Diamond Fire (Hidden Legacy Novella) by Ilona Andrews

It is time for Nevada’s wedding and, if her little sister Cataline has anything to do with it, Nevada won’t have to worry about anything except her poor taste in bouquet

But with intolerant, demanding extended family with a ridiculous amount of secrets, a jewelry thief. Oh and a poisoner

Most weddings don’t have this much drama

It’s an Ilona Andrews book. I will now run around, chuckling with glee. There is no such thing as an Ilona Andrews book I don’t love - their work is designed to make me lose sleep because putting their books down is impossible.

This story continues the deadly magical and political world of the Primes - with a wedding. Nevada and Rogan’s which, unfortunately, also involves a whole lot of Rogan’s less than stellar relatives who are trying to ruin things in various ways

Our protagonist is not Navada for once, but her little sister Catalina - and it gives me hope that maybe we will be able to see future books with Catalina in the lead because she is such an interesting character

I think it’s an excellent contrast between Catalina and Rogan’s rich, spoiled cousins - contrasting their entitlement with her hard work. But also contrasting how young they are in comparison to her - how inept their plotting is, how basic their plans are and how they clearly wouldn’t have worked. We see how mature and competent Catalina is

And I think that really has to be emphasised. Catalina is competent, she’s extremely capable, experienced and knows a great deal about her work as an investigator. She’s a professional despite her young age and it shows everything about her skill and character - I like her

Magic Gift (Kate Daniels #5.4) By Ilona Andrews

Curran and Kate just want to have a date – especially since Kate has just had a difficult day hunting slimy flying octopus things. A simple date at a simple restaurant

But in post-magic shift Atlanta, nothing is simple. First someone dies over dinner, then there’s rampaging vampires – then there’s a child with a deadly cursed artefact around his neck. And only a limited time to find a way to remove it before it kills him as well

Such knowledge isn’t easily found – and Curran and Kate embark on a rapid race involving dwarfs, Vikings and draugr to save the kid’s life.

When I got this book, I expected it to be a short story. And in some ways it was – except for the length

At which point you all roll your eyes and assume that Sparky has been drinking early today – but no, hear me out

To me, in a long series like this one, a short story is one that doesn’t advance the metaplot a great deal. It provides a more day-in-the-live look at the lives of the main characters. It expands the world a little, but more likely reinforces it and it provides a book that new comers to the series could technically pick up and enjoy.

By most of those accounts, this book fits. It focuses on Kate and Curran, but is less about various big epic battles they fight. You could probably skip this book and not miss anything of their story (though the side characters may become rather confusing).  This is showing Kate and Curran getting on with – well, I hesitate to say their daily lives because it’s probably a bit more adventurous than that – but then, with the chaotic world that Atlanta has become it might very well be! We get to see them working together, not focusing on their relationship or developing their relationship – but just living their relationship with each other. It shows what they have to deal with - the Pack, the Mercenaries Guild and we get a better sense of their place in the world as well, what they mean to the city and why they matter.

I think we’d had a sense of this, obviously, throughout the books – but the story is so complex and the world is so completely unique that this is an excellent book just to reinforce all the things you kind of knew or assumed or expected, without the grand epic mega story to focus on. It also gets to plant some interesting plot hooks for future books – like Kate taking an active role in the Mercenary guild while also showing off her expertise and why she is an asset beyond just her magic and her power. I think that is one of the things I love most about this book is that it emphasises her extensive knowledge, her investigative skills and her wide range of experience and good strong common sense to make her far more than just Kate with the shiny sword and really really shiny magic.

Though she knows several power words – including ones for kill and, as I recall, control – so why she continually uses “kneel” I don’t know.

So, in all we’re left with a story that is fun and exciting. There’s danger, but it’s not world shattering. There’s urgency because the life of a child hangs in the balance so there’s definite cost – but it’s a private, small tragedy. It will be tragic and sad if they fail, not “ALL OF ATLANTA WILL BE DESTROYED!!!” as is more common through the series. It made the book even more fun than the series is usually (and it’s always fun), but less epic. Exciting, but not world shattering. Which is great – and just what we needed to reinforce this world, remind us all about the magic and tech waves and really underline them all – without having the desperate rush to save everything from certain doom.

Black Magic Woman (Black Knight Chronicles #3.5) by John G Hartness

Sabrina, Gregg and James go to a comic convention – only Gregg is there by choice but they both lost bets. Damn cheating vampire.

But a vampire can’t even rustle up comics back issues without running into a supernatural nasty to take out. And that doesn’t include the guys follow Sabrina around in her short shorts.

In many ways I think this novella is a lot like Movie Knight. It has a good introduction to the characters, a sense of the weird and the wonderful things they face, a good idea of how everyone interacts, how they think, their tones and natures as well as a decent exploration of the world.

Like Movie Knight, it also presents an opening to some of the more weird and unusual things James and Greg face above and beyond the normal. A quick little adventure so that those who have already read the series still have something of interest to see and be interested in; while at the same time not being so different and new as to leave completely new readers floundering and unable to keep up

It strikes the right balance between having enough story there to be interesting to people who are already reading the series while still providing a nice introduction to people who are thinking about checking the series out. It would be, like Movie Knight, a great anthology novel, introducing new readers to the series who have never come across it before.

And yes, the world building and information continues to hit that balance between filling in all the gaps necessary for a new reader to keep up while, at the same time, not completely inundating an old reader with stuff we already know. That takes some real skill.

It’s also kind of gloriously fun to have vampires at a geeky comic convention.

Unfortunately, this book also show cases some of the problems that the series has as well. Like Gregg being a fat vampire – which is nicely rare and I love that he’s included, but I’m less thrilled with it being something constantly referenced – especially when he wears spandex. It’s a short book and there are an awful lot of cracks about his weight within it.

And then there’s Sabrina. I’ve said before how much I love Sabrina and James’s relationship, I like how its developed, I like how its flirted close to several tropes but never quite gone over the edge. There’s a lot to like here. What I don’t like is that James has a severe case of Dresden Goggles. It’s rare for him to meet a woman without assessing her sexual attractiveness and that then becoming a major element of his description and interaction with her.  In this novella we have both Sabrina cosplaying as Lara Croft with the inevitable mass appreciation of her skimpy outfit and we have a big bad of a super-seductive beautiful woman who enthrals men to make them do her bidding

Pros and Cons (Nikki Glass Novella) by Jenna Black

 

Nikki has a nice mundane case. Well, she has chosen a nice mundane case because it will get her out of the house and away from Anderson asking her to use her Artemis hunting skills to exact his revenge.

And this client does sound very desperate since many other private detectives have turned her down. And for good reason, her task is almost impossible for anyone but Nikki. Of course, an extra reason for the desperation is that her client is lying and a very dangerous man is involved – the situation is far more delicate and far more is at risk than she originally thought taking the case.

This book was the very essence of a novella. Which is a little unfortunate because I don’t like novellas and something that is the epitome of a novella is going to be the epitome of something I don’t like.

However, as far as novellas go this did everything I hope for. Firstly, it isn’t an essential step on in the series – to continue to follow the Dark Descendant series you don’t have to read this book. It doesn’t add any vital building blocks to the story or leave you floundering if you skip it. Similarly, as a short story it isn’t essential to have ready the rest of the books in the series  - you can pick this up and follow the story without any real difficulty. It certainly helps to have read the other books, but it’s hardly necessary.

But, above all, the book is self-contained. It’s hard to get the pacing of a short story right – it’s too easy to write something that doesn’t have enough material to cover the whole story, or something that feels rushed and cut down and probably doesn’t have quite enough plot for a full book but is still far too meaty for a novella. This book was perfectly spaced and perfectly paced, it didn’t need more explanation or development, it didn’t need nor did it have info-dumps to try and cram 2 books worth of backstory into it, it didn’t need several chapters to give us Nikki’s backstory – though it did include her history neatly and succinctly. It was a great little introductory book to the characters and concepts of the series without feeling like I was reading a trailer.

The story itself was interesting – it showed Nikki doing some very clever detective work. Part of it involved her Artemis powers but only by giving inspiration. I love the subconscious nature of this power – I can’t help but wonder if this is a little dig at so many mystery stories where perfectly mundane detectives have these incredibly unlikely flashes of inspiration based on zero evidence; I hope so. But the steps of the investigation are not only interesting but they’re really imaginative and clever and show both the lateral thinking necessary to solve these really crafty, cunning cases. I loved it.

Review: Thread of Death by Jennifer Estep. Book 5.5 in the Elemental Assassins Series

 This is book "5.5" because it's a novella between book 5 and 6.

Normally I don’t like short stories or novellas, so I was in two minds about reading this book or, maybe, just maybe, moving on the next one. Or maybe reading it without reviewing it because I know my own personal dislike for the style would skew my opinion.

But I was really pleasantly surprised. This book worked – not only did it work but I’ll go so far as to say the series needed a short story at this point. After the last book, Gin had just defeated her arch-nemesis. This had been books and books in the making. The build up and the execution was also pretty involved and pretty epic.

Which leaves a problem of where to go from there. What do you do, introduce a new Arch-Nemisis? What, so soon? It looks contrived shouldn’t she have some time to live first. But then – can you write a full book about a “day in the life of Gin Blanco”? Maybe, but following up with that after the epic plot of Spider’s Revenge would be a bit of a climb down to say the least.

So we have the novella. And it’s just perfect for what the plot needs. We see Gin recovering, hints of some of the aftermath of what happened (including the fact that she isn’t physically healed and that the victims aren’t all mentally healed either – which is an important point that is often overlooked).

And of course, there are consequences to destabilising the corrupt city of Ashland’s criminal power structure. People are manoeuvring to get into the top spot that has now being vacated which will, no doubt, include much plotting and many deaths,.

And, of course, we see the foreshadow of a different world for Gin Blanco – one in which it is commonly known she is the Spider – and the assassin who took out the most powerful elemental in the city. Aside from the fact that anyone who takes out a crime boss is usually expected to step into their shoes and Gin has no intention of leaving her BBQ restaurant.

All in all, this book is just perfect for the series. We’re getting the new themes set in place, we’re establishing exactly where the city stands now. We have a reminder of what enemies she had who are still alive and an introduction to the new antagonists that are encroaching on the scene.

And we have some nicely written action to remind us just how much Gin kicks arse. We also see her using her magic more casually which I really hope is a sign of things to come – as it was definitely something that frustrated me inearlier books.

All in all, it’s a short story, but it’s what the series needed and essential to maintain the pacing of the series, I think. It's also well paced and developed - too many short stories I've read are either hurried or just don't have enough concrete plot for their existence - they have an idea and they try and stretch it out into an actual book. This got the balance perfectly.

I didn’t expect to like it, I read on the assumption that I wouldn’t enjoy it but needed to get through it in case any new information was revealed – it was a great surprise.