<\/p>\n
Years ago magic reappeared in the world and ravaged technology\u2014dropping 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).<\/p>\n Note that I didn\u2019t 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\u2019t always love the series. The books stick in my memory, which is one prerequisite for making this list, but they don\u2019t necessarily blow me away, the way other books have.<\/p>\n Which is why Gunmetal Magic, a stand-alone that\u2019s 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\u2019s not that Kate isn\u2019t 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\u2014the group that keeps peace in a magic ravaged world when the police can\u2019t\u2014because of her childhood.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t. Raphael and Andrea both have weaknesses that I sometimes find lacking in Kate and Curran.<\/p>\n She\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n That said, there are so many things I love about this series, primarily the dialog.<\/p>\n Ave, Andrea! Ianitori te salutant!<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026Kate 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I looked up and nodded at Ascanio. \u201cGet your gear.\u201d<\/p>\n He grabbed his knife. \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo the library.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of the business. Five percent of the time you are killing monsters. The rest of the time, we\u2019re digging through the dirt for a tiny piece of the perpetrator\u2019s pubic hair.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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\u2014the ability to tell a tale in a limited space.<\/p>\n I tried listening to Gunmetal Magic<\/em> as an audio book, but we had to turn it off. I\u2019m not sure precisely what it was, but I hated the narration. So try Gunmetal Magic<\/em> or one of the many shorter stories to see what you think. It is a riveting series.<\/p>\n 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<\/em>, a lot of the books in this series have utterly awful covers.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s spin doctors who had been McBride\u2019s 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mercy Thompson, however, is a shifter\u2014unlike werewolves she changes easily into her coyote self, but she also doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s pet. He also insists the names on the tags be something innocuous like Fred or Spot, no Killers or Fangs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is so much I adore about Mercy. First, she\u2019s a VW mechanic. Which is not a typical job for a heroine. Second, she has worked hard for the skills she has.<\/p>\n I\u2019m in good shape, and I have a purple belt from the dojo just over the railroad track from my garage, but I\u2019m no match for a werewolf.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There are several male characters in this series. Adam, the head of the local pack. Samuel, Bran\u2019s 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\u2019s best friends, and his story alone was enough to keep me reading, but I do very much like Mercy\u2019s discovery of her heritage and the skills she does have as the series progresses.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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\u2019s well-worth reading, but it is hard. <\/p>\n 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\u2019ll suffer for each injury in a way the werewolves around her will not.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n There is also a short-story anthology of stories set in Mercy Thompson’s world, Shifting Shadows<\/a><\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t 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<\/a>, which features Bran\u2019s younger son, Charles, and his mate, but there are also appearances by Asil, who is possibly my favorite secondary character in that series.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Vampires and ghouls exist, but the public doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Couple things\u2014this is very much a boinking series. All her books are boinking books. But her characters are so well done and fascinating I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s story. And there are series set in the same world, several of which I\u2019ve read.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t re-read this series in a while. I keep meaning to, but then think, \u201cAm I in the mood for all this boinking?\u201d and the answer is generally no. Even if it is well-done boinking. Also, I don\u2019t yet have all these as ebooks (since I originally bought the series as mass market paperbacks.<\/p>\n This series is completed, although Kat and Bones appear occasional in other stories.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is currently one of my favorite series. I haven\u2019t 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).<\/p>\n 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\u2019t follow the rules.<\/p>\n But Jane has her own secrets\u2014she 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I looked at woman. She looked at me. At necklace on my neck. Jane\u2019s necklace.<\/p>\n \u201cJane?\u201d she whispered. \u201cOh my God. Jane.\u201d<\/p>\n I hacked. Not God. Not Jane. Beast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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\u2019ve enjoyed them and always look forward to the next book, generally reading it as soon as its published.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t always have the best people skills, so it\u2019s a joy when she finally develops close friendships and the love that goes with them (I don\u2019t mean boinking love, I mean the love you have for good friends who have stood by you).<\/p>\n I\u2019m about to say something that sounds like a contradiction, but it\u2019s 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\u2019t easily resolved, and it might take a weeks or even years and a lot of work to fix them. Although it\u2019s hard to see Jane deal with these problems for so long, it\u2019s nice to see characters actually working out their issues.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want to start this series in the middle. You do need to start at the beginning and work forward.<\/p>\n Two last notes\u2014I 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\u2019t 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\u2019t always, but I\u2019m willing to forgive that, since I know authors get little say in their covers.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Initially I was unsure about this spin-off, but quickly fell in love with it.<\/p>\n I set the shotgun on the table and got out three pottery mugs. I wasn\u2019t using John\u2019s maw-maw\u2019s good china for outsiders whom I might have to shoot later. That seemed deceitful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n She also has powers that might have gotten her killed as a child\u2014an ability to commune with the nature, specifically the land upon which she lives, but also with trees and such.<\/p>\n (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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This book has a character from Jane\u2019s books, Rick le Fleur, who is complicated in his own right. It\u2019s interesting that although he was never a favorite, I do find him rather fascinating in this series.<\/p>\n The same narrator reads this series as Jane\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Apparently, Daniel O\u2019Malley is the token male on this list of books with female protagonists.<\/p>\n This is an extremely difficulty book to describe, so I\u2019ll just give you a quote from the start of the book.<\/p>\n Dear You,<\/p>\n 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\u2019s past. After all, I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n The complicated answer could take a little more time.<\/p>\n Do you know the name of the body you are in? It\u2019s Myfanwy. Myfanwy Alice Thomas. I would say that it\u2019s my name, but you\u2019ve got the body now, so I suppose you\u2019ll be using it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p>\n (T)he most effective psychics are the ones who never realize they\u2019re 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I really liked this book and its sequel, and am sorry there doesn\u2019t seem to be another book forthcoming. The writing is sharp and the dialog is snarky and the story is just plain fun.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Second, Jane True feels like an actual, normal, human woman. Take this passage, that still amuses me.<\/p>\n \u2026I wiped my nose on his shirt. I was snotty from crying and he was already filthy. It wasn\u2019t ideal but he was holding me so tight I couldn\u2019t move my arms.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you just wipe your nose on me?\u201d he asked, finally. His voice was tight with various emotions, but \u201coh no you didn\u2019t\u201d had clawed its way to the top of the list.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe,\u201d I mumbled, peering up at him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That still cracks me up, because it\u2019s so something that happens in real life but never gets mentioned in books.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s not an issue anymore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kitty was attacked and savaged by a werewolf and her life hasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n On her radio talk show she discusses weres and vampires and other things with callers. Outsiders think it\u2019s tongue-in-cheek, but really it\u2019s Kitty\u2019s way of saving herself.<\/p>\n If vampires ever spend less time playing theatrics and living down to their stereotypes, they might actually take over the world someday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p>\n This series also has my favorite vampire ever.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the jokes about blood and the Eucharist aside\u2014 I can\u2019t walk into a church anymore. I can\u2019t go to Mass. And I can\u2019t kill myself because that\u2019s wrong. Catholic doctrine teaches that my soul is lost, that I\u2019m a blot on God\u2019s creation. But Kitty\u2014 that\u2019s not what I feel. Just because my heart has stopped beating doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ve lost my soul, does it?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n She wrote a short story about Rick the vampire, \u201cConquistador de la Noche\u201d 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, \u201cDefining Shadows\u201d, which appeared in Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations<\/a><\/em> (2013) edited by Paula Guran<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019ve generally gravitated towards series where each book contains a completed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pefxA-3x6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/gunmetal-magic.jpg?resize=186%2C300\")
<\/a>Gunmetal Magic<\/a><\/em> (2012) Ilona Andrews<\/a> (World of Kate Daniels)<\/p>\n
\nHis enthusiasm visibly deflated and he emitted a tragic sigh. \u201cBut \u2018library\u2019 and \u2018kick-ass\u2019 are two concepts that don\u2019t usually go together.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/moon-called.jpg?resize=186%2C300\")
<\/a>Moon Called<\/a><\/em> (2006) Patricia Briggs<\/a> (Mercy Thompson)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/Halfway-to-the-Grave.jpg?resize=183%2C300\")
<\/a>Halfway to the Grave<\/a><\/em> (2007) Jeaniene Frost<\/a> (Night Huntress)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Skinwalker.jpg?resize=185%2C300\")
<\/a>Skinwalker<\/a><\/em> (2009) Faith Hunter<\/a> (Jane Yellowrock)<\/p>\n![\"bloodoftheearth\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/bloodoftheearth.jpg?resize=186%2C300\")
<\/a>Blood of the Earth<\/a><\/em> (2016) Faith Hunter<\/a> (Soulwood)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/TheRook.png?resize=197%2C300\")
<\/a>The Rook<\/a><\/em> (2012) Daniel O\u2019Malley<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/Tempest-Rising.jpg?resize=184%2C300\")
<\/a>Tempest Rising<\/a><\/em> (2009) Nicole Peeler<\/a> (Jane True)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Kittys-Greatest-Hits.jpg?resize=198%2C300\")
<\/a>Kitty\u2019s Greatest Hits<\/a><\/em> (2011) Carrie Vaughn<\/a> (Kitty Norville)<\/p>\n