Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

[lightreads]

First in a newish urban fantasy series. First person female narrator, mystery plot, entanglements with the powerful, groundwork for long-term arc, you know the sort of thing.

Except hey, lookit that, this one actually knows where its clichés are, and there's some nicely-spent time subverting or outright inverting them. I think it's safe to say, for example, that there's never going to be a hot vampire love interest here. Oh darn. (Unfortunate title choice, incidentally).

Not blow-my-mind fabulous – it needed an extra fifty pages for that, plus a dash more subtlety and one less werelion potential love interest. But about the two-thirds mark I went "hmm!" and read straight through to the end. I'll be snagging the sequel as fast as I can locate it, which is as much of a rec as I'm giving so early on in a series.

Comments

[bayleaf.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? I read this one about a year ago and found myself facepalming at it more often than not. Maybe I'll look at it again and see what I think...

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you know, I have a difficult relationship with this genre. I spend a lot of time flailing and snarling about it, but I also find it compulsively readable. So to be completely accurate I should say that this book was in the most comfortable position on that curve of any recent urban fantasy reads. I mean, she's going to have to work hard to sell me werelion, and also OMG please worldbuild more. And write more smoothly. But I'm interested in the post-apocoliptic setting, and I actually do want to know what happens next.