Doctor Frankensteins

Through this, Vicki develops her in depth relationship with both Mike and Henry – with Mike himself becoming more and more involved in the supernatural world – as well as their interactions with the ex-street kid Tony.