“Inspirations and Influences” is a series of articles in which we invite authors to write guest posts talking about their…well, Inspirations and Influences. The cool thing is that the writers are given free reign so they can go wild and write about anything they want. It can be about their new book, series or about their career as a whole.

Today we have the lovely Mira Grant (also known as Seanan McGuire) over. Mira is the author of the brand spankin’ new Newsflesh trilogy; book 1, Feed was just released at the end of last month (you can check out Thea’s review HERE). To celebrate the release of Feed, we decided to invite Mira Grant to talk about her new book and her Inspirations and Influences.

Please give it up for Mira Grant!

Hi, Ana and Thea! Thank you so much for inviting me to do an Inspirations and Influences post for you. I’m really excited. And not just because I haven’t actually slept since December.

The question “where do you get your inspiration?” sort of drives me crazy, largely because my answer tends to drive everybody else crazy. I was literally once inspired to write a book by the combination of jetlag, a woman on the plane to London who was wearing a sweater the same color as mine, and trying to navigate the Tube system while I was so tired that my eyes were crossing. Another book—actually another series, but that’s another story—basically grew out of listening to a Counting Crows song while half-asleep and commuting.

Okay. So a lot of my ideas start with sleep deprivation. But today, I’m going to talk about the inspirations for the Newsflesh Trilogy, and for Feed in specific.

I love horror movies. The first movie I consciously remember watching was Alien. I was three. When I was eight, my cat got a burr in her eye. After a midnight trip to the emergency vet to have the burr removed—the cat was fine, in case you were worried—we returned to the house, and my mother let me watch The Blob on Channel 20 to calm down before I went to bed. (I did not go to school the next day.) This has basically wired my adult brain to follow certain logical paths. Never say “Be careful” or “I’ll be right back.” Never go outside to see what that noise was, because it wasn’t the wind. And never, never date a man named Johnny.

My passion for horror movies might just have resulted in my having a really weird DVD collection (which it did). Unfortunately for my mother’s sanity, I went and combined it with a highly analytical mind, and a tendency to pick things to pieces. Why did the monster want to eat people? How did the vampires decide who to convert into their undying companions, and who to treat as a Happy Meal with legs? If King Kong had been eating women for years, what was it about the blonde chick that really got to him? The list went on, and drove most of the adults around me crazy. Even after I became an adult, it kept driving most of the adults around me crazy, as they were forced to sit through my analysis of the horror movie of the week as I twisted it to start, well…making sense.

So I love horror. And I love things that make sense. That, more than anything, was the initial genesis of the Newsflesh Trilogy. What would it take to set up a classic horror movie apocalypse, and have it make sense? Real, solid, pick-it-apart sense? I started chewing on the question, and decided that the best apocalypse—where “best” is defined as “the most fun for me”—was the zombie apocalypse.

I love zombies. But I bet you guessed that part.

One of the most illogical things about your standard horror apocalypse is the way nobody in a horror movie has ever seen a horror movie. They hear the funny noise and they go running toward it. Their loved ones come shambling into the room with blood circling their mouths, and they hug, rather than aiming for the head. I know too many people with apocalypse plans and weapons in their closets to believe that things would go that bad, that fast. So what happens when you combine the apocalypse with a world that actually knows how to react? And how would those people share information in a fast, efficient manner?

Enter the Internet. Thanks to social media and the blogging community, a whisper is now capable of circling the globe in less time than it takes to shout. So say the Internet gets involved in the zombie apocalypse. How much difference will it really make? And what will the mainstream news media have to say about the things that are going on out there in the world? Probably nothing good.

So I started tinkering with my apocalypse. I spent, oh, about a year having a happy apocalypse party to which all my friends were invited, whether they wanted to be or not. It was the end of the world, and they knew it (many of them did not feel fine). And in the process of hashing out my apocalypse, I realized…I didn’t want to write that. It’s been done. By everybody. If you’re going to tell a zombie story, you’re going to tell the apocalypse. So screw it, I said. I’m not going to write the apocalypse.

I’m going to write what comes after.

The Newsflesh Trilogy is about the world as it exists twenty years after the dead rose, the Internet mobilized, and we managed to come out on the other side still kicking. Everything has changed. Everything. The whole structure of society has shifted, because the threat of the dead isn’t going away. The virus that caused the initial outbreak is still around, and everyone in the world is infected, making all of them quietly ticking time bombs just waiting to blow.

But that’s setting. That’s not story. Story arrived later, in my friend Michael’s kitchen. I was complaining—okay, whining—about the fact that I had this fantastic world and nothing to set there. He looked at me, and asked, “Well, have you considered writing about a Presidential campaign?”

I’m pretty sure he was just trying to shut me up. That doesn’t really matter, because the question had been asked, and the snowball was rolling down the hill, gathering speed as it went. Before dinner was over, I had a protagonist, Georgia Mason, named after George Romero—like half of her generation—with a serious yearning for the truth. I had her adopted brother, Shaun. Both of them were reporters, working in different facets of the Internet news media. And they were going to follow a man along the campaign trail, hoping for a crack at the truth.

Another friend of mine asked another question later in the process, this one about the way my zombies worked, and changed everything all over again. But that was two hundred pages in, and that’s another story.

When will you rise?

About the Author: Seanan McGuire is the good twin. Mira Grant is the evil twin. One of them is planning to destroy the world one day, but no one’s really quite sure which one it is, and nobody really wants to ask. When not plotting world domination or watching horror movies, Seanan writes semi-constantly, which explains how she’s completing three books a year. The lack of sleep probably helps with that, too. She studied folklore in school, and continues to study zombies and pandemic disease as a hobby. She sometimes claims to be the lost Disney Princess of Halloweentown. There’s a good chance that she’s right.

Seanan McGuire and Mira Grant live in the same body, and the body lives in Northern California, which has three seasons, Dry, Wet, and Actively On Fire. Feed is her third book, and the first published under the name Mira Grant.

Ana and Thea will now give things away. I appreciate this. They will not, however, give you a zombie army.

Sorry.

Thank you Mira/Seanan! And now, for the giveaway.

Giveaway Details:

We are giving away ONE copy of Feed to a lucky reader! Entry is simple – just leave a comment here telling us what your favorite apocalyptic horror book/film/tv show/comic is. The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada only, and will run until Saturday, May 8 at 11:59 PM (PST). Only ONE comment per person, please! Multiple comments WILL be disqualified. Good luck!

Title: Feed

Author: Mira Grant

Genre: Horror, Thriller, Zombies

Publisher: Orbit (US & UK)
Publication Date: April 2010 (US) / May 2010 (UK)
Paperback: 608 pages

EVERYONE HAS SOMEONE ON THE WALL

Shaun and Georgia are orphans of the Rising, the cataclysmic event which left the world reeling in the aftermath of the zombie uprising. Adopted by the Masons and raised in the strange world of the post-Rising media, they’ve spent their lives chasing the next big story, the one that will allow them to break into the big leagues once and for all. Now, in Senator Peter Ryman’s run for the Presidency of the United States, they’ve finally found it.

All they have to do is survive until the election.

In a world filled with the constant threat of both the living and the living dead, it will be all that Shaun and Georgia can do to keep themselves in one piece. Accompanied by the rest of their blogging team, Senator Ryman’s staff, and a whole lot of caffeine, they might succeed…or they might finally answer the big question of their post-Rising world: When will you rise?

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in the Newsflesh Trilogy

How did I get this book: Bought my copy (at the LA Times Festival of Books!)

Why did I read this book: It’s no surprise that I am a fan of Seanan McGuire’s – her October Daye series is one of my current favorites in the Urban Fantasy (sub)genre. SO, when I heard that the lovely Ms. McGuire would be writing an entirely new, totally different series – featuring politics, blogs and zombies – I was ecstatic. Writing under the name Mira Grant, Feed was as irresistible to me as brains are to zombies.

Review:

Kellis-Amberlee – such a pretty name for such a deadly, combined virus.

In the year 2014, a young girl, Amberlee, was cured of her terminal Leukemia. In the same year, one Dr. Kellis created a bold new rhinovirus strain that would cure the common cold. In an unfortunate confluence of events, the two viruses combined, creating an airborne hybrid that quickly replicated and swept across the face of the planet. Sickness was invariably cured – cancer and the sniffles became things of the past. But the new virus, Kellis-Amberlee, also had a peculiar side effect – namely, raising the dead. Those with weaker immune systems, those with direct, fluid contact with high quantities of the virus were the first to reanimate. The virus infected animals (with sufficiently large bodymass) and humans alike, causing a worldwide panic, and an all out war with the undead.

Twenty years later, Kellis-Amberlee is still humanity’s largest threat though it has been beaten back and contained through strict testing and regulatory procedures. In addition to wiping out a large portion of the population and reanimating the dead, KA also caused a shift in power. In the media, traditional outlets were sluggish to respond to “the rising,” bound by their myriad ties to governments and companies hesitant to give heed to crazy accounts. The new media – that is, news bloggers – were faster, more accurate, and helped inform the public how to defend itself in a time when defense and knowledge were sparse – and ever since the summer of the Rising of KA, bloggers have remained the highest rated source for the truth.

Feed follows Georgia “George” Mason (a by the book “newsie”), her foster brother Shaun Mason (a daredevil “Irwin”) and Georgette “Buffy” Mesonnier (a dreamy creative) – a team of successful, highly rated news bloggers who are selected to follow Republican Presidential candidate Senator Peter Ryman on his run for the highest office in the nation. As members of Ryman’s press corp, George and her team have the break of a lifetime. Their ratings skyrocket, and the ever-skeptical and pessimistic George finds herself believing in Senator Ryman’s message. But things are never so simple, and when the Senator’s campaign, his well-being, and his family come under brutal attack, George and her crew will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the matter and to bring out the truth – even if it means their own lives are at risk.

After all, everyone is already infected with Kellis-Amberlee. It’s only a matter of time before it takes over each and every host on the planet.

When I started Feed, I was under the impression that it was more of a horror novel – which isn’t really true. Feed is more of a thriller – a political thriller, a medical thriller, all wrapped up in one delightful undead package. Instead of copious amounts of gore, flesh-eating, decapitation, etc, the dominant theme in Feed is that of uncovering truth, at any cost. It is undoubtedly a zombie novel, but it’s not a book about killing zombies. It has action in spades, but the true carnage is on the human – not the undead – level. It’s a horror novel, but the terror lies in the actions of human nature, much more so than the supernatural fear of the walking dead. Like the most memorable works in the zombie canon, Feed uses its zombies (those reanimated corpses teeming with Kellis-Amberlee) to examine humanity. And this, dear readers, is really goddamn cool.

More than anything else, I loved the amount of thought Ms. Grant put into writing this book. Feed is INCREDIBLY detailed; George’s world is fleshed out, from the genesis of the deadly pathogen to the constant vigilance required living with this airborne virus. Ms. Grant’s vision of a future American ravaged by KA is grimly complete. Nothing occurs in a vacuum in Feed, and rather than glossing over any details (or creating some stupid hokey explanation for the emergence of the virus *cough*28DaysLater*cough*), Ms. Grant uses George to fully explore all social, scientific and historical aspects of KA. The benefit of having such an intelligent and well-tuned in narrator is the fact that George knows everything that has happened and can explain it all. Historical context, the political game (i.e. tobacco companies’ unabashed rise to power since cigarettes no longer cause cancer), laws concerning animals…Ms. Grant covers it all. I loved the actual detail level of the disease itself, too – for example, mutations are present, and some characters like George suffer different forms of Kellis-Amberlee. In Geroge’s case, she suffers from retinal KA, rendering her pupils permanently dilated (meaning she cannot go anywhere without strong, filtered sunglasses to preserve her retinas; it also means that she cannot pass any retinal scan for KA, as her test results will always come out positive – think of it like living with a positive TB test).

I loved the idea that news bloggers would end up taking over traditional media outlets when the world falls apart (hey, as a blogger, this feels really cool). *As an aside, the whole ‘bloggers being the harbingers for the zombie apocalypse’ thing felt very reminiscent of Romero’s Diary of the Dead – which, while self-indulgent and not a very good movie, is an intriguing concept, and one I think Ms. Grant delivers on exceptionally well.* Plot-wise, Feed also shines. Though it’s pretty easy to guess, ultimately, who is behind the sabotage and attacks on Senator Ryman and the End of Times crew, the pacing is brisk, and the various clues/revelations flow unimpeded to a dramatic – shocking, heartbreaking! – conclusion.

I loved the characters, too – George, her foster brother Shaun and the (odd combination) tech-savant/poet Buffy make a wonderful team that balances each other out perfectly. Note their names too – George for Romero (and in my heart, the beloved George of my Nancy Drew days!), Shaun (of the Dead), and Buffy (the Vampire Slayer). Each balances the other, creating not only a winsome news team, but a cast that readers genuinely care about. I loved the close relationship between George and Shaun, even if it did feel a little bit weird at times (sharing a room together, voluntarily), but it makes sense given all they have been through together.

While there was a lot to love with Feed, one of its greatest strengths also was its greatest hinderance, in this reader’s opinion. Feed is very, very wordy. Very exposition-y. George is knowledgeable and explains everything in her inner narrative – there are literally pages and pages where heroine Geroge is relating details of her world, from Kellis-Amberlee, anecdotes about the Rising, political info, etc – and she does it all without really “talking” to anyone (i.e. this running narrative is completely, solely for the reader’s benefit and understanding). It is cool to see this kind of detail, but these passages could also be a bit wearying, not to mention unrealistic (no one, not even George, recalls all these details to themselves!). The level of detail is really, really awesome, but it comes at a price.

That said, this is a minor flaw in a solid book. I truly enjoyed Feed, and eagerly await the release of Deadline.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot—in this case, my brother Shaun—deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens. As if we didn’t already know what happens when you mess with a zombie: The zombie turns around and bites you, and you become the thing you poked. This isn’t a surprise. It hasn’t been a surprise for more than twenty years, and if you want to get technical, it wasn’t a surprise then.

When the infected first appeared—heralded by screams that the dead were rising and judgment day was at hand—they behaved just like the horror movies had been telling us for decades that they would behave. The only surprise was that this time, it was really happening.

There was no warning before the outbreaks began. One day, things were normal; the next, people who were supposedly dead were getting up and attacking anything that came into range. This was upsetting for everyone involved, except for the infected, who were past being upset about that sort of thing. The initial shock was followed by running and screaming, which eventually devolved into more infection and attacking, that being the way of things. So what do we have now, in this enlightened age twenty-six years after the Rising? We have idiots prodding zombies with sticks, which brings us full circle to my brother and why he probably won’t live a long and fulfilling life.

“Hey, George, check this out!” he shouted, giving the zombie another poke in the chest with his hockey stick. The zombie gave a low moan, swiping at him ineffectually. It had obviously been in a state of full viral amplification for some time and didn’t have the strength or physical dexterity left to knock the stick out of Shaun’s hands. I’ll give Shaun this much: He knows not to bother the fresh ones at close range. “We’re playing patty-cake!”

“Stop antagonizing the locals and get back on the bike,” I said, glaring from behind my sunglasses. His current buddy might be sick enough to be nearing its second, final death, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a healthier pack roaming the area. Santa Cruz is zombie territory. You don’t go there unless you’re suicidal, stupid, or both. There are times when even I can’t guess which of those options applies to Shaun.

“Can’t talk right now! I’m busy making friends with the locals!”

“Shaun Phillip Mason, you get back on this bike right now, or I swear to God, I am going to drive away and leave you here.”

Shaun looked around, eyes bright with sudden interest as he planted the end of his hockey stick at the center of the zombie’s chest to keep it at a safe distance. “Really? You’d do that for me? Because ‘My Sister Abandoned Me in Zombie Country Without a Vehicle’ would make a great article.”

“A posthumous one, maybe,” I snapped. “Get back on the goddamn bike!”

“In a minute!” he said, laughing, and turned back toward his moaning friend.

In retrospect, that’s when everything started going wrong.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Speaking of awesome, check out the wicked cool website for Feed, courtesy of Orbit. The site has some truly great bonus material related to the book (campaign trail tidbits, Irwin info, etc). Check it out HERE.

Make sure to stop by later in the day as Mira Grant joins us for an Inspirations & Influences post!

Rating: 7 – Very Good, leaning towards an 8

Reading Next: In Her Name: First Contact by Michael Hicks

Happy Sunday, one and all!

We hope you’ve had a good weekend. Before we delve into yet another week of book mayhem, we’ve got some assorted tidbits to share… (I apologize in advance, as this post is kind of long)

Arthur C. Clarke Award:

Last week, the Arthur C. Clarke Award – the most prestigious SF award in the United Kingdom – was bestowed on China Miéville (again), for his novel The City and the City. (He had previously won the award for Perdido Street Station in 2001, and Iron Council in 2005. This win is the kick in the pants we’ve needed to read The City and the City – we’re planning a Miéville Day in June (Thea is dying to read Kraken). We’ll keep you posted.

Hark! Is That A Flying Pig?

A release date – a final, carved in stone release date – has been set for the long awaited second novel in the Kingkiller Chronicles. That’s right folks. Patrick Rothfuss has announced that The Wise Man’s Fear will be completed by the end of the year, with a release date of March 1, 2011. Time to start marking those calendars…

Trailers All Over The Place:

Have you seen these bad boys? I really like the new “Birth of a Spartan” Halo trailer (here’s the extended cut):

There’s this new SF/horror film called Splice coming out soon too, and it looks awesome (I adore Sarah Polly & Adrian Brody):

Speaking of horror, there’s also the second trailer for the new George A. Romero film (to be released Video On Demand) that looks like awesome fun too:

And finally, if you missed it on PBS this Wednesday, you can still watch it online for free – David Tennant (aka the 10th Doctor Who) and Patrick Stewart (aka…well, Patrick Stewart needs no introduction) starred in a new rendition of Hamlet. And it is awesome. Just check out Tennant’s delivery of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy.

To Me, Gunslingers!

After sitting on the adaptation rights to Stephen King’s magnum opus, his Dark Tower series, the LOST team of JJ Abrams, Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse apparently have returned those rights to Stephen King….

And now Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman are looking to pick up them up. As much as I love LOST (and believe me, I love LOST a lot in spite of its many missteps and ridiculously cliched dialogue), I was nervous about the Darlton/Abrams take on my favorite series of all time. Ron Howard has an awesome track record with book to film adaptations, so I’m stoked on that front, at least. Akiva Goldsman has won an Oscar for his adaptation of A Beautiful Mind…but he’s also written some pretty bad films. See Batman and Robin. I’m scared. But I really hope this works out.

A Suckfest on Elm Street:

This weekend, I saw the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street – generally, I try to stay away from Michael Bay’s shameless, soulless remakes of horror films, but because of the stroke of brilliance casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, I was guardedly optimistic about this movie. Holy piles of steaming dog poop, Batman, but this was TERRIBLE. I’m talking, gouge-my-eyeballs out with splintered chopsticks bad. It was poorly acted, retardedly directed (apparently Mr. Bayer ONLY knows how to shoot extreme closeups and nothing else), and utterly NON-scary. I mean, they couldn’t even get a single “BOOM!” scare. Now how exactly does one screw that up?.

Jackie Earle Haley’s performance as Fred Krueger is the only high point of the film – he’s ridiculously creepy, and his Rorschach-voce totally works. I also liked the new backstory they gave Freddy, which makes the town’s coverup (and children’s lost memories) much more plausible.

Bottom line: I actually FELL ASLEEP in the theater during the movie’s climactic scene. In a movie about a man that kills you in your dreams, how’s that for ironic?

Free Comic Book Day & Thor:

This Saturday was international Free Comic Book Day (the first Saturday in May, each year), and my shop was having an awesome gathering. Folks dressed as assorted superheroes stood soliciting customers from the street (Gambit, Rogue, and Green Lantern (John Stewart, represent!) were my favorites), there was a Superman bounce house, a DJ, and hotdogs grilling outside the store. Inside it was a madhouse too, but in a good way. Along with my bag of free comics, I also got a couple of SWEET posters. Case in point:

And on the comic book (and oddly, Star Trek) note, the first image of Thor has been revealed (via io9 and Yahoo Movies). Ohoho! We likey.

(If you’re wondering who the actor is playing Dr. Blake/Thor, it’s Chris Hemsworth, you might remember him from Star Trek last year – George Kirk, who met his ill, heroic fate in the movie’s opening scene.)

(Does anyone else get teary just thinking about that scene? It gets me every time. That and the opening of Up.)

This Week On The Book Smugglers:

It’s another busy one here (lolz, like, when is it not?)! On Monday, Ana reviews The Prince of Mist by one of her most beloved authors, Carlos Ruiz Zafon – a young adult novel that has just been translated to English.

On Tuesday, Ana reviews Shade, Jeri Smith-Ready’s newest novel and the first book in her young adult UF series. Later in the day, Thea reviews one of her most highly anticipated books of the year – Lies by the ever-so-talented (and seriously twisted) Michael Grant.

Wednesday, Devon Monk is our guest author of the day! To celebrate the release of Magic on the Storm, the fourth novel in the Allie Beckstrom series, Devon will be talking Inspirations & Influences. AND you’ll have a chance to win a copy of her latest release.

On Thursday, Thea reviews Feed, author Mira Grant’s take on the zombie apocalypse, presidential elections, and the new media (seriously!). And, later in the day we’ll have Mira Grant (a pseudonym for UF author Seanan McGuire) over with an Inspirations & Influences post of her own.

We close out the week with a joint review of military science fiction novel In Her Name: First Contact by the awesome Michael Hicks.

And…that’s about it from us today! As always, we remain…

Title: A Local Habitation

Author: Seanan McGuire

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: Daw
Publication Date: March 2 2010
MMP: 400 pages

Stand alone or series: Book 2 in the October Daye series

Toby Daye-a half-human, half-fae changeling-has been an outsider from birth. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the fae world, retreating to a “normal” life. Unfortunately for her, the Faerie world had other ideas…

Now her liege, the Duke of the Shadowed Hills, has asked Toby to go to the Country of Tamed Lightening to make sure all is well with his niece, Countess January O’Leary. It seems like a simple enough assignment-until Toby discovers that someone has begun murdering people close to January, and that if the killer isn’t stopped, January may be the next victim.

Why did we read this book: We both read and lovedthe first in the series

How did we get this book: We both received ARCs from the author

REVIEW

First Impressions:

Ana: Rosemary and Rue was one of my favourite books from 2009 and one of the best debuts I ever read. I absolutely loved it and I have been waiting anxiously to read A Local Habitation ever since. And what can I say? It surpasses my expectations and it is an even better book than the first one because it maintains the top quality of the writing, of the world-building and the character-driven narrative at the same time that it resolves some of the minor issues I had with the previous book (but more on that later).

Thea: I truly enjoyed Seanan McGuire’s first book in this series, Rosemary & Rue – and as someone that is largely burnt out on Urban Fantasy, this is sayin’ a LOT. So, I was more than eager to read A Local Habitation, and when Seanan Mcguire offered us an ARC, we jumped at the opportunity! And I’m happy to say that A Local Habitation is just as winsome and compulsively readable as Rosemary & Rue. I completely agree with Ana on this one; A Local Habitation takes the intriguing world and characters from the first novel, and builds upon it, creating an altogether awesome reading experience.

On The Plot:

Ana: It’s been a few months since the events of Rosemary and Rue and Toby is still adapting to life as human. She is working as a PI in San Francisco distanced from the Faerie world. But as a Knight of Shadowed Hills, when her Liege, the Duke Sylvester tasks her to investigate the possible disappearance of his niece January, she can’t say no. Toby then travels to the county of Tamed Lightening, in the company of Quentin a foster of the court. There she finds out that January might be alive and well but some of her friends have been murdered in mysterious circumstances. Toby launches a murder investigation which turns out to be more dangerous than she originally thought.

Open parenthesis. Let me start by saying that the book opens with a GREAT scene between Toby and her friend/not-friend Tybalt, a scene full of snark and awesome dialogue that had be giggling like a lunatic. This means that from the get go, I am already predisposed to enjoy the book because the Tybalt and Toby relationship is one of my favoritest things about the series. Close parenthesis.

In terms of plotting, I thought A Local Habitation to be perfectly well-balanced in terms of drama, suspense, character development always with the background of court intrigue and politics.

Even though I totally called both major plot points, one about a character and who the main culprit was, (damn me and my Agatha Christie addition), I was still very much sucked in, because I never guessed the motivation and once all was said and done, it fit perfectly with the overall story: Seanan McGuire seems to be deftly expanding and exploring her world by shaping it to new realities as well as revealing them to the reader. I was enchanted – no other work for it, with the new things I discovered about the different types of beings in this world.

One of the issues both Thea and I with the first book was how Toby, even though she was PI, she ended up reacting more than acting in her investigative process. This time around, I thought her to be much more in-practice and I totally bought her role as a PI, although in certain sequences I was immensely frustrated at how she simply did not ask the right questions or was more decisive. Nevertheless, definite progress was made.

Thea: What Ana said. I think that in terms of story, A Local Habitation balances action, mystery and character very well. Paced at a nice cruising speed, it’s a book that can be read fairly quickly. Even more, it’s actually a book that someone new to the series could probably pick up and not be lost in the reading – which is both a good and a bad thing. On the positive side, Ms. McGuire summarizes things nicely in this book, allowing new readers to jump in without feeling lost. On the negative end of the spectrum, however, I was disappointed with the lack of continuity between this book and the first novel – as Ana says, the storyline of Toby and her former husband and daughter are almost completely ignored in this book, as are all of the soul-searching questions and heartache Toby dealt with in Rosemary & Rue. I like that the plot is moving onward and upward, but I do wish there was more examination of these prior issues and problems from the first book in this second novel. (However, looking on the bright side again, this means there’s more material to cover in the next book in the series!)

From a pure plotting standpoint, as a mystery novel, A Local Habitation is a good yarn, if a little bit predictable. You know who the villain is from the get-go, and as Ana remarks (man, we are on the same wavelength today!) it’s frustrating to see a character as sharp as Toby having such DUH! moments, not connecting the dots or asking the painfully obvious questions. That said, this is a plot device that many authors do like to use (Richelle Mead is notorious for this in her Succubus and Vampire Academy books), and boils down to a matter of taste. I like a little less transparency, but what the hell do I know!

These complaints aside, I do have to say that Seanan McGuire has a knack for writing a damn good story. The popular wave of Urban Fantasy is dominated by vampires and shapeshifters, but Ms. McGuire’s fey creatures are memorable and distinct. Plus, can I just say how much I love that she has a pronunciation guide at the front of the book for all the tricky Gaelic fey names and classifications (of the countless times I have seen different variations of “Sidhe” in novels, I only now know how to pronounce it).

And on one last note, I gotta say I agree with Ana re:Tybalt. He’s fun, and I do so love the interactions between he and Toby (awww, Tybalt and Toby!).

On the Characters:

Ana: If the plot works and is what really propels the novel, the characters are what give its flair. Starting with the protagonist Toby. As a Daoine Sidhe changeling (half Faerie, half human – not really any of those things or maybe two much of both?) she has the ability to garner memories from people’s blood. That in itself is a major source of conflict because she is not as powerful as her mother (one of the best Blood Riders) and has to live up to her fame. We also mentioned before that one of the best things about Toby is how underpowered she is but that will never stop her from doing what she absolutely has to do. In Rosemary and Rue she was constantly in danger and at the brink of death. It is not very different here, but this time around, she is very much conscious of her limitations and she carries around a baseball bat and a knife for example. It is good and refreshing to see a heroine who learns from her mistakes.

Although she is prone to making new ones: like for example in her relationship with Connor. The guy is married to someone who is 1) powerful and 2) hates Toby’s guts. What exactly does Toby think she is doing by getting so close? I didn’t like Connor in the first book and he is slightly more palatable here (ok,much more palatable) and they clearly have a sweet story but still. Danger, Will Robinson much?

The author does not visit her relationship with her former fiancée and daughter as I had hoped (in fact I don’t remember Toby thinking about the kid once), I understood that it would have been out of place to do so given the circumstances. Some threads from the previous book are explored further though like Toby relationship with the Luidaeg and her guilt over Dare’s death. Those are intrinsic part of the character now, expertly handled by the author. Her relationship with the Luidaeg breaches themes such as loneliness and being out of place and her guilt towards Dare goes back to the basis of Toby’s personality: how very loyal she can be to the people she cares about or has vowed to protect. Which brings me to Quentin: I love the kid. His arc from one book to another was great and his relationship with Toby and the way it develops was awesome. I was constantly worrying about him just like Toby was.

Finally, Tybalt: I love you. That scene at the beginning of the novel when you carry Toby in your arms? I nearly swooned. I knew before and I am 100% sure now that you love her even as you snark and complain and bitch. Because I see through you Tybalt, you are just like a cat pretending that you don’t care when you SO do – and we all know that snark is a sign of love in the hands of a great writer. Do you know when you thought Alex had attacked Toby and you nearly killed him WITH YOUR OWN HANDS (er, claws), I nearly swooned again. Really, please forget about any animosity and the fact that you are a King of Cats (*swoons one more time*) and just DO SOMETHING ALREADY. I am sure that deep down, Toby reciprocates. Like, deep down. Ta muchly. Yours 4evah, Ana.

Thea: Ana, you are such a romantic, it’s hilarious. From the instant I saw the book opened with Tybalt, I *knew* I’d have to bust out the virtual smelling salts to revive you from your constant state of swoondom. That said, I’m with you on the Tybalt love though – what an awesome, fun character. You know what the Toby-Tybalt dynamic reminds me of? Kate Daniels and Curran, the early days. (And, as any fans of Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series know, this is a pretty sweet league to be in.) Hell, Tybalt’s also a cat-king! Coincidence? I think not…

While Tybalt is a great, attention-capturing (and, in Ana’s case, swoon-inducing) character, let’s not forget who really makes this series awesome: the lovely miss October Daye. I just want to reiterate how awesomeit is that Toby is a heroine that is severely under-powered. One of the Daoine Sidhe, Toby is a changeling – that is, half human – which means her mother’s formidable blood magic is pretty diluted in her, and she ranks at grub level on the power food chain. In a genre filled with fairy princess warriors with every conceivable magical gift, it’s refreshing to see how a heroine like Toby must rely on her intellect and instincts – rather than Supreme!Powers! – to survive. Add to that Toby’s grounded nature (neither a hardass bitch nor a simpering damsel in distress), and her believable narrative voice, and you’ve got one of the best new UF heroines to grace the page in a while. Yeah, she has her duh moments (as mentioned above), but overall? She’s a winsome character that learns from her past mistakes.

Final Thoughts, Observations and Rating:

Ana: If you can’t tell, I loved this book, I love this series. Seanan McGuire is now an autobuy and her main character Toby, is definitely one of my favourite UF heroines. This is officially one of my favourite reads of the year so far and I can’t wait for the third book An Artificial Night which comes out in September.

Thea: Another solid entry from the talented, imaginative Seanan McGuire. I cannot wait for Toby’s next adventure later this year!

Notable Quotes/ Parts: From the first chapter, Toby and Tybalt’s encounter:

Several pixies had congregated around a corner store’s front-porch bug zapper, using toothpicks as skewers for roasting a variety of insects. I stopped to watch them, taking the pause as an opportunity to get my balance back. One of them saw me looking and flitted over to hover in front of my nose, scowling.

“S’okay,” I informed it, with drunken solemnity. “I can see you.” It continued to hang there, expression turning even angrier. “No, really, it’s okay. I’m Dao…Dao…I’m a changeling.” Whoever was responsible for naming the fae races should really have put more thought into making them pronounceable when drunk.

It jabbed the toothpick in my direction. I blinked, perplexed.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want any of your moth.”

“He’s offering to stab you, not feed you. I suppose the difference is trivial, but still, one assumes you’d want to avoid finding that out first-hand.” The voice behind me was smooth as cream and aristocratically amused. The pixie backpedaled in mid-air, nearly dropping his toothpick as he went racing back to the flock. They were gone in seconds, leaving nothing but faint trails of shimmering dust in the air.

“Hey!” I turned, crossing my arms and glaring. “I was talking to him!”

Tybalt eyed me with amusement, which just made me glare harder. “No, you were inciting him to stab you with a toothpick. Again, the difference is small, but I think it matters.”

My glare faded into bewilderment. “Why was he gonna stab me? I was just saying hi. And he came over here first. I wasn’t saying anything before he came over.”

“Finally, a sensible question.” Tybalt reached out to brush my hair back behind one ear, tapping it with the side of his thumb. “Round ears, blue eyes, smell of magic buried under the smell of alcohol…it’s the perfect disguise. Well done. Although it doesn’t suit you.” My confusion didn’t fade. Tybalt sighed. “You look human, October. He was protecting his flock.”

“I said I was a changeling!”

“And he, quite sensibly, didn’t believe you.”

“Oh!” I blinked, reddening. “Oops.” Then I frowned. “What do you mean, it doesn’t suit me? I like this skirt!”

Tybalt pulled his hand away, stepping back to study me. I returned the favor, looking him up and down.

As the local King of Cats and the most powerful Cait Sidhe in San Francisco, Tybalt rarely bothers to go anywhere that requires him to wear a human disguise. As far as I can tell, it’s not that he feels it’s beneath him; it’s just that he doesn’t care enough about the human side of the city to bother interacting with them. This was one of the few times I’d seen him passing for human, and he wore it well. Tall, lean, and angular, he held himself with a predatory air that would translate into feline grace when he moved. His dark brown hair was short, curly, and banded with streaks of black that mimicked the stripes on a tabby’s coat. The human illusion he wore concealed his sharpened incisors, pointed ears, and cat-slit pupils, but left his simple masculinity a little more noticeable than I liked. I tore my eyes away.

Saying that Tybalt and I have a complex relationship would be understating things just a tad. I endure his taunting because it’s easier than having my intestines removed by an angry Cait Sidhe. On top of all that, I owe him for services rendered following the murder of Evening Winterrose. Sadly, my being in debt to him encourages him to prod at me even more frequently. It’s getting to be a habit.

“The skirt passes muster,” said Tybalt, finishing his survey. “I might have called it a ‘belt’ rather than a ‘skirt,’ but I suppose you have the right to name your own clothing. While we’re on the subject of apparel, tell me, were you intending to walk all the way home in those shoes?”

“Maybe,” I hedged. The straps were starting to chafe my ankles, making walking even less comfortable than it had been to begin with, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You’re drunk, October.”

“And you’re wearing really tight pants.” I paused. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean, those are really nice pants. I mean…”

Crud.

Tybalt snorted. I glanced up to see him looking decidedly amused, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Indeed. I don’t suppose you’d consider taking a taxi?”

“There aren’t any,” I said, feeling as if I’d won a battle with that stunning point of logic.

“Did you consider phoning for one? I understand they can be summoned.”

“Didn’t have a phone.”

“I see,” said Tybalt. “Well, as there are no taxis, and you have splendid reasons not to summon a taxi, and you are, in fact, drunk enough to be making comments about the tightness of my trousers, I believe it would be a good idea for me to escort you home.”

“I don’t need you to.”

“That’s nice,” said Tybalt, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it around my shoulders. “You look cold.”

“I’m not cold.” That was a lie—it was a nice night, but even the nicest night gets chilly after midnight in San Francisco. I pulled the jacket tight, trying to preserve the illusion of dignity. The leather smelled of Tybalt’s magic, all pennyroyal and musk. “I can get home just fine.”

“Of course you can,” Tybalt agreed, planting a hand on the small of my back and urging me to begin walking. “You are, after all, a perfectly reasonable, competent woman. It’s just that at the moment, you’re so drunk you can’t remember whether or not you’re wearing your own face, and I would really rather not scrape you off the sidewalk.”

His hand was a firm, insistent pressure. I began to walk, steadier now that I had something to lean against. “Nah, no sidewalk-scraping. You’d find me in an alley somewhere.”

“Probably true.”

You can read the full chapter online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Book 3 in the October Daye series, titled An Artificial Night, comes out later this year on September 7th. Check out the pretty cover:

Rating:

Ana: 8 Excellent, leaning towards a 9

Thea: 7 – Really Good, and leaning towards an 8

Reading next: Mind Games by Carolyn Crane

Howdy folks, and happy Sunday!

As the first part of our official Steampunk Week comes to a close, we return to our regularly scheduled programming…but fret not! If you want more dirigible-inspired goodness, we’ve got our second installment of Steampunk Week coming at you next month…

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes:

Well, not much today other than – we got a makeover!!!!! Which you’ve probably noticed. If you look above, we’ve installed a brand spankin’ new navigation bar, for your reading pleasure. One of the most frequent comments we got from you good folks in our recent customer satisfaction survey was the need for easier navigation of the site. And we’ve listened! Want to read all about Ana and Thea? Want to search for a specific review? Want to shoot us an email, or peruse our review policy? All is listed and linked above.

We’ve also widened our post area and lightened the background for our sidebars to help readers with different browsers access our material more easily.

We hope you like the changes! And, as always, please let us know if you’re having any technical issues with the site – we’ll try our best to iron things out.

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

On Monday, Ana reviews coming of age YA novel, The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott.

On Tuesday, Thea reviews another of her most highly anticipated books of 2010 with the newest installment in Kim Harrison’s ongoing sweet-ass Urban Fantasy series, The Hollows: Black Magic Sanction.

Wednesday, Thea *FINALLY* gets to read and review The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan – sequel to the Stoker-nominated sensational debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth (one of Thea’s Top 10 Books of 2009) by Carrie Ryan! Later in the day, we’ll have Carrie over for a Top 10 List, and to answer five questions about the themes in her harrowing YA novels.

On Thursday, Ana reviews one of her most highly anticipated novels of the year with Maureen Johnson’s Scarlett Fever, sequel to Suite Scarlett.

And finally, we close out the week with a joint review of Seanan McGuire’s second October Daye novel, A Local Habitation!

It’s another busy week, and we hope you enjoy…

And just because this is fun:

“On The Smugglers’ Radar” is a new feature for books that have caught our eye: books we heard of via other bloggers, directly from publishers, and/or from our regular incursions into the Amazon jungle. This is how the Smugglers’ Radar was born, and because there are far too many books that we want than we can possibly buy or review (what else is new?) we thought we could make it into a weekly feature – so YOU can tell us which books you have on your radar as well!

On Ana’s Radar:

Sometimes smaller publishers go under our radar but this week I found Snowbooks, a small independent publisher in the UK and DEAR LORD, DON’T THESE BOOKS LOOK AWESOME?

Cassie’s day as a guide at Westminster Abbey begins badly when zombies storm into the building and eat the tourists. Carrie escapes – but finds London choked with the undead. She has no idea where they came from, no idea how to stop them – all she knows is she has to race through dangerous, gore-soaked streets and find her daughter. And her day doesn’t get any better .

“I fell into this job quite by accident, when I discovered that I possessed the ability to see the preternatural world. There are a handful of people with similar abilities, and part of my job is to locate them, since Government Central and Infrastructure Canada like to keep track of these things. Don’t ask me why…” There’s a malevolent force in town, and it’s quite literally Valerie Steven’s job to determine who’s behind it and why they want to destroy the world, starting with Calgary. She’ll have help, in the form of her best friend (now more or less a zombie, unfortunately), a powerful dwarf troll, and th ghost of former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (but he goes by ‘Bill’ these dayys). But that’s not all – Valerie has some tricks up her sleeve and, she hopes, luck on her side. Oh, and her boyfriend, Dave. He drives a dump truck.

It is 1861, and Albertian Britain is in the grip of conflicting forces. Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labour; Libertines oppose restrictive and unjust laws and flood the country with propaganda demanding a society based on beauty and creativity; while The Rakes push the boundaries of human behaviour to the limits with magic, sexuality, drugs and anarchy. Returning from his failed expedition to find the source of the Nile, explorer, linguist, scholar and swordsman Sir Richard Francis Burton finds himself sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, employs him as “King’s Spy.” His first mission: to investigate the sexual assaults committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack; to find out why chimney sweeps are being kidnapped by half-man, half-dog creatures; and to discover the whereabouts of his badly injured former friend, John Hanning Speke. Accompanied by the diminutive and pain-loving poet, Algernon Swinburne, Burton’s investigations lead him back to one of the defining events of the age: the brutal assassination of Queen Victoria in 1840; and the terrifying possibility that the world he inhabits shouldn’t exist at all.

Plus, I also saw these from Simon and Schuster:

My name is Gin, and I kill people.

They call me the Spider. I’m the most feared assassin in the South — when I’m not busy at the Pork Pit cooking up the best barbecue in Ashland. As a Stone elemental, I can hear everything from the whispers of the gravel beneath my feet to the vibrations of the soaring Appalachian Mountains above me. My Ice magic also comes in handy for making the occasional knife. But I don’t use my powers on the job unless I absolutely have to. Call it professional pride.

Now that a ruthless Air elemental has double-crossed me and killed my handler, I’m out for revenge. And I’ll exterminate anyone who gets in my way — good or bad. I may look hot, but I’m still one of the bad guys. Which is why I’m in trouble, since irresistibly rugged Detective Donovan Caine has agreed to help me. The last thing this coldhearted killer needs when I’m battling a magic more powerful than my own is a sexy distraction…especially when Donovan wants me dead just as much as the enemy.

For Kira Solomon, normal was never an option.

Kira’s day job is as an antiquities expert, but her true calling is as a Shadowchaser. Trained from youth to be one of the most lethal Chasers in existence, Kira serves the Gilead Commission, dispatching the Fallen who sow discord and chaos. Of course, sometimes Gilead bureaucracy is as much a thorn in her side as anything the Fallen can muster against her. Right now, though, she’s got a bigger problem. Someone is turning the city of Atlanta upside down in search of a millennia-old Egyptian dagger that just happens to have fallen into Kira’s hands.

Then there’s Khefar, the dagger’s true owner — a near-immortal 4,000-year-old Nubian warrior who, Kira has to admit, looks pretty fine for his age. Joining forces is the only way to keep the weapon safe from the sinister Shadow forces, but now Kira is in deep with someone who holds more secrets than she does, the one person who knows just how treacherous this fight is. Because every step closer to destroying the enemy is a step closer to losing herself to Shadow forever….

On Thea’s Radar:

I gotta thank good ol’ book pimp KB (of Babbling About Books, and More!) for the heads up on the following books. They look delectable!

Set in an apocalyptic future where rising oceans have swallowed up entire regions and people live packed like sardines on the dry land left, DARK LIFE is the harrowing tale of underwater pioneers who have carved out a life for themselves in the harsh deep-sea environment, farming the seafloor in exchange for the land deed.
The story follows Ty, who has lived his whole life on his family’s homestead and has dreams of claiming his own stake when he turns eighteen. But when outlaws’ attacks on government supply ships and settlements…

… threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known.

Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier’s rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to Dark Life.

As Ty gets closer to the truth, he discovers that the outlaws may not be the bloodthirsty criminals the government has portrayed them as. And that the government abandoning the territory might be the best thing for everyone, especially for someone like Ty, someone with a Dark Gift.

This next one cover is awesome and hilarious, and it holds a special place in my heart – because if there ever was a monster capable of driving me insane, it would be in the form of an RSS Feed. I’m sure Ana can relate – our RSS Feed has been the bane of my existence for a year now. What’s even cooler about Feed is the fact that its author is none other than Seanan McGuire – whose Rosemary and Rue I adored last year – writing under another pen name!

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

Stephen King has emphatically endorsed this book. SOLD. Not to mention, Ridley Scott (director of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, etc fame)’s production company had already purchased the rights to adapting this book into a film – before the book was completed! Now that is some serious book mojo.

Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she’s the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn’t think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He’s wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is. THE PASSAGE…

PLUS, you can read an excellent excerpt for The Passage online HERE.

This next title just looks cool.

The Natural History Museum’s prize exhibit – a giant squid – suddenly disappears. This audacious theft leads Clem, the research scientist who has recently finished preserving the exhibit, into a dark urban underworld of warring cults and surreal magic. It seems that for some, the squid represents a god and should be worshiped as such. Clem gradually comes to realise that someone may be attempting to use the squid to trigger an apocalypse. And so it is now up to him and a renegade squid-worshiper named Dean to find a way of stopping the destruction of the world as they know it whilst themselves surviving the all out-gang warfare that they have unwittingly been drawn into…

And, a lovely reader emailed us recently with a book suggestion that sounds AWESOME. It’s on my to-buy list. Plus, I’ve been meaning to try Kit Whitfield for a while now – ever since the epic ARC!FAIL of In Great Waters – so, this sounds like a good place to start.

Biology is destiny.

For those born feet-first, life is normal. Civil rights are enshrined in law, the world is a comfortable place, and every full moon night, you lock yourself in a secure room to fur up in peace. But for those born head-first, the damage done is more than just physical. For a non, locked in his or her human skin, is first and foremost a conscript, drafted at eighteen into DORLA, the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity.

For a DORLA agent, insultingly referred to as a ‘bareback’, full moon creates a battle zone, where they patrol the silent night in search of citizens breaking the curfew. The rest of the month is a civil service nightmare, mopping up the after-effects of the trespasses, the fights and the maulings. DORLA has lasted centuries, since the Inquisition first set it up, and it’s no less hated now than it was then.

Lola Galley, twenty-eight and already a scarred veteran, is assigned to defend a curfew-breaker who mutilated a good friend of hers. She doesn’t want the case, but she’s used to doing things she doesn’t want. Only something happens: her maimed friend is murdered before her client can be tried.

Lola wants justice. She’ll settle for the truth. But in a divided world, asking for the truth may bring answers that you don’t want to hear.

And that’s it from us today! What about you? Any books on your radar that we should know about?

Welcome to Smugglivus – Day 24!

Throughout this month, we will have daily guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2009, and looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2010.

Today’s Guest: Doug Knipe, aka the SciFiGuy. Doug runs the Speculative Fiction/Urban Fantasy/Paranormal blog SciFiGuy, and it’s a fantastic resource for upcoming books, giveaways and author interviews and news. Doug covers so much on his site, we’re in awe of all that he’s accomplished!

Please give it up for Doug!

I was thrilled when Ana and Thea asked me to participate in the amazing Smugglivus Event and share with you some of my favourite reads in 2009 and what I am anticipating in 2010. In 2009 I think I reviewed a little over 100 books and read perhaps half that again. Here are some of the books I enjoyed the most.

My favourite debut of the year was Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland. This fast-paced, urban fantasy police procedural knocked my socks off. Tightly plotted and full of surprises, this none kept me engrossed to the last word. The follow-up Blood of the Demon is on my watch list for 2010.

There were a great number of debut novels in the exploding urban fantasy marketplace in 2009. Annette McCleave’s Drawn Into Darkness impressed me with it’s creepy villain and the grounded Rachel, an ordinary character thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs by Molly Harper was a fresh, laugh out loud, light-hearted foray into urban fantasy that promises to deliver more enjoyable hijinks from the librarian turned vampire as the series develops.

Seanan McGuire impressed me with Rosemary and Rue, an urban fantasy where the hidden fae world intersects with ours in modern day California. McGuire’s October Daye is a dark, fascinating protagonist not quite fitting in either world.

Young adult novels had a breakout year. I was enthralled by Skinned and Crashed by Robin Wasserman, books that explored the theme of what it means to be human in a world where consciousness can be transferred into cybernetic body replacements.

Rachel Vincent’s My Soul To Take introduced us to Kaylee, a banshee that foresees impending deaths. I like dark and dangerous and applauded the atmospheric YA debut of Lilith Saintcrow writing as Lili St. Crow with Strange Angels.

There were numerous standout books in ongoing series over the past year. My favourites included Bound to Shadows by Keri Arthur in the Riley Jensen Guardian series, perhaps its’ best book to date. Rachel Vincent also had a banner year because in addition to her YA debut, Prey in her Shifters series was a thrilling read. I discovered UK author Mike Carey this past year and the nourish urban fantasy series featuring exorcist Felix Castor presented a droll and engaging voice, particularly in Dead Men’s Boots.

Veteran’s Kim Harrison and Charlaine Harris continued to delight with White Witch, Black Curse and Dead and Gone in the Hollows and Sookie Stackhouse series respectively.

Standalone novels that make my best of 2009 list include Charles de Lint’s haunting and beautiful ghost story The Mystery of Grace, The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff, an inventive, funny and charming novel about an unusual family of witches and Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey an urban fantasy which was a total departure from her Kushiel fantasy series.

My most anticipated urban fantasy read for 2010 is Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison, closely followed by Changes by Jim Butcher and Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris.

Next year also has some auspicious fantasy titles I am anxious to read. The long-awaited Dances with Dragons by George R.R. Martin, the fifth book in the Ice and Fire cycle should finally hit shelves as well as the delayed sequel to Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind – Wise Man’s Fear. I routinely give Name of the Wind as a gift to anyone I know that reads and the response is unanimously positive. Under Heaven, a new novel by fantasist Guy Gavriel Kaye is coming next year and promises to be extraordinary.

2009 was a banner year for urban fantasy and paranormal romance and 2010 is already lining up as another year of fantastic reads. The best of the holidays to everyone and remember to give the gift of books.

Thank you Doug!

Next on Smugglivus: KatieBabs of Babbling About Books, And More!

Title: Rosemary and Rue

Author: Seanan McGuire

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: DAW
Publication Date: September 1, 2009
Paperback: 368 pages

Stand Alone or Series: First in the October Daye series

Why did we read the book: We first learned about the book via LurvaLaMode and added it to our respective wishlists, so when the author generously offered us a review copy, we said HELL YES (please)!

Summary: (from amazon.com)
The world of Faerie never disappeared: it merely went into hiding, continuing to exist parallel to our own. Secrecy is the key to Faerie’s survival—but no secret can be kept forever, and when the fae and mortal worlds collide, changelings are born. Half-human, half-fae, outsiders from birth, these second-class children of Faerie spend their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Or, in the case of October “Toby” Daye, rejecting it completely. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the fae world, retreating into a “normal” life. Unfortunately for her, Faerie has other ideas.

The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose, one of the secret regents of the San Francisco Bay Area, pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening’s dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby is forced to resume her old position as knight errant to the Duke of Shadowed Hills and begin renewing old alliances that may prove her only hope of solving the mystery…before the curse catches up with her.

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Thea: I was really looking forward to reading Rosemary and Rue (so much so that Ana and I fought over the copy we had, but of course since she lives in the UK and I am here in the US, I gave in and sent her my copy and bought another for myself), and I am happy to say that it lived up to and even surpassed my expectations. There are a lot of female sleuth Urban Fantasy novels out there, and October Daye is another supernatural creature to add to the ever-growing pantheon. Ms. McGuire, however, manages to create a very unique character in a stunningly detailed, harsh world of faerie that coexists with our own. I definitely enjoyed this book and will be back to this eerie version of San Francisco very soon.

Ana: This book had been calling to me since I first saw the cover and the title. I don’t read a lot of Urban Fantasy – it is one of the genres that I am slowly getting into – and have little basis for comparison within the genre but I thought Rosemary and Rue to be a book that stands on its own. Regardless of which genre it belongs to, Rosemary and Rue is simply a good story, with great characters and above all, a fantastically entertaining world in which to submerge myself for a few hours. I can hardly believe that this is Seanan’s McGuire’s debut work and I enjoyed it so much that am ready for more. Like, right now.

On The Plot:

Thea: In terms of world building and the urban fantasy element, Rosemary and Rue shines. My favorite aspect of this debut novel is the setting itself – Ms. McGuire juxtaposes a world of fae courts and magic, unseen by humans in the city of San Francisco. And the fae aren’t just your usual devilish pixies, winter queens or rowan men, either; Toby’s world is populated by Selkies, Undines, the Daoine Sidhe and Cait Sidhe. There are rose goblins and kelpies, doppelgangers and kitsune – and the variation is a wonderful thing to behold. Ms. McGuire clearly has done some research into the mythology of the fae from not only western Europe, but other parts of the world as well (I loved the occasional Japanese influence). But the defining characteristic of the fae in Rosemary and Rue was the dichotomy between purebloods and those with human in their lineage, aka changelings, such as Toby herself. The changelings are sneered at by their pureblood “betters” for their inferiority in magic and their shorter life spans. On the supernatural totem pole, changelings are firmly at the bottom – and this hierarchy colors the plot of this novel. As a lowly changeling, Toby is bound by a curse to solve the murder of her pureblooded friend/enemy, Evening, and she will die unless she discovers the answers the curse demands. But when Toby turns to the other fae for help, she runs into trouble on all fronts. With the Queen of her Evening’s court, Toby is rejected. And, when the attempts on her life start to roll in, Toby’s lack of powers and lack of importance as a mere changeling make things even harder for her.

While I loved the worldbuilding and the wide variation of magic and fae, as well as the power politics of blood in the novel, there were some problems in terms of writing. This is Ms. McGuire’s first novel, and at times it reads like a debut novel – there’s uneveness in the plotting, especially in terms of pacing. For the first half of the book there’s not too much action, but around the midway mark, it suddenly turns into gunshots and blood loss, with multiple attacks and near-death experiences for poor battered Toby. Also, there’s the problem of the overall mystery – that is, finding Evening’s killer before her curse kills Toby (or something else does). Toby pretty much reacts for the whole novel. She goes from scene to scene looking for clues, only to basically find nothing (other than hired guns, out to kill her). But, then miraculously by a conversation with one all-knowing character, Toby discovers the identity of the bad guy in this tale. It kinda renders all the other action as simple noise and the mystery as a vehicle for suspense without any of the real sleuthing work that goes into it. To be fair, this is a problem I have with a lot of Urban Fantasy novels of the mystery/thriller persuasion.

With that said, however, there are many unresolved plot threads that are expertly handled in Rosemary and Rue that will definitely keep me reading the series. I love that Ms. McGuire isn’t afraid to leave some questions hanging – especially with the original mystery of Toby’s transformation and just what exactly happened to her Liege Luna and her daughter Raysel. Plus, there’s the intriguing character of Tybalt and his feelings for Toby that are irresistible, but more on that in a bit…

Ana The first chapter of Rosemary and Rue sets the tone for the rest of the novel not only in terms of world building and presenting the main character but above all by showing how much is at stake and how the author is prepared to put her character through the ringer. The books opens as October Dayer suffers a horrible fate – she is transformed into a FISH. For 14 years. How seriously twisted is that? Obviously, I loved it. That transformation will change her life and change her stance to the point that 14 years later, when the curse is broken, she is a shadow of the woman she was. THAT is the most important thing for me and one that was imperative for the understanding of the character’s motivations with regards to the main storyline: that and the curse that makes her go back to the world she had been trying to avoid, only to discover who Evening’s killer is.

The curse makes it imperative for her to carry on with the investigation against her own will. I think that explains why Toby REACTS instead of doing any real sleuth work but unlike Thea, I didn’t think this was a problem, I thought it was a reasonable reaction from a character that did not want to be there. But that is just me as a reader who thinks character trumps plot (most of the time, at least). Having said that, it may well be that my interpretation is off-base and it remains to be seen in the next novels if the sleuthing work will well, be done and acted upon.

Although, the mystery is the central storyline of Rosemary and Rue, it is all the secondary threads that are woven (flawlessly in my opinion) that make the book a fascinating read. The courts’ politics, the interaction between all the species of Faeries, the showcasing of several mythologies , they were not particularly NEW to me but there was something about Seanan McGuire’s writing that MADE it feel so. It is quite possible that the conjunction of all the different beings coupled with the unique spin to the changelings (that, a refreshing and original concept by the author) is what makes the story so riveting.

I though this to be a well- crafted, well written story with hardly any bumps along the way and as Thea said the best thing was that there is a lot left to be explored without feeling like it was so merely as sequel bait.

On the Characters:

Thea: Poor, poor Toby. This is something I found myself thinking for most of the book. The prologue begins with Toby on the trail of a faerie named Simon, who has kidnapped her Liege Luna and Luna’s daughter Rayseline – and, completely outclassed in the magic department, Toby is transformed into a koi in the San Francisco Tea Gardens. For fourteen years. Things only get worse from there. Once she’s returned to her true form, Toby’s lost her human husband and now-teenage daughter, not to mention her home, her job and her life. And then when things can’t get worse, she’s bound by a dead friend via answering machine, cursed to solve the case of Eve’s murder or die in the process. Add in multiple gunshot wounds and near-fatal encounters with some nasty fae monsters, and the mental refrain of “Poor Toby!” is on solid repeat. I should clarify – none of this is bad! In fact, it’s refreshing. Toby pays bitterly for every action she takes (or doesn’t take), and for everything she goes through she’s certainly no whiney martyr – in fact, she’s an incredibly endearing character that readers sympathize with completely.

I loved that Toby was a severly UNDERpowered character – she has no significant magical skills, and she doesn’t gain any extraordinary fae powers over the course of the book. Rather, she’s very low in the magical social hierarchy and she not only knows it, but she owns it. These characters are so much more interesting than the super!mage!masters (who are inevitably beautiful and faerie princesses on top of their limitless powers) – and Toby is one of the most compelling new heroines I’ve read in a very long time because of her decision to rock out with her thinned out bloodline.

While Toby is the undeniable main draw to the book, there are a bevy of other secondary characters that are solidly written too. Some of my favorites included the tough street fae twins, Dare and Manuel, and their growing relationship with Toby from initial distrust to gradual awe. There’s of course the old flame, Devin, the master of changeling runaways with his twisted games and kingdom of Home (think a magic, better looking Fagin). Then, there’s they undine and good friend to Toby, Lily, who is beautiful and protective of the changeling. But, my favorite secondary character has to be the King of Cats, the Caith Sidhe Tybalt. According to Toby’s narrative, he hates her and it is his purpose as a pureblood to make her life miserable…but we readers know better than that. There’s something else there, on the other side of the thin line between hate and love. At least, that’s my personal hope as a reader! I loved Tybalt’s appearances in the novel, and the way he and Toby come to an agreement when she needs his help. Absolutely wonderful stuff.

Ana: Poor Toby indeed, Thea, I completely agree with you. The woman goes through so much and as a reader who enjoys character-driven books, I was a happy camper because the events shape and are shaped by her. I mostly loved that she was strong willed and courageous without being too stupid to live and knew when to ask for help. As a character she knew her limitations and was simply aware of what she could or could not do. I also quite liked her sense of humour which is subtle enough to not be an in-your-face kind a humour, instead it relies on the reader to “get” her ironic innuendoes.

The only thing I wondered about was I what I felt was a lack of true attachment to the guy who was her fiancée – although it could be easily argued that this is the point – she was what is called a Faerie Bride, someone who finds a human to get married to, to try to live as a human when they are fully aware that the attachment has to rely on lies and can never last for more than a few years. A Faerie Bride is someone who is wholly selfish and perhaps that makes Toby a little less sympathetic but perhaps more real because she is not perfect.
Thea covered most of the secondary characters and there is one that I really liked as well: her liege and friend the Duke, Sylvester. Him and his family including his son-in-law Connor ( Toby’s potential love interest. I can’t stand the guy) have a very interesting dynamics.

Lastly but not least: oh, Tybalt, let me count the ways my poor deluded hopelessly romantic heart is already shipping you with Toby. Even though you try to hide your feelings, I know, deep down you so totally love the woman. You may try to deny it and cover it up with the hatred and contempt that most purebloods feel for the changelings but you do not fool me, Tybalt. And you know why not? Because there is this one tiny, small detail that was mentioned very en passant by someone else in the book: that the Caith Sidhe have loads of lovers but once they truly love it is forevah. Yeah, I know that probably my heart is set to be broken into several million pieces because this is an UF series which showed no sign so far that it’s going to be heavy with romantic elements. But Tybalt, I remain hopeful. Yours truly, meow, Ana.

Final Thoughts, Observations and Rating:

Thea: I really, really enjoyed this wonderful debut novel from Seanan McGuire. Though it’s not without its flaws, it’s a beautiful foray into the world of the fae, where humans live side by side with unspeakable creatures of monstrous beauty and magic. October Daye is a heroine worth rooting for, and I cannot wait for the next novel in the series. Absolutely recommended, and one of my picks for notable read of 2009.

Ana: I simply loved this book. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. I started the review expecting to rate it Very Good, but managed to convince myself whist writing it that this rather, a truly Excellent novel and the series has the potential to be one of the Great Ones. I devoured it, I rooted for the main character and I think this is certainly one of the best debuts I read this year.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: Official excerpt from the author’s website:

I woke up just after sundown with a pounding head and the vague, nagging feeling that something was wrong. Cagney and Lacey had somehow managed to open the bedroom door while I was sleeping, and had migrated from the couch to the warmer and hence more desirable bed. They started to wail as soon as they realized I was awake, Siamese voices vibrating my head like buzz saws. I groaned, clapping my hands over my ears. “Can’t you two be quiet?” They didn’t oblige me. Cats never listen. They’re dependable that way; when Rome burned, the Emperor’s cats still expected to be fed on time.

The fae have always lived with cats. They’re the only mortal animals that can stand to have us around, and that holds true for all of us, even half-breeds like me. Dogs bark and horses shy away, but cats can look at Kings, and a lot of the time, they do. Cats put up with us, and in exchange, we treat them with respect, and we feed them. We’re related in a way, and I don’t just mean through the Cait Sidhe. We both tend towards pointed ears, stealing cream, and getting burned alive when the wind changes. It was only natural that we’d form an alliance where both sides said “I don’t need you” and both answered “you’ll still stay.”

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: The next two books in the series already have covers and publication dates:  A Local Habitation comes out March 2010 and An Artificial Night comes out in September 2010:

The interesting thing is, as we recently learned via this awesome interview with the author over at Lurv that the three titles refer to Shakespeare’s plays and are “influenced to one degree or another, by the play the titles come from”. Rosemary and Rue takes its title from A Winter’s Tale, A Local Habitation from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and An Artificial Night from Romeo and Juliet. In the interview, she explains the significance of each of them to the story (very light spoilers) and we totally recommend you check it out.

Rating:

Ana: a solid 8 – Excellent

Thea: 7 Very Good – leaning towards an 8.

Reading Next: The Orphan’s Tales – In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

Weekend is nearly over for us in the UK but you guys in the US still have one day off to look forward to! Meanwhile, here is what we have planned this week:

On Monday, Ana reviews The Infinite Instant by Danielle Parker

Tuesday, it’s Thea’s turn and she reviews Heroes at Risk by Moira J Moore

Followed by our joint review of Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire on Wednesday

Then on Thursday, Thea reviews Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs

and finally on Friday, another joint review, this time of Orphan’s Tale – In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

PLUS:

We are chuffed to bits that this week, in association with Angry Robot – the new Harper Collins Imprint for genre fiction – SF, F and WTF? – from Monday to Friday, we will be exclusively publishing 5 daily extracts from Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero by Dan Abnett which will be released in October:

Sir Rupert Triumff. Adventurer. Fighter. Drinker.

Saviour?

Pratchett goes swashbuckling in the hotly anticipated original fiction debut of the multi-million selling Warhammer star.

Triumff is a ribald historical fantasy set in a warped clockwork-powered version of our present day … a new Elizabethan age, not of Elizabeth II but in the style of the original Virgin Queen. Throughout its rollicking pages, Sir Rupert Triumff drinks, dines and duels his way into a new Brass Age of Exploration and Adventure.

Be sure to stop by to check it out!

Giveaway Winners:

The winners of the Flash Giveaway are…

Batch 1  – Contemporary Romance: Marie (comment #44)

Batch 2 – Romantic Suspense: Carolyn H (comment #7)

Congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to contact@thebooksmugglers.com

Speaking of giveaways:

You can still enter our ultra cool Catching Fire Giveaway here. It runs till September 15th and it’s open to residents of Canada and US only.

Reasons Why We Want To Marry Neil Gaiman:

# 1023: For His Library

Seriously, check.this.out and prepare to drool : Neil Gaiman’s Library

On our Radar

Urban Fantasy – The fifth Mercy Thompson book by Patricia Briggs which has the cool cover (but not a blurb yet)

Young Adult:

Daughters of the Sea tells the story of 3 mermaid sisters who are separated at birth by a storm and go on to lead three very different lives. Book 1 is about Hannah, who spent her early days in an orphanage and is now a scullery maid in the house of rich, powerful family. She is irresistibly drawn to the sea and through a series of accidents and encounters discovers her true identity. Hannah relizes that she must keep the truth a secret but she also knows that soon she will have to make the choice – to be a creature of the land or the sea.

Young Adult:

For Zack Thomson, living in the Nicholls Ward isn’t so bad. After his parents died, he developed strange and severe allergies, and the mental institution was the only place where he could be properly looked after. As strange as it was, it was home. He could watch as much television as he wanted; his best friend Charlie visited him often enough; and Nurse Ophelia–the prettiest no-nonsense nurse ever–sometimes took him bowling. Of course, that didn’t mean he had it easy. His allergies restricted his diet to strawberry smoothies, and being the only kid at the hospital could get lonely. But it never once crossed Zack’s mind to leave…until the night someone crashed through the front doors and told him to run. Now he’s on a race for answers–about his past, his parents, and his strange sickness–even as every step takes him closer to the darkest of truths.

Young Adult – The sequel to the very cool Suite Scarlett!

Ever since Mrs. Amberson, the former-aspiring-actress-turned-agent, entered Scarlett Martin’s life, nothing has been the same.

She’s still in charge of the Empire Suite in her family’s hotel, but she’s now also Mrs. Amberson’s assistant, running around town for her star client, Chelsea – a Broadway star Scarlett’s age with a knack for making her feel insignificant.

Scarlett’s also trying to juggle sophomore year classes, her lab partner who is being just a little TOO nice, and getting over the boy who broke her heart.

In the midst of all this, her parents drop a bombshell that threatens to change her New York life forever…

Aaaaaaaand that’s it from us today!

~your friendly neighborhood book smugglers