This is list going to be much shorter, not because I dislike male protagonists, but because I slightly tend to prefer reading about female characters.

Interestingly, for the female characters, the term hero could easily have been used when describing those women, for these books, several of the characters are far more complicated. They aren’t bad guys, but they’re not always good guys either. These books with male leads are more likely to have a noir feel than my favorite books with female protagonists.

Which makes me wonder—who do I have so few ethically complicated female characters on my favorites list? Hmmm.

Best of Index

 

The Devil You Know (2006) Mike Carey (Felix Castor)

Felix Castor is an exorcist, a job that has been in demand since the dead starting coming back in the late 90s.

(T)he Bible is strangely coy on the subject of the were-kind, hedges its bets on demons, and draws a big fat blank on ghosts, so the Christians and the Jews didn’t really seem to be any better placed than the rest of us to call the toss.

But he’s refused all jobs after his last job–one he was doing for free, for a friend–went terribly horribly wrong.

This is a super-dark series that is not for everyone. It’s rather like The Nightside series, in that it is over-the-top awful, with things so ridiculous they become almost silly.

On the door frame there were a good half-dozen wards against the dead, ranging from a sprig of silver birch bound with white thread to a crudely drawn magic circle with the word ekpiptein written across it in Greek script. That translates as “bugger off until you’re wanted, you bodiless bastards.” Greek is a very concise language.

However, Felix really is quite a bastard, and when bad things happen to him, you pretty much feel like perhaps he deserves them.  This is a five book series that is completed. As I said, it is extremely dark, and not for everyone, but is one that I very much do like.

 

Night Watch (1998/2006) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield (Night Watch)

There exists, just beyond the reach of most people, an impossible world, the Twilight, where seemingly normal people can do supernatural things using power from that world. This series is Russian and the primary location is Moscow, although the main character, Anton, frequently travels.

I’m not even sure how many times I’ve re-read this series anymore. But probably a dozen times (including listening to the audio books). Anton isn’t an anti-hero, but he is complex, and constantly involved in things beyond his understanding.

One of the reasons I love this series is that I find the Russian character fascinating, both in how it is similar and yet different to western European and American character.

One of the quirks of people who’ve managed to find their place in life is that they believe that’s the way things ought to be. Everything simply works out the way it ought to. And if someone feels shortchanged by life, then he has only himself to blame. He must be either lazy and stupid.

In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive.

You know what they say? A Siberian isn’t someone who doesn’t feel the cold, he’s someone who’s warmly dressed!

It also contains one of my favorite scenes, a lovely bit that really didn’t have much of anything to do with the plot, but delights me every time I read it.

I followed the old woman into the “large room”… The walls were covered in black-and-white photographs… I realized that the blindingly beautiful young woman with the white teeth, wearing a flying helmet, was my elderly lady.

“I bombed the Fritzes,” the lady said modestly as she sat down at a round table covered with a maroon velvet tablecloth with tassels. “Look, Kalinin himself presented me with that medal…”

Absolutely dumbfounded, I took a seat facing the former flyer.

Each book is split into three sections, each a complete story arc, and all three relating to each other. The second book is about the Day Watch, and so there is little of Anton in the first to stories, but it is still very good and well-worth your time. There are six books in the series, and, strangely, I haven’t got around to reading the 6th, because it was only recently published, and I’m not sure I want the end of the series. Well, also because then I want to re-read the entire series from start to finish, and there are other books I do want to read.

 

Half-Resurrection Blues (2015) Daniel José Older (Bone Street Rumba)

There is a world of the dead that very few are aware, and the Council of the Dead works very hard to keep things that way. But there are some people who can see the dead, and even converse with them. And then there are people like Carlos, who died and was somehow brought most (but not all) the way back.

There are many many things I love about Daniel José Older’s books. First, he writes kick-ass female characters. This isn’t something a lot of male authors always do especially well, so I like to star it when I come across it. It’s not just that the female characters are complex and interesting, it’s that he’s actually listened to women, and these characters reflect that.

Secondly, as a white woman from West (by God) Virginia, I love characters who are different from me. I am well-familiar with rural poverty, and being a woman, and being white, so it’s a joy to read characters who are so very different from me. And I don’t mean people that can do magic, or elves or vampires. I mean characters whose life experience is utterly different from mine.

It’s still the wrong century for two brown men to be driving a pickup truck with mysteriously tarped cargo towards lower Manhattan.

(A)nother little guy is definitely Indian/ Pakistani or maybe Puerto Rican. Or half-black. Whatever he is, he gets randomly searched every time he’s within twenty feet of an airport.

But I especially love the bits that remind me that we’re not so very different.

The eight-year-old giggles every time her abuelo picks up a card. Her laughter rises to a joyous cackle and she crows, “Uno!” The old man fusses with his mustache, furrows his brow, and then picks a card. And then another. “Chingada madre,” he mutters as the laughter continues unabated across the table. “Mierda.” Finally, he puts down one with a sigh and the girl gets real serious, scrunches up her face, and draws a card, then slams it down, yells, “Uno!” again, and resumes laughing.

That is, truly, one of my favorite scenes. It makes me giddy with delight every time I read it.

I am having a very difficult time deciding which book to recommend you to read first.  Half-Resurrection Blues (2015) is Carlo’s book, and the start of the series and is fabulous. Salsa Nocturna (2012) is an anthology with Carlos stories, but also stories about other characters, including Gordo, who I absolutely adore.

If I walk onto a playground, and I swear to you I’m never the instigator, it’s like some memo goes out: Drop whatever game you’re playing and come chase the fat guy. Family events and holidays? Forget it. I don’t really mind because I hate small talk, and if there’s one thing about kids, they give it to you straight: “Tío Gordo, why you so big?”

And I get real serious looking. “Because I eat so many children,” I say.

Then they run off screaming and, usually, I give chase until I start wheezing.

So which should you read first? I suppose it depends upon whether you prefer short stories or novels. You definitely need to read both, since there are events and characters in Salsa Nocturna that appear in the third book. There are currently three books in this series, plus the anthology. The story arc started in the third book is complete, so I don’t know if there is going to be another book. Though I hope so, because I do love these books and characters.

[NOTE: The Shadowshaper series will be mentioned in another post. Don’t worry, I didn’t skip it.]

 

Nightlife (2006) Rob Thurman (Cal Leandros)

Cal Leandros is part monster. He’s known this forever. Luckily, his brother Niko knows he is also part human, and does his best to remind Cal of that.

I utterly adore this series. I’ve said before that it’s a love story between two brothers, as they save each other time and again.

I started into the depths of the carnival, not bothering to check to see if he was following. He was. It wasn’t something I had to see or hear to know. Niko watched my back. Always. The mountains would fall and the oceans dry to dust before that ever changed.

But never the less, they are brothers.

“I’m a man? Yeah? Do I get a bar mitzvah?”

“The bris comes first. Do you want to borrow my tanto? I sharpened it this past weekend.”

“You should try literature that contains words of more than two syllables, little brother. You might just learn something.”

“‘Voluptuous’ has more than two syllables.” Turning the book right side up, I scanned the page. “So does ‘nymphomaniac,’” I added.

To be clear, this is a very dark series. The first book opens with Cal being stabbed by Niko. And the monsters who sired Cal are truly horrible, although much of the horror is left to your imagination.

There are ten books in this series and I’ll be honest, I still haven’t finished the last book. I’m pretty sure it’s the final book and, well, I just haven’t been able to.  One last thing—I think the covers for these books are absolutely perfect. They are well-done and completely fit the tone and feeling of the books.

Also, I like her Trixa series, and was sorry there weren’t more books.

ADDENDUM the FIRST:
Apparently do NOT read the last book in the Cal Leandros series. It looks like the final book was canceled, and thar the last book published contains a GIANT cliffhanger. So, I guess I shan’t read that last book.

After mysteries, the second genre I read was fantasy, when my dad gave me a copy of The Hobbit. I would read it at least once a year when I was younger. As I got older, my interests shifted away from epic fantasy, and I’ve generally gravitated towards series where each book contains a completed story arc. That doesn’t mean there can’t be questions that are left unanswered for several book, just no cliffhangers. I’ve found that supernatural fantasy generally fits this bill, and as I have slight preference for female characters, this list is going to be longer than the next.

This group is also going to be a little more complicated. There have been a lot of series that I’ve liked initially and then dropped because I either lost interest or something irritated me. This list is series that I have re-read and/or also listened to on audio and would like to re-read again in the future.

You can feel free to mention an author you think should be here, and if I’ve read them, we can discuss why I don’t love them or why I stopped reading (if I should take a series back up, I’ll be glad to hear that).

Best of Index

 

Gunmetal Magic (2012) Ilona Andrews (World of Kate Daniels)

Years ago magic reappeared in the world and ravaged technology—dropping planes from the sky and buildings where they stood. Those who survived have learned to live in a world with where either magic or technology works (but not both at the same time).

Note that I didn’t put the Kate Daniels series here. The thing is, I like the series, and I always want to know what happens next, but I don’t always love the series. The books stick in my memory, which is one prerequisite for making this list, but they don’t necessarily blow me away, the way other books have.

Which is why Gunmetal Magic, a stand-alone that’s not about Kate, made this list instead of the main series. I really like Andrea, and I often find her both more sensible and more reasonable than Kate. It’s not that Kate isn’t an interesting character, I just sometimes find her a bit much. Andrea, in the meantime, is someone who has hidden her heritage as a bouda (were-hyena) from The Order—the group that keeps peace in a magic ravaged world when the police can’t—because of her childhood.

Andrea has a really awful past, which makes her relationships with Raphael extremely complicated, but it also makes her a fascinating character, prone to make the kinds of mistakes Kate doesn’t. Raphael and Andrea both have weaknesses that I sometimes find lacking in Kate and Curran.

She’s also far more human than Kate, whose powers often irritate me, because sometimes she can do things with ease, while other times they are a struggle. This is unrelated to her learning how to use her powers. It’s how during The Final Battle in a book Kate does less well with things than she did earlier in that book or in an earlier book. It’s not blatant, it’s just that you know that at some point Kate is going to get her ass kicked, and then she’ll come back and win. It’s not wrong, it’s just… bothersome?

That said, there are so many things I love about this series, primarily the dialog.

Ave, Andrea! Ianitori te salutant!

…Kate was forcing Ascanio and Julie, her ward, to learn Latin, because a lot of magic texts were written in it and apparently it was an essential part of their education.

I looked up and nodded at Ascanio. “Get your gear.”

He grabbed his knife. “Where are we going?”

“To the library.”
His enthusiasm visibly deflated and he emitted a tragic sigh. “But ‘library’ and ‘kick-ass’ are two concepts that don’t usually go together.”

“That’s the nature of the business. Five percent of the time you are killing monsters. The rest of the time, we’re digging through the dirt for a tiny piece of the perpetrator’s pubic hair.”

I also love the story-telling. So, I highly recommend the short stories. Ilona Andrews is good at short stories, which is something I highly appreciate—the ability to tell a tale in a limited space.

I tried listening to Gunmetal Magic as an audio book, but we had to turn it off. I’m not sure precisely what it was, but I hated the narration. So try Gunmetal Magic or one of the many shorter stories to see what you think. It is a riveting series.

They also have several other series out, but I found them a little more uneven than the Kate Daniels series. Also, with the exception of Gunmetal Magic, a lot of the books in this series have utterly awful covers.

This series currently has ten books, the tenth of which is scheduled to come out in May 2018. This book and the Kate Daniels series has boinking, but it takes Kate and Curran a ridiculously long time to work out their differences and misunderstandings, which is possibly something else that makes me rate the series a little lower than it might otherwise deserve.

 

Moon Called (2006) Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson)

The fae outed themselves to the world years earlier, so now vampires and werewolves are all but an open secret, hiding from the public for fear of social and political reactions.

And so the lesser fae, the weak and attractive, revealed themselves at the command of the Gray Lords. The great and terrible, the powerful or powerfully ugly, stayed hidden, awaiting the reaction of the world to the more palatable among them. Here, said the Gray Lord’s spin doctors who had been McBride’s lawyers, here are a hidden people: the gentle brownie who taught kindergarten because she loved children; the young man, a selkie, who risked his life to save the victims of a boating accident.

Mercy Thompson, however, is a shifter—unlike werewolves she changes easily into her coyote self, but she also doesn’t have the magic healing ability that comes with being a were. Having been raised by Bran, the head of all the werewolves in the US, she is familiar with both her own weakness, and how to deal with werewolves. Which is good, because Bran has the Alpha of the tri-cities pack watching over her.

The Marrok, the leader of the North American werewolves, insists that all of the wolves wear a collar when they run in the cities, with tags that identify them as someone’s pet. He also insists the names on the tags be something innocuous like Fred or Spot, no Killers or Fangs.

There is so much I adore about Mercy. First, she’s a VW mechanic. Which is not a typical job for a heroine. Second, she has worked hard for the skills she has.

I’m in good shape, and I have a purple belt from the dojo just over the railroad track from my garage, but I’m no match for a werewolf.

There are several male characters in this series. Adam, the head of the local pack. Samuel, Bran’s son, and then various members of the local pack, fae Mercy knows, and the average citizens whose cars she fixes. It is these secondary characters that, for me, have kept the series so strong. I adore Warren, one of Mercy’s best friends, and his story alone was enough to keep me reading, but I do very much like Mercy’s discovery of her heritage and the skills she does have as the series progresses.

The veil of civilization fell away from me rather easily, I thought, taking the empty cup and twisting it back on the thermos. All it had taken was the sight of that bruise, and I was ready to do murder.

In general, this series is not dark, but in a couple of books it does go into some very dark, very hard to read places. It’s well-worth reading, but it is hard.

Another thing I especially like is that when Mercy does something stupid and gets herself hurt, she is actually hurt, and requires time and hospitalization to heal. I think that makes the sacrifices she chooses to make all the more important, since she knows she’ll suffer for each injury in a way the werewolves around her will not.

There is boinking in this book, but not a lot. Also, once Mercy finally settles down, the relationship becomes a strength, which is important, because at times Mercy needs that extra strength.

There is also a short-story anthology of stories set in Mercy Thompson’s world, Shifting Shadows, which has a lot of stories of secondary characters. Also, if you click on the Patricia Briggs link above, there is a listing of all the stories in chronological order, so you can see where the various books and stories fit into the timeline.

I don’t adore the narrator of this series, but I found her fine to listen to. This series currently has ten books and is ongoing. I also highly recommend reading the parallel series, Alpha & Omega, which features Bran’s younger son, Charles, and his mate, but there are also appearances by Asil, who is possibly my favorite secondary character in that series.

 

Halfway to the Grave (2007) Jeaniene Frost (Night Huntress)

Vampires and ghouls exist, but the public doesn’t know this. Cat, however, does, being as she is a half-vampire who has made it her life goal to kill every vampires she comes across.

Couple things—this is very much a boinking series. All her books are boinking books. But her characters are so well done and fascinating I don’t even mind all the boinking. And with this series, Cat and Bones are very quickly a devoted couple, and once they eventually get past their misunderstandings, their relationship becomes a strength to them, rather than an ongoing problem in each book.

She has also had spin-off series that take characters she has introduced here and give them their own stories, because those characters grew beyond the limitations of Cat’s story. And there are series set in the same world, several of which I’ve read.

I haven’t re-read this series in a while. I keep meaning to, but then think, “Am I in the mood for all this boinking?” and the answer is generally no. Even if it is well-done boinking. Also, I don’t yet have all these as ebooks (since I originally bought the series as mass market paperbacks.

This series is completed, although Kat and Bones appear occasional in other stories.

 

Skinwalker (2009) Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock)

This is currently one of my favorite series. I haven’t re-read the books in several years, but I recently got caught up on listening to all the audio books (I very much like the narrator for this series).

Vampires were outed to the world when Marilyn Monroe tried to turn President Kennedy. Since they vamps have tried to integrate into the modern world, and people like Jane Yellowrock have come to take care of vamps that don’t follow the rules.

But Jane has her own secrets—she has the ability to shift to any animal of a similar mass whose DNA she has access too, such as a tooth or bone. And inside her she has the soul of another creature: Beast.

First off, Beast is often my favorite character in the book, although it is a close thing, because I find all the characters well done.

I looked at woman. She looked at me. At necklace on my neck. Jane’s necklace.

“Jane?” she whispered. “Oh my God. Jane.”

I hacked. Not God. Not Jane. Beast.

Beast perked up at the description of the food. Gator. Human killed gator? Human man is good hunter! Hungry for gator. And the picture she sent me was a whole gator, snout, teeth, feet, claws, tail, skin, and all, crusty with batter. I chuckled and sent her a more likely mental picture. Inside she huffed with disappointment.

There are currently 11 books in this series, and it is on-going with the 12th book scheduled to be published in May of 2018. Although some books are weaker than others, I’ve enjoyed them and always look forward to the next book, generally reading it as soon as its published.

One of the things I particularly like about this series is how Jane slowly develops friendships. She was raised in an orphanage of sorts, and so doesn’t always have the best people skills, so it’s a joy when she finally develops close friendships and the love that goes with them (I don’t mean boinking love, I mean the love you have for good friends who have stood by you).

I’m about to say something that sounds like a contradiction, but it’s really not. Some of the problems that Jane gets into are not the kind of problems that could be resolved quickly. I like that the resolution of these things takes several books. That does not mean these issues are cliff-hangers; I mean that some issues aren’t easily resolved, and it might take a weeks or even years and a lot of work to fix them. Although it’s hard to see Jane deal with these problems for so long, it’s nice to see characters actually working out their issues.

Faith Hunter is also very good with short stories, so I highly recommend looking for one of the collections, since that will give you an idea of the writing and characters, but except for the stories, you don’t want to start this series in the middle. You do need to start at the beginning and work forward.

Two last notes—I do very much enjoy the narrator, and I love the amount of effort that was put into these covers. The initial covers were trying very hard, and although they didn’t always get things right, they put in the effort. Jane is always in an active pose, submissive to no one, and when they do use a Native American model when they can find one. (They can’t always, but I’m willing to forgive that, since I know authors get little say in their covers.)

 

Blood of the Earth (2016) Faith Hunter (Soulwood)

This is a spin-off of the Jane Yellowrock series, featuring a young Southern woman raised in a religious commune who is attempting to both make her way in the world while figuring out who she is.

Initially I was unsure about this spin-off, but quickly fell in love with it.

I set the shotgun on the table and got out three pottery mugs. I wasn’t using John’s maw-maw’s good china for outsiders whom I might have to shoot later. That seemed deceitful.

She also has powers that might have gotten her killed as a child—an ability to commune with the nature, specifically the land upon which she lives, but also with trees and such.

(O)ne tree, a dogwood, had taken root and another had tried to and died. The ground was covered in pine needles, and when I pushed a hand through to the soil, it was to discover that the lone tree was afraid, fearfearfear leaking through every rootlet and stem and reddening leaf. It had been afraid since its partner tree had died, thinking it the last tree on the face of the Earth.

This book has a character from Jane’s books, Rick le Fleur, who is complicated in his own right. It’s interesting that although he was never a favorite, I do find him rather fascinating in this series.

The same narrator reads this series as Jane’s series, and I very much like her. I also like the covers. Nell is not a fighter, and the covers reflect that. But she is also neither passive nor a victim, something that is difficult to get across.

This series currently has three published books and another book scheduled for publication in December 2017. So far, there has not been any boinking in this series.

 

The Rook (2012) Daniel O’Malley

Apparently, Daniel O’Malley is the token male on this list of books with female protagonists.

This is an extremely difficulty book to describe, so I’ll just give you a quote from the start of the book.

Dear You,

The body you are wearing used to be mine. The scar on the inner left thigh is there because I fell out of a tree and impaled my leg at the age of nine. The filling in the far left tooth on the top is a result of my avoiding the dentist for four years. But you probably care little about this body’s past. After all, I’m writing this letter for you to read in the future. Perhaps you are wondering why anyone would do such a thing. The answer is both simple and complicated. The simple answer is because I knew it would be necessary.

The complicated answer could take a little more time.

Do you know the name of the body you are in? It’s Myfanwy. Myfanwy Alice Thomas. I would say that it’s my name, but you’ve got the body now, so I suppose you’ll be using it.

I think you can best describe this is a fantasy spy thriller. Except that the spy is a forensic accountant. And there are humans with special abilities, who are snagged by the government as soon as those abilities appear.

(T)he most effective psychics are the ones who never realize they’re psychic and instead manage to live excellent lives by consistently making the right decisions. Their powers effectively guide them through the shoals of life without their knowing.

I really liked this book and its sequel, and am sorry there doesn’t seem to be another book forthcoming. The writing is sharp and the dialog is snarky and the story is just plain fun.

 

Tempest Rising (2009) Nicole Peeler (Jane True)

Jane True lives in a small New England town with her father, and is an outcast for something that happened years previously. At the start of the story, supernatural creatures are unknown to Jane because they carefully hide themselves from the world. Obviously, she soon leans of the supernatural.

There are several things I particularly like about this series. First, is the use of the varied creatures of folk lore and fairy tales. There is so much material out there, it was a delight to read about more than vampires and werewolves.

Second, Jane True feels like an actual, normal, human woman. Take this passage, that still amuses me.

…I wiped my nose on his shirt. I was snotty from crying and he was already filthy. It wasn’t ideal but he was holding me so tight I couldn’t move my arms.

“Did you just wipe your nose on me?” he asked, finally. His voice was tight with various emotions, but “oh no you didn’t” had clawed its way to the top of the list.

“Maybe,” I mumbled, peering up at him.

That still cracks me up, because it’s so something that happens in real life but never gets mentioned in books.

This is a boinking book, but the series also has a HEA story arc. There are six books in this completed series, so although there is a cliffhanger in the next-to-last book, that’s not an issue anymore.

 

Kitty’s Greatest Hits (2011) Carrie Vaughn (Kitty Norville)

Kitty was attacked and savaged by a werewolf and her life hasn’t been the same since. She belongs to a pack that rules her life as much as her parents had, so her one escape is her radio show: Kitty and the Midnight Hour.

On her radio talk show she discusses weres and vampires and other things with callers. Outsiders think it’s tongue-in-cheek, but really it’s Kitty’s way of saving herself.

If vampires ever spend less time playing theatrics and living down to their stereotypes, they might actually take over the world someday.

This series is more complex than you might expect, and like other supernatural series I like so well, takes a good look at just how the mundane world would deal with supernatural creatures, and the rights of supernatural creatures.

This series also has my favorite vampire ever.

“All the jokes about blood and the Eucharist aside— I can’t walk into a church anymore. I can’t go to Mass. And I can’t kill myself because that’s wrong. Catholic doctrine teaches that my soul is lost, that I’m a blot on God’s creation. But Kitty— that’s not what I feel. Just because my heart has stopped beating doesn’t mean I’ve lost my soul, does it?”

She wrote a short story about Rick the vampire, “Conquistador de la Noche” and it is one of my favorite short stories. You can find it in her short story collection, along with another favorite vampire short story, “Defining Shadows”, which appeared in Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations (2013) edited by Paula Guran.

There is boinking in this series, but once Kitty falls in love, her relationship and marriage are a stability and a strength to her, which is something I really like.

Since the first genre I ever read was mystery, I adore supernatural mysteries. It doesn’t matter if they are private detectives or police, I love mysteries with a supernatural twist. Funny thing is that I don’t even try to solve the mysteries—and I can read good mysteries over and over—it’s something about the process that fascinates me.

Of course, I also love that mysteries are almost always wrapped up in a single book. They rarely have cliffhangers, which may also be why they are a favorite. Below are some of my favorite mysteries, and the reasons why I love them so much. Clicking on a book title will take you to Amazon. Clicking on the author name will take you to my page for that author, with my reviews and the series in order.

These series are listed alphabetically by author, because it would be extremely difficult for me to order them as favorites.

Best of Index

 

Midnight Riot (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London)

The Rivers of London series occurs in our world, but the supernatural is hidden from most people. Peter Grant accidentally becomes an apprentice wizard and the second full time member of the unit that polices the supernatural.

First, I utterly adore Peter. He is a tremendous geek. He gets caught up in minutiae and constantly goes off on tangents. For example, he loves architecture, and is constantly commenting on various buildings.

It’s a bland box of a building built in the 1970s; it was considered to be so lacking in architectural merit that there was talk of listing it so that it could be preserved for posterity as an awful warning.

He also loves Dr Who and various other geek things, and blithely makes hilarious asides.

So Newton, like all good seventeenth-century intellectuals, wrote in Latin because that was the international language of science, philosophy and, I found out later, upmarket pornography.

The characters are marvelous here, full of minorities and women like you’d expect in the normal population. But the minorities aren’t there to be minorities to tick a box, they are there because any group is going to have members of a minority, so of course there are minorities in this book.

Like most police mysteries, the main story arc is completed within each book, but like reality, there are on-going questions that aren’t answers, and might never be answered.

In addition to the books, this series also has an on-going comic, and this spring a free audio book was released. My theory is that the author has more material than he can use in a single book, and is spinning those stories off into comics and short stories. This series also has, hands-down, my favorite narrator. I can quite literally listen to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith over and over and have to stop myself from doing so, because there are a lot more books out there for me to listen to.

 

London Falling (2013) Paul Cornell (Shadow Police)

This is a series that occurs in our world, where the supernatural is hidden from most of the population. It’s also very dark and a lot of bad things happen.

That said, it’s a current ongoing favorite because the mysteries are so very good, the characters are complicated, and despite the darkness, there are many things that make me laugh.

“Might as well look as if we’re together,” said Sefton, under his breath, as he pressed the tea bag against the side of his cup to try and force out a bit of flavor. “Seeing we’re the only black guys in here.”

“The New Age,” agreed Costain, “does not recruit in line with best practice.

“It’ll take weeks of grunt work and potentially lead nowhere,” said Quill. “Excellent: that sounds like police work to me. Anyone got anything else?”

But as I said, be aware that a LOT of horrible things happen in this series. The worst part is that although they come as a complete shock when they occur, you should theoretically have seen them coming. But of course you don’t because normal people wouldn’t expect such awful things.

This series also has one of the biggest shocks I have ever been given by a book. I literally had to re-read the passage several times because I couldn’t believe it went there.

This is dark and frequently horrible, so it’s not for everyone, but it’s also incredibly good and I’m awaiting the next book in the series, and hope it’s as good as the previous three. If you like to listen to books, I really like the narrator for this series.

 

Something from the Nightside (2003) Simon R. Green (Nightside)

The Nightside is a London where it is always 3 AM and your most secret and terrible desires can be fulfilled. It’s also a place from which John Taylor fled after multiple attempts on his life. So at the start of the series he’s working as a detective in normal London. But obviously that doesn’t last long and he returns to the Nightside.

One of the things I particularly like about John Taylor is that he achieves things through his reputation rather than blunt force and trauma. In fact, his reputation usually keeps him from having to resort to other tactics.

“You here to cause trouble?” (the enforcer) said, in a voice so deep he must have had a third testicle tucked away in there somewhere.

“Almost certainly,” I said.

“Right, lads! said the enforcer, glancing back over his shoulder to address the rest of the street. “Pick up your feet, we are out of here. This is Dead Boy and John bloody Taylor, and we are not being paid nearly enough to take on the likes of them. Everybody round to Greasy Joan’s cafe, where we will wait out whatever appalling things are about to happen.”

There is a huge element of horror to this series, but it is so over the top and ridiculous that it has never bothered me. That might also be because there is much silliness as well.

Next door to the brothel was a dark and spooky little shop selling reliquaries–the bones of saints, fragments of the True Cross, and the like. Special offer that week was apparently the skull of John the Baptist. Next to it was a smaller skull, labelled JOHN THE BAPTIST AS A CHILD.

Plus, most things are left to your imagination.

I used my special gift to find the channel control signal and used it to tune every single television screen to the same appalling show. I’d found it accidentally one night while channel hopping (never a good idea in the Nightside, where we get not only the whole world’s output, but also transmissions from other worlds and other dimensions), and I actually had to go and hide behind the sofa till it was over. The John Waters Celebrity Perversion Hour is the single most upsetting pornography ever produced, and now it was blasting out of dozens of screens simultaneously.

This is a 12-book series with an associated short-story collection. The series is completed, including the story arc that left you with one book that had an incomplete conclusion. But since the series is done, the single cliffhanger isn’t bad at all.  The short story collection would be a good way to see if this is your cup of tea. Simon Green is very good with short stories, which is something I particularly appreciate.

This series is not for everyone, and I wouldn’t recommend reading one book right after another, as some things can get repetitive, but it’s a fun series, and frequently made me laugh out loud. I’ve listened to some of this as audio book, and they are fine. Not my favorites, but not so awful I had to stop listening.

 

Hard Spell (2011) Justin Gustainis (Occult Crimes Unit)

This is a police procedural set in an alternate Scranton OH, where supernatural beings are out and common, and the police have to deal with crimes in that community just like they would with any other minority community.

Cops on the Supe Squad spend as much time investigating crimes committed against supes as we do on crimes with a supe perpetrator, and the supe community knows that. If a cop is fair in his dealing with them, the supes remember.

Except that there are other things to consider, which is one of the things I enjoy about this series.

“That doesn’t apply to supernaturals, of course.”

“How come?” Karl asked.

“Because the distinctions aren’t as clear. For instance, do you consider a vampire who kills people a serial killer, or just hungry?”

There are only three books in this series, which is too bad, because I find it a lot of fun. It does tend towards gruesome, and does have some of THE worst covers, but I love the take on supernatural policing.

 

 

The Grendel Affair (2013) Lisa Shearin (SPI Files)

Makenna Fraser is a Seer who has come to work for SPI (Supernatural Protection & Investigations). She grew up in a rural town where the supernatural were an open secret, so she is used to the strange—although New York has a greater variety of strange than did her home town.

To tell you the truth, our job was a lot easier when John and Suzie Q. Public didn’t know they were lucky to make it to the office every morning without getting pecked to pieces. Though that was only during the Werepigeon Infestation of 2003. Before my time, but definitely one for the agency history books.

One of my favorite things about this series is that Mac’s powers don’t give her many abilities beyond that of being able to see through all glamours, which means that she is at greater danger than her colleagues, especially since Seers are so rare and seem to have been targeted by an unknown bad guy.

She is also well-aware of her limitations, which I love even more.

I was smart enough to know and accept that I could be trained by the best and still never qualify as a badass. My goal was simply to make it to work each day and home every night.

I adore her self-awareness.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that Mac doesn’t get into situations. She comes from a law-enforcement family, so she has had the instinct to protect drilled into her, so she’s not a wimp. But it means that when something happens she has to deal with the consequences—long term.

This is a fun romp of a series with some romance, but it is not the main theme, and her romance is NOT with her partner. If you like to listen to your books, I like the narrator for this series—she does a good job with the rural accent, which I appreciate. I also love the covers of these books.  Mac and Ian are always shown in action and Mac wears reasonable clothes. I LOVE that.

 

Snake Agent (2005) Liz Williams (Detective Inspector Chen)

Snake Agent and the rest of the series are set in Singapore Three where Detective Inspector Chen is a snake agent, or police officer in charge of supernatural issues, whose wife is from Hell, a fact he fears has caused trouble with his patron goddess. In the first story Chen meets up with his eventual partner for the series, an agent from Hell.

The trouble with Hell, Zhu Irzh reflected bitterly, was not so much the palpable miasma of evil (with which he was, after all, ingrained) but the bureaucracy.

I love the characters in this series: Chen, Zhu Irzh, the Badger. All fascinate me, as does the world where the existence of Heaven and Hell are taken for granted. To be clear, this is not a Western Hell. It is an Eastern Hell, which makes it all the more fascinating for me. Take this bit from a later book:

His mother, the shrill, quarrelsome Mrs Roche, had long since passed into one of the more pleasant neighborhoods of Hell, if that wasn’t a contradiction in terms. She sometimes telephoned, a tinny, distant voice in her son’s ear, demanding to know why he was still unwed.

I adore that.

This is a lovely series of five books, each a self-contained story and mystery. The original covers are some of my all-time favorites. Utterly gorgeous.

Things have been dark recently, and I know I’ve been searching for an escape, so I thought I’d give you geeks some lists of some of my favorite escapes.

I’m starting with fantasy, and we’ll see if I want to do more beyond that. In the mean time, I’ll link back to the various posts here.

As always, if you click through one of my links to amazon and buy a book, I’ll get a few pieces of pennies that will eventually add up to MORE BOOKS.

Supernatural Mysteries:
Ben Aaronovitch , Paul Cornell, Simon R. Green, Justin Gustainis, Lisa Shearin, Liz Williams

Supernatural Fantasy, Female Protagonists:
Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs, Jeaniene Frost, Faith Hunter, Daniel O’Malley, Nicole Peeler, Carrie Vaughn

Supernatural Fantasy, Male Protagonists:
Mike Carey, Sergei Lukyanenko, Daniel José Older, Rob Thurman

Urban Fantasy:
Paul Cornell, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Jane Lindskold, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson

Fantasy, Straight Up:
Steven Brust, David Eddings, Diana Gabaldon, Barry Hughart, Ellen Kushner, Dennis L. McKiernan, Terry Pratchett, Sean Russell, Thieves’ World

Fantasy, Young Adult:
Susan Bischoff, Lish McBride, Garth Nix, Pat O’Shea, Daniel José Older, Megan Whalen Turner, Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede

Mysteries:
Police: John Burdett, Andrea Camilleri, Arnaldur Indridason, Ian Rankin
Historical: Michelle Diener, Tracy/Teresa Grant, Anna Lee Huber, Kate Ross

The unincorporated town of Droop is named for Droop Mountain, where a Civil War battle took place in 1863. The Droop Mountain State Park has preserved these sites and is both an historical site and a state park with hiking trails.

There was plenty of color, and the drive down 219 was gorgeous.

Unsurprisingly, we were too early for good fall color.

We looked. We could see no signs of a trail.

Little bit of color!

The path to cabin 8.

There was also supposed to be good color at Berkeley Springs, which was also a lie.

However, I love Berkeley Springs and love watching the air bubble up from the bottom of the springs.

The report we read said there we be good color at Berkeley Springs & Cacapon. There was color, but not good color, sadly.

But, it was a beautiful day, and we were outside, so the lack of color is only a minimal complaint.

Oh, for anyone with an electric car, Cacapon State Park has EV charging stations now.

This was taken on the Ziller Loop trail. I’m currently restricted from strenuous activity or carrying weight, so we just did a brief saunter and then walked back down.

Here’s the view from Cacapon Mountain Overlook.

Not much color, but you can see four states from there. (WV, VA, MD, PA)

Leaf color change in the Canaan / Blackwater Falls area is supposed to be mid September. The previous two weekends there was minimal color in the area, although the hikes and walks were still beautiful.

This Saturday was sunny and gorgeous and full of color. We went to Canaan Valley State Park, Freeland Boardwalk in Canaan Wilderness Refuge, and Blackwater Falls State Park.

It’s time for the books of September!

We had some beautiful weather, so we did a lot of hiking. Which is awesome. But also reduces the number of books I read. But I’m OK with that.

My favorite books of the month were Firebug by Lish McBride, a re-read of Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, and the audio books of A Rare Book of Cunning Device by Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? by Paul Cornell narrated by Damian Lynch. All are fantasy, but the first two are very different from the two audio books.

Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite authors, however, I have to be in the mood to read his stories, because they are long and intricate and fascinating and need to be read slowly. Lish McBride writes YA urban fantasy, and I really enjoy her writing.

YA Fantasy

Firebug (2014) Lish McBride (8.5/10)

Audio Books

A Rare Book of Cunning Device, Audio Short Story (2017) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (8/10)
Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? Audio Edition (2016) Paul Cornell narrated by Damian Lynch (8.5/10)
Spenser
Ceremony, Audio Book (1982/1992) Robert B. Parker narrated by Michael Prichard
The Widening Gyre, Audio Version (1983/1992) Robert B. Parker narrated by Michael Prichard (7.5/10)
Valediction, Audio Version (1984/1992) Robert B Parker narrated by Michael Prichard (7.5/10)

Fantasy

Under Heaven (2010) Guy Gavriel Kay (9/10)

Historical Mystery

A Study In Scarlet Women (2016) Sherry Thomas (6.5/10)

Historical Romance

As Luck Would Have It (2008) Alissa Johnson (7.5/10)
Tempting Fate (2009) Alissa Johnson (8/10)
McAlistair’s Fortune (2009) Alissa Johnson (8.5/10)
Destined To Last (2010) Alissa Johnson (7.5/10)
It Takes a Scandal (2014) Caroline Linden (6/10)

And now the breakdown!

eBooks : 8
Audio : 5
Re-Reads: 5

Because we traveled a good deal, and because I did a fair amount of work around the house, there were a lot of audio books.

Fantasy : 4
Mystery : 6
Romance : 4
YA : 1

The books were pretty evenly split between three different genres.

Male : 6
Female : 7

And a pretty even split between male and female authors this month.

And those are the books of September!

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about work and time and poverty.

That would be because I’m currently not working. (Short version: last year this time I was physically ill from the way my supervisor bullied me, so I quit, because I didn’t deserve to be treated that way.)

I was terrified by that decision, but almost immediately my health issues ceased, so I realized I’d made the right choice, and tried not to worry about money.

Over the spring and summer I worked for several months through a staffing agency, but instead of taking a permanent position that wouldn’t make me happy in the long run, I decided to go back to job hunting. However, that’s not the point of this.

A couple months into not working I discovered something: Except when we spent money on expensive items I was using for house projects (I re-protected our wood floors and the repaired, re-protected, and recovered the kitchen chairs), our expenses remained below our income.

I tend to be frugal with money, but I was still surprised that we weren’t hemorrhaging money. I mean, we no longer had almost half our previous income, so how we were keeping our heads above water?

After a lot of thought, I realized it came down to multiple things.

1. I’ve spent the last decade paying off debts and building up our savings.

Currently, the only debt we have is our mortgage. All student loans are paid off, the car is paid off, we have no outstanding credit card debt. This means that not only do we have a cushion, but also that the only money that has to go out each month is for the mortgage and utilities and necessities.

2. We have only one car, it is relatively new, and we have done regular maintenance on it.

When we purchased our car we focused on reliability and gas mileage, because I’ve owned unreliable cars before and I hated them. HATED them. This means that we have escaped the unexpected expenses that come with a car that breaks down, as well as the related problem of trying to finagle rides while the car is in the shop and all that time suck. (We get our car maintenance at a place within walking distance of both our house and Michael’s work. The car gets dropped off on his way to work, and picked up on his way home. Basically: no time lost.)

3. We’ve replaced every single appliance in our house since we bought it.

All those unexpected expenses of a broken furnace or washing machine have already happened. It also means that the new appliances are more energy-efficient than the old, so they cost less to run.

4. Because I am not working, I have time to bake and cook; This has decreased our food bill far more than I ever would have expected.

One reason is we no longer have days where we both come home from work and neither of us wants to make dinner. Eating at home is far cheaper than going out to eat, of course, but on top of that, buying ingredients is cheaper than buying prepared items. I’ve also had lots of time to freeze and can fruits and vegetables from the Farmers Market (I did this before, but it did take part or all of a weekend). All of which means that our food bill is much much less than it had been.

It also means that I’ve had time to expand my repertoire in the kitchen, and to get more recipes down pat, so if I don’t want to spend much time cooking, I have multiple recipes that require little time and effort, and come together quickly because I’m familiar with them. All of which means that I’m making a wider variety of dinners, which means I don’t want to go out to eat as much, since I haven’t had the same meals in rotation for a month (or year). Realizing that I can make something more delicious than I’d get at most restaurants is even further encouragement to cook, so it’s a self-rewarding cycle.

All which brings me to my point: Poverty isn’t laziness.

We can get by with less money because I have the time to do things that save money in the long run. If we were making the same amount of money and both of us were working, it would be a struggle to make ends meet, because I would no longer have the time to cook and take care of house maintenance.

But more importantly, we can get by with less money because I’m starting from a far more secure place than most people: We have a reliable car. We have savings. Our monthly bills are low because we have energy efficient appliances, a fuel efficient car, and a cheap mortgage.

Terry Pratchett of course said all this much more elegantly in Men at Arms:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. These were the kinds of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years time, when a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

We don’t have to keep repairing our car. We don’t have to keep repairing or replacing broken appliances. We don’t have to spend a lot of money on gas, because we were able to purchase a fuel-efficient car. We don’t have high utility bills, because we were able to purchase energy-efficient appliances.

We don’t have to keep buying new boots.

This is why the myth of the lazy poor outrages me so very much.

I have lived struggling to make ends meet before. Where the car breaking down not only meant a struggle to come up with the money but also time wasted trying to get around without a car. Where I had to work an exhausting job, with a schedule that changed from week to week, where my sleep patterns were constantly interrupted and I rarely get two days off in a row. And heaven forbid I get sick.

Instead, I am in a place where I spent money in the past so I could save money in the future.

Where I have the time to spend less money.

I know precisely how lucky I am to be in the situation I am and it’s not because I’m more moral or smarter or less lazy. It’s because I got lucky.

And for this, I am thankful every single day.

The Roaring Plains are only 3 miles from Dolly Sods, but aren’t quite as crowded (which is nice). We saw people on the trail, but not a constant flow, the way our last hikes at Dolly Sods have been.

Compared to last weekend, we had a relatively easy hike–most of the trail was relatively flat, with only a few steep sections.

Location: Roaring Plains West
Trail: South Prong Trail (partial)
Distance: 6.3 miles
Elevation: 3929-4217 (676 feet climb)
Temperature: 60-57 F

The view of the valleys below was mostly just out of sight. This was the best view of the hike.

But don’t think that made this a bad hike. It was a beautiful hike.

This was originally a response to a comment on someone’s FB post, but I decided this is something I feel strongly about, and want to say to more than someone in a comment thread:

I have seen about a zillion people getting upset over athletes protesting by kneeling during the national anthem. Honestly, I think most of it is jumping on the wagon based upon little or no thought.

Here’s what I think about it.

Consider the American flag. There was a huge issue years ago about the constitutionality of burning the flag as a form of protest. Lots of people threw fits about protestors buring flags, wanted them arrested, locked up, they key thrown away, etc.

Here’s the thing. I actually know the guidelines for flying and care of the flag.

• The flag should not be used as a drapery, or for covering a speakers desk, draping a platform, or for any decoration in general. Bunting of blue, white and red stripes is available for these purposes. The blue stripe of the bunting should be on the top.
• The flag should never be used for any advertising purpose. It should not be embroidered, printed or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use.
• The flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform, except that a flag patch may be used on the uniform of military personnel, fireman, policeman and members of patriotic organizations.
• When a flag is so worn it is no longer fit to serve as a symbol of our country, it should be destroyed by burning in a dignified manner.
• The flag should … displayed only between sunrise and sunset. It should be illuminated if displayed at night.

I own a flag, and I fly it on national holidays (sadly, admittedly, I often forget). When not in use that flag is ceremonially folded and stored in a safe place.

The flag and the national anthem are important and should be respected. That means making a protest using the flag or the national anthem should be done only as part of a protest or message about something the protester finds vitally important.

In the 60s and 70s that something was the Vietnam war. Currently that something is the plight of minority communities.

If you believe something strongly enough that you feel the only way to express that deeply held believe is to kneel during the national anthem or burn the flag, then you should do so. It is your right, but also, I believe, your DUTY.

I am far more offended by individuals leaving their flags out 24 x 7 unlit and uncared for because they want to be seen as “patriotic” than by someone burning the flag in political protest.

I cringe at the sight of torn and worn flags flying, because the people who are leaving them there care only about the veneer of patriotism. Literally, they want to be seen flying the flag, but they can’t be bothered to actually care for the item they are flying, or learn how to respectfully treat it.

If you believe that something is so wrong with our country that you need to burn a flag or kneel during the national anthem, then I believe it is your right–nay your moral duty–to do so. If you use the flag and the national anthem to give yourself the veneer of patriotism while acting in an utterly unpatriotic manner, that is, to me, FAR more offensive than taking a principled stand for something important to you.

Things I believe are patriotic:

• Honoring and caring for our military veterans.
• Voting in all elections.
• Being aware of all the sides of political topics and making a reasoned choice based upon your deeply held beliefs rather than what looks good to those around you.

Patriotism is not spouting political rhetoric and pretending to care about an item of cloth or a song. Patriotism is how you act, based upon your fundamental beliefs about our country.

Our last stop was Blackwater Falls State Park. Initially we were going to wander around Pendleton Point and Pendleton lake, and then hike Lindy Point trail, but we both decided we were tired, and it was time to get ice cream and head home.