I started reading Nina Kiriki Hoffman when I came across A Fistful of Sky in a bookstore and picked it up on a whim.

I read it in a single sitting.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman writes what I consider Urban Fantasy, which is very different from Supernatural Fantasy, which is full of vampires and boinking. Her stories remind me a bit of Charles de Lint. Her characters live in our world, except that they can see or manipulate magic. In A Fistful of Sky, Gypsum comes from a family that can manipulate magic, only for Gypsum, the powers she receives are neither simple nor easy, and she must come to terms with those powers, as well as her family and herself. It is a coming of age book, only without the angst–well, without too much angst.

But what makes the story for me is that Gypsum is a real woman. She is plus sized. She likes to eat. She considers “Ultimate Fashion Sense” a horrible curse. She has a difficult family, yet loves them despite the problems. I love Gypsum, and wish she was a real woman, because I bet she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with.

And that sums up most of Nina Kirki Hoffman’s books. Her characters are teenagers or are coming of age–she also has this in common with Charles de Lint, but although these may be categorized as Young Adult books, they are most definitely a good read for actual adults, though you should share them with the youths in your life.

Although she as written multiple books in similar worlds, books that occur in the same world are not necessarily part of a series, but may contain characters that recur in multiple books–in other words, you can pick up any book and dive in, and not have to worry whether the book you are reading has a sequel or a prequel.

She also writes short stories, and her stories have appeared in many of the anthologies I own, including Swan Sister (2003), The Repentant (2003), Children of Magic (2006), and The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales (2007). Like her books, characters may or may not appear in multiple tales, and the worlds she creates may or may not appear in multiple tales, but what you can count on is that she can build a world and create complex characters in a short story just as well as she can in longer stories.

She has also, apparently, written Star Trek books, but I have not read any of those.

If you are looking for an author who consistently writes excellent stories, in both the long and short form, then you won’t go wrong reading Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

The Thread that Binds the Bones (1993), The Silent Strength of Stones (1995), A Red Heart of Memories (1999), Past the Size of Dreaming (2001), A Stir of Bones (2003), A Fistful of Sky (2004), Spirits that Walk in Shadow (2006)