Steel's Edge by Ilona Andrews

The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is a fairy tale—and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny…

Charlotte de Ney is as noble as they come, a blueblood straight out of the Weird. But even though she possesses rare magical healing abilities, her life has brought her nothing but pain. After her marriage crumbles, she flees to the Edge to build a new home for herself. Until Richard Mar is brought to her for treatment, and Charlotte’s life is turned upside down once again.

Richard is a swordsman without peer, future head of his large and rambunctious Edger clan—and he’s on a clandestine quest to wipe out slavers trafficking humans in the Weird. So when his presence leads his very dangerous enemies to Charlotte, she vows to help Richard destroy them. The slavers’ operation, however, goes deeper than Richard knows, and even working together, Charlotte and Richard may not survive..

This is the final book in the Edge series by Ilona Andrews.  I read it with trepidation and concern - not because of the writing (as always, it is outstanding)  but because I wasn't sure how I'd react as a reader to the conclusion of this series that crept unexpectedly into my heart and under my skin.  

The books are all standalones within a created world - and a what a world! Rich and diverse and interesting, it is populated by humans mundane and normal, but also by humans with special talents.  A lot of thought and work's gone into these books, in creating the world, the magics, the rules, the hierachy of the bluebloods and how the Edge, The Weird and the Broken fit into one another and influence on another.  

I've not had the chance to read much straight urban fantasy of late, which makes me sad, but I moved everything off my TBR when Steel's Edge came out, mostly because these books are addictive!   If you can't tell from my write-up I mention in my previous review of the first three in the series, that this is a rather splendid series, I'm not sure I've done a good job. 

I wasn't sure if I'd fall for the characters as much as I'd done in the other books but I have! Charlotte is such a brilliant character - damaged, dark, noble, caring, sweet, confused.  I couldn't help but fall for her in a big big way.  I think, after Rose from On The Edge, she is my favourite MC in this series.  Richard Mar, as Charlotte's foil and love interest is a Bad Ass and so unutterably cool and well written - wry, charming, quickwitted, dark and equally damaged, the two are fantastically destined to be together, but their story of coming together is handled so well that it never feels obvious.  Also, the overall story-arc of the slavers and both Richard and Charlotte's determination to stop them, is the big driving force and is never really side-lined. 

Several smaller storylines from other books are brought to a conclusion here too but they are woven through the plot and seem integral so even if you start with Steel's Edge, you'll still understand (due to glib and well handled exposition) what the significance is behind various decisions the characters, both main and secondary, make as the book draws to a conclusion. 

I know Ilona and her hubby are much loved and well known for their Katie Daniels books but really, these are, out of all the urban fantasy that I've read, my favourites.  There is action aplenty, the dialogue is intense and cohesive, the politics are handled with ease but it's the characters at the centre of each story that stand out as well created, interesting people.  Maybe not people I would like to hang around with unarmed, but still pretty cool people that as a reader I can identify with, mostly because they are flawed and their motivations feel real. 

Charlotte and Richard's story is bittersweet and I was a big old crybaby a few times - always the sign of a good book - and I sat up till 2am during last week to finish it.  And when I did, I had a satisfied smile on my face.  It was good. 

So, a lot of readers are worried about urban fantasy and the sexy times.  One of the reasons why I love these books specifically is because you will maybe have one or two incredibly well written, super hot, never gross, sex scenes that make you go a bit flustered and hot under the collar.  Not bad! I don't want more than that - because it's not the whole of the story, rather it is part of it. 

So, if you've an urban fantasy fan, but maybe you're worried about too much romance and sexy times, then this series is for you.  If you like romance and you like action and well written worlds, this series is also for you. 

Right - my job is done.  Here's a link to my previous review I've done on the first three Edge titles.  Buy them, they are addictive and fun. 

Guest Blog - City's Son Extract from Tom Pollock

Mark and I randomly met this young chap on Twitter and then consequently at a few events around London.  It took me - yes I am slow - a little while to put things together, realising that he was that Tom Pollock who was being published by that Jo Fletcher Books.  


Subsequently, we've been chatting on and off and although MFB no longer take part in official blogtours, we wanted to make sure we tell our readers about Tom's upcoming novel - The City's Son.  We are big fans of urban fantasy and especially UF set in the UK and it so happens TCS is exactly that. 


Tom let us have an extract of his new novel, introducing us to the two female characters: Beth & Pencil. 

Chapter 2

‘Beth, come on,’ Pencil whispered, ‘we need to go.’
Beth studied the picture she’d sprayed on the tarmac of the playground. She flipped her aerosol over a couple of times in her hand. ‘Beth . . .’

‘It’s not finished yet, Pen,’ Beth said. In the dim backwash from the lights nearby she could just make out the Pakistani girl’s fingers worrying at her headscarf. ‘Don’t be chicken.’

Pencil paced fretfully back and forth. ‘Chicken? What are we, like ten? Have you been sniffing your own paints? I’m not kidding, B. If someone comes, this will get us expelled.’

Beth started shaking the spray can up. ‘Pen,’ she said, ‘it’s four a.m. School’s locked up. Even the rats have given up and gone home. We covered our faces from the cameras when we jumped the wall, but there’s sod all light there anyway. There’s no one around and we can’t be ID’d so what exactly are you worried about?’ Beth kept her voice calm, but there was a taut knot of excitement in her chest. She swept her torch over the picture at her feet. Her portrait of Dr Julian Salt, Frostfield High’s Head of Maths, was coming out well, better than she’d expected, especially for a rush job in the dark. She’d got his frowning eyebrows down perfectly, and the hollow cheeks and the opaque, threatening glasses. The weeds bursting through the tarmac added to the effect, looking like unkempt nasal hair.

In fairness, Beth had also given him necrotic peeling skin and a twelve-foot-long forked tongue, so she was obviously using some artistic licence, but still . . .

It’s unmistakably you, you shit.
‘Beth, look!’ Pen hissed, making Beth jump. ‘What?’

‘Up there—’ Pen pointed. ‘A light . . .’

Beth glanced up. One of the windows in the estate overlooking the school was glowing a soft, menacing orange. She exhaled irritably. ‘It’s probably just some old biddy going for a midnight wizz.’

‘We can be seen from there,’ Pen insisted.

‘Why would anyone even care?’ Beth muttered. She turned back to the picture. Everyone in year 12 at Frostfield knew she and Salt were enemies, but that was just the usual teacher-versus-student aggro, and it wasn’t why she was here. It was the way Salt treated Pen that demanded this retribution.

She didn’t know why, but he seemed to derive this vicious delight from humiliating her best friend. Salt had put Pen in maybe half the number of detentions he’d sentenced Beth to, but she was always like on the verge of tears when she came out of them. And in Monday’s maths lesson, when Pen had asked to go to the toilet, Salt had point-blank refused. He’d gone on talking about quadratic equations, but he hadn’t taken his eyes from Pen. There’d been this smile on his face as though he was daring her to defy him – as though he knew that she couldn’t. Pen’d kept her hand raised, but after a while her arm had started to shake. When she’d doubled-over with the pain of holding it in, Beth had dragged her bodily her from her chair and bundled her out of the room. As they ran down the corridor, they’d heard the laughter start.

Afterwards, standing behind the science block, Beth had asked, ‘Why didn’t you just leave? He couldn’t have stopped you, why not just walk out?’

Pen’s face was fixed in the clown-smile that meant she was panicking inside. ‘I just . . .’ She’d half swallowed the words, and kept her eyes fixed on her shoes. ‘I just thought every second that went by, if I could hold on just one more second, one more, it would be okay. And I wouldn’t have to . . . you know.’

Cross him. Beth had filled in the end of the sentence.

She’d hugged her friend close. Beth knew there was strength in Pen, she saw it every day, but it was a strength that withstood without ever resisting. Pen could soak up the blows but she never hit back.

It was then that Beth had decided that something needed to be done. And this – this was something.

She trained the beam of her torch onto the painting and the tension in her chest was replaced by a warm glow of satisfaction. A nightmare in neon, she thought. Ugly suits you, Doc.

‘Beth Bradley,’ Pen whispered. She still sounded scared, but this time she also sounded a little reverential. ‘You are a proper grade-A nutcase.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Beth said, a smile creeping onto her face. ‘But I am really good—’

A high-pitched whine cut through the night: police sirens, fast approaching. Instinctively Beth dropped to a crouch and yanked her hood up over her short, messy hair.

‘Bloody hell,’ Pen whispered, her voice panicky, ‘I told you they’d seen us! They must have called it in – they probably think we’re here to steal something.’

‘Like what?’ Beth muttered back. ‘The canteen’s secret recipe for mouse-turd pie? It’s not like the school’s got anything worth nicking.’

Pen tugged Beth’s sleeve. ‘Whatever – we need to get out of here.’

Beth yanked her sleeve away and dropped to both knees, frantically adding extra shading to the jaw-line. This had to be just right.

‘B, we need to go!’ Pen was hopping from foot to foot in agitation.
‘Then go,’ Beth hissed.
‘I’m not going without you.’ Pen sounded offended.
Beth didn’t look up. ‘Pen, if you don’t get running, and I mean right now, I’ll tell

Leon Butler it was you who Tipp-Exed that poem on his desk.’
There was a moment’s shocked silence, then, ‘Bitch,’ Pen breathed.
‘Leon, my lion, I would be all your pride. And not merely in it . . .’ Beth quoted in a

sing-song whisper. She couldn’t help grinning as Pen took off, swearing under her breath. Beth got her feet up under her, ready to run even while she drew. The sirens were

really close now. Waaaoooh— The whine soared once more, then cut off in mid-cycle. She heard car doors open and then slam. There was a rattling on the gates behind her. The school was locked up and the cops were climbing in just like she and Pen had. Beth sprayed colour into a fat cluster of warts under one eye.

‘Oi!’

The shout sent a jolt of fear down her spine. Gross enough, she thought. She stuffed her stencils and paints back into her rucksack, snapped off the torch and ran. Heavy boots thudded on the tarmac behind her, but she didn’t look back, there was no point in showing them her face. She sprinted with her head down, the wind rushing in her ears, praying that the police behind would be laden down with stab vests and truncheons, praying she’d be faster.

She looked up, and panic clutched at her gut. The cops were chasing her into a dead end. The highest wall in the school reared in front of her. It backed onto the dense tangle of scrub and trees around the train tracks: ten smooth, unclimbable feet of it. She drove her legs harder, trying desperately to build momentum, and jumped.

 ***

More extracts can be found at the blogs below during the next few days. 

Wednesday - Fantasy FactionThursday (Release Day!) - Pornokitsch

The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe

No one knows where the Tufa came from, or how they ended up in the mountains of East Tennessee.  When the first Europeans came to the Smoky Mountains, the Tufa were already there.  Dark-haired and enigmatic, they live quietly in the hills and valleys of Cloud County, their origins lost to history.  But there are clues in their music, hidden in the songs they have passed down for generations….


Private Bronwyn Hyatt, a true daughter of the Tufa, has returned from Iraq wounded in body and spirit.  But her troubles are far from over.  Cryptic omens warn of impending tragedy, while a restless “haint” has followed her home from the war.  Worse yet, Bronwyn has lost touch with herself and with the music that was once a part of her.  With death stalking her family, will she ever again join in the song of her people, and let it lift her onto the night winds?

I saw this book last year in Forbidden Planet and didn't buy it.  Then, we went for lunch, I left my friends at the restaurant and ran back and bought it.  I could not stop thinking about the write-up and the gorgeous cover.  I had to have it.

It has however taken me ages to get up the courage to read it.  I think, if you love reading, sometimes you have to let books talk to you when they sit on your shelf.  You have to be ready to read them - maybe like good wine or good cheese, you will know instinctively when the time is right.  I have a great many titles exactly like that, waiting for me to be ready to read them.

My time came last week.  In the sun, I sat and read The Hum and The Shiver and magic stirred the air around me.  Or rather, that's what it felt like.

I cannot adequately express how much I loved The Hum and The Shiver. The words lift off the page and weave images in your head.  The location of East Tennessee is described in lavish detail and although I have never seen photos of East Tennessee or of the Smoky Mountains, it feels like I spent a week there, living with the Tufa and getting to know them.

It doesn't take us very long to realise that we are dealing with a separate race of people here, the Tufa.  Not of any of the Native American tribes, not part of the influx of Europeans into the New World, the mystery remains as to who these people are.  They are media-shy, yet they do not hide, going about their business in a quiet way.  They are an attractive bunch, thick black hair, strong white teeth and good skin.  It sets them apart from those Europeans who came after and they aren't quite dark enough to belong to the Tribes.

From the first page we realise that the characters believe in Something Else.  They are perhaps superstitious and believe in ghosts, but there is a something else, just below the surface we aren't privy to.  Interestingly, the entire novel is told from within the Tufa life.  We have no outsider we shadow who tells us pertinent things.  It's entirely up to us to draw our own conclusions as we meet Bronwyn and her family, who are pure Tufa.  But things aren't made easy for the reader either.  We aren't given any further deeper insight into their lives because some things aren't explained because they expect people to know things instinctively.

In lesser hands, the story may not have worked, but Mr. Bledsoe trusts his readers to understand the game.  We are being told and shown a story, something very special indeed, and all you have to do is sit back and let it unfold around you.

Ultimately, the story is about Bronwyn.  She left Needsville and the area a young woman who made her fair share of trouble and broke a helluva lot of hearts.  She joined the army, did her basic, was shipped out to Iraq and came back torn and broken, hailed a hero by the media.  We are never really explicitly told what happened to Bronwyn over there - it's alluded that she saved some of her army buddies but was ultimately captured and tortured by insurgents.  And being female...well, you can imagine what was done to her.

Bronwyn comes back to Tufa country to heal.  The media are having a field day.  They want to glamourise everything she did, they want to make a big scene about her, but all she wants to do is run and hide somewhere.  Safely back on the family farm, Bronwyn is faced with the reality that someone in their family is going to die.  The omens all point to death and oddly, everyone assumes it's Bronwyn's mum who will die.  If that's the case, Bronwyn has a new role to fulfil, one she is reluctant to even consider.  She screams and fights against the inevitable, that she has to step outside her comfort zone, to become fully Tufa.  But things are never as clear cut as any of this.

We pick up secondary character's story strands and as it is all interwoven with Bronwyn's and her family's stories, we sit back and realise that what we think is going on...is only the smallest part of a much bigger picture.

I realise I'm being a bit naff in my review but I genuinely don't want to give bits away.  It's the kind of book that easily turns into a keeper, because the more you think about it retrospectively, the more you go "oh, I get it!" and then you want to re-read it again.  In fact, that's what I did.  I finished it on commute and then opened it at page one again and started my re-read of it.

The Hum and The Shiver is definitely one of my top titles for 2012, although it was released last year.  Bledsoe gives us a brand new world to play in, with strong characters and well developed mythologies that make 100% sense.  Effortless writing like this deserves to be shouted about.

You'll enjoy The Hum and The Shiver if you like novels by Neil Gaiman, Ben Aaronovitch,  Kate Griffin and Charles de Lint.  The Hum and The Shiver is not loud, it's not bombastic.  It's a quiet, powerful novel with a strong voice and has some beautiful writing. It's one of those rare things: a literary novel with urban fantasy undertones that sort of defies pigeonholing, apart from having to to be shelved under "A Damn Good Read".

Find Alex Bledsoe's site here and do go and read the first chapter here.

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong has been out for a little while now and I eventually gave in to my impulse to grab it to read as I am a big Kelley Armstrong fan. If you have read Exit Strategy, her foray into the world of crime, you will know that she is as brilliant at writing crime as she is at writing her urban/paranormal fantasy novels. The girl has no end of talent and it is shown at how easily she conquered writing for the YA market.

In The Summoning we meet Chloe Saunders who is on the face of it a seemingly normal fifteen-year-old teen with her head screwed on properly. She would like to have loads of friends, lead a normal life. She comes from a well-to-do family; her dad is forever travelling so she has had a large contingency of housekeepers who look after her as she grows up. One constant is her mother’s sister, Aunt Lauren, who is acts as a mother figure throughout the novel. Chloe is an avid movie fan and would love to be a movie director or scriptwriter. Situations in her life she finds hard to quantify get broken down into movie scenes and dealt with accordingly. To great success, I might add.

In fact, all seems normal, almost quiet. Chloe is a fun main character and initially you’re not quite sure how things are going to play out, how will the author rock this girl’s world? Then we find out that Chloe sees ghosts, as clear as day. She hears them speak to her, she sees them and as it would do so with anyone who has not really grown up in a world where the paranormal is part of the mundane, it freaks her out.

She gets carted off to Lyle House, a place for troubled teens. The diagnosis comes in: Chloe suffers from schizophrenia. And it is to the author’s credit how well she deals with this diagnosis, how much she reveals of Chloe’s feelings and the impact she has on the other residents of Lyle House and in turn, how they react to her. Naturally things are not as they seem and it was only a little while into the book, as part of the reveal, that I discovered that the book is written and takes place in the Otherworld, the groundbreaking world-concept which Kelley Armstrong put together in her adult series Women of the Otherworld.

Having said that, you don’t have to have any knowledge about the adult books to thoroughly enjoy The Summoning. Through Chloe we learn that Otherwordly creatures do exists: necromancers (no, not the DnD gamer version of necromancers), witches, werewolves, sorcerorors and half-demons. And to give Kelley Armstrong her due: the girl can tease and cajole you along a story like very few authors can. Just enough of Chloe’s heritage is revealed, along with the story behind Lyle House, conspiracies, the appearance of more supernatural creatures to variously aid and hinder her and her friends’ quest to seek out the truth, to leave you wondering what exactly is going on here. And how does the author expect us to stand the wait between books without going slightly mad?

The book ends on a tremendous cliff-hanger and left me aching for more. So I went searching online and found the website Kelley has put together for the Chloe Saunders (Darkest Powers) trilogy she has planned. You can find the site here with Kelley’s main site here.

The Summoning is a tautly written YA novel which manages to deal with all the concerns a teen experiences growing up, and heaped up ontop of that, they have to deal with being truly unique and different. To Kelley Armstrong's credit she doesn't baby her teen characters - they are raw, genuine and the situations they get entangled in is enough to flatten most adult characters. I cannot wait for the rest of the series!

The Curse of the Necrarch, Steven Savile

“The smell of old death was heavy in the air.”

So begins the Curse of the Necrarch, a tale from the long established and bloodsoaked world of Warhammer fantasy, courtesy of The Black Library.

Curse is a bit of a rarity; the story unfolds from the perspective of both the vampires and the human warriors as their paths collide and events are set in motion, leading inexorably towards the cataclysmic final confrontation.

I like the fact that you can appreciate where the vampires are coming from; they’re not simply done by the numbers. There’s no question that they’re evil, or bordering on clinically insane, but there’s enough there to identify with, and this is what will make Curse that much more appealing to gamers out there who play Undead armies. There’s nothing worse than reading a book told solely from the perspective of the square jawed hero who’s knocking seven shades of hell out of the guys you’re rooting for.

Steven hasn’t let Curse fall into this trap; the Necrarch is a cunning, proactive protagonist who gives as good as he gets. The action scenes are crisp and convincing, and blend into the story seamlessly; it doesn’t feel like they’ve been added as an afterthought simply because someone thought the story needed a jolt. It moves along at a good pace, and presents a suitably grim atmosphere for the end game being played out on its pages.

This is the first I’ve read of Stevens work and having had a taste, I’m planning on picking up a copy of his earlier ‘The Von Carstein Trilogy’ as soon as I get a chance.

Succubus Blues, Richelle Mead

I can seriously kick myself for waiting this long to read Richelle Mead.

I've had this beauty sitting on my TBR pile for a little while now but have always somehow bypassed it.

Initially I thought it was going to be completely sex-driven, a romp, a bit of Sex in the City or worse, a badly written urban fantasy / speculative fiction with monotonous sex scenes. (Who knew I could fit the word "sex" into one sentence that many times?!)

I was wrong, so very wrong. Succubus Blues introduces us to a very charming, witty, feisty and funny protagonist, Georgina Kincaid who is a succubus by demonic trade, yet she has a day job as an assistant bookstore manager. We get to meet her boss, Jerome, an archdemon with a thing for John Cusack, his best mate, Carter, an angel who resembles a bit of a hippy/street person, Peter and Cody, vampire mates and Hugh, an imp. These are the immortals. On the mortal side of things we meet various work colleagues, Doug, Paige and as love interests we have Seth and Roman.

I enjoyed the book tremendously, laughing out loud at some of her more genuinely real faux pas i.e. she chats to a young man whilst helping out as a barrista in the store's coffee shop. She carries on about how tiring it has to be for her favourite author to answer so many of the same brainless questions time after time, encouraging said young man to make sure to ask the visiting author intelligent questions thereby making sure he stands out in the crowd of faceless fans...needless to say, the young man turns out to be the author in question...can you say: ground please swallow me now? It is achingly real and funny as it would be totally something I do in a fit of stupidity.

It is rare where a protagonist is rendered so cleverly - I never once failed to believe in the storyline. Something is killing lesser immortals in Seattle and it shakes up the community, specifically Georgie and her friends. Especially when Georgie starts getting letters from the disturbed being causing all the havoc. We follow her as she puts the pieces of the puzzle together, we watch her mess up her relationships and we believe in her as a genuine character. There are some excellent scenes with strong imagery in this - she's a succubus with a heart and she longs for a bit of humanity - she can't love without causing destruction and without it, she can't continue to live as she lives off mortal men's anima to sustain her own life force.

Succubus Blues is a very clever book and I am looking forward to the other instalments. I'll place the other Richelle Mead books in my "wanted" list right now.