Malin’s #CBR5 Review #145: Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden is now one of the wardens of the White Council of wizards, and he’s about as thrilled about it as many of the wizards on the council are about him being recruited. Harry’s asked to look into rumours of black magic in the Chicago area, and his mentor, Ebenezer McCoy, also requests that he enquire with his faerie contacts about why the Fey Courts are refusing to involve themselves in the conflict with the Red Court of vampires, even after the vampires broke into faerie territories in the Nevernever.

Harry still owes Mab, the Winter Queen, two favours, and his dealings with the Fey never really turn out in his favour. Lily, the new Summer Lady (youngest of the three Summer Queens) owes him a favour, but neither she nor Fix, the Summer Knight, can directly answer Harry’s questions, or aid him, due to a compulsion laid on them by Titania, the Summer Queen, who’s not exactly one of Dresden’s biggest fans. Getting the answers McCoy wants isn’t going to be easy.

The possible black magic use he’s been asked to investigate seems connected with mysterious attacks at a horror movie convention. Molly Carpenter, the teenage daughter of Harry’s friend Michael, comes to him for help. Her boyfriend is the chief suspect after a man was viciously attacked in a bathroom, but claims he’s innocent. Shortly after Harry arrives at the convention to investigate, a number of people are attacked by a seven foot tall assailant who looks just like the killer in the slasher flick recently screened.

Full review.

Teresaelectro’s #CBR5 Review #10: The Angel Stone by Juliet Dark

The Angel Stone is the final chapter of the Fairwick Chronicles trilogy See my previous reviews here and here. Beware small spoilers to follow!

Callie McFay is a literature professor (at only 27, mind you) at a small liberal arts college in New England. In the previous books, she discovers her father was fey and her mother a powerful witch, their frowned upon union giving birth to her. On top of her mixed supernatural heritage, she is a doorkeeper – born with the power to open the door between Faerie and the human realm. She fell in love with not one (an irish professor named Liam) but two! (a handyman named Bill) incarnations of an incubus. Apparently, it was true love which restored the demon lover to his former human form. Shame it was two seconds before his throat was cut by a nasty fallen angel. Book 2 ends with Callie losing her true love and the door to Faerie closed forever…or is it?

And so begins book 3 with things looking very bleak for the sleepy town of Fairwick. All the supernatural professors including the former dean were forced to return to Faerie leaving the school open for a fallen angel aka nephilim takeover. Duncan Laird is the big bad from book 2 and now has become dean, formed a fraternity full of bastard nephilim boys. It reminded me of the fifth Harry Potter novel, everything becomes more and more unbearable for the characters with each turning page.  In similar fashion, Callie and the remaining supernaturals in town form a secret resistance and vow to find a door to Faerie to uncover the angel stone, the only weapon again the nephilim.

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I would recommend this novel for fans of scottish fairy tales, nephilim myths and novels about true love that doesn’t involve abstinence.

Read the full book review on my blog.

Malin’s #CBR5 Review #114: Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire

This is the seventh book about October Daye and as such, not the best place to start the series. If you like a paranormal series focused more on mysteries and adventure than on romance (not that there isn’t romance too, once you get a few books in), then this is a good one. Go check out Rosemary and Rue if you haven’t already.

As the only changeling (half human, half fey) knight in existence, October “Toby” Daye concerns herself with a lot of quests and issues that others don’t bother with. Changelings are dying all over San Francisco from their addiction to goblin fruit. A fruit that’s only pleasant and harmless to full-blood faeries, the goblin fruit is extremely addictive to changelings and humans, and the addiction gets so strong that they die from eating nothing else. Toby wants it off the streets and goes to the Queen of the Mists to have the problem dealt with, only to discover that the Queen is the one peddling the fruit, as she sees nothing wrong with changelings and humans dying. She also banishes Toby for her insubordination, giving her three days to remove herself from the kingdom.

Having started out a loner, with no recourse but to dive into danger by herself, Toby now has a squire and a boyfriend and a growing band of allies who can help her in situations such as these. When they discover that the Queen’s claim to the throne isn’t in fact valid, and that the children to the last King are still alive, but in hiding, Toby and her friends realise that they’re going to have to stage a full scale rebellion. They just need to keep Toby alive long enough to succeed.

Full review on my blog.

Malin’s #CBR5 Review #97: Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

Rating: 3. 5 stars

Harry Dresden is a wreck. He spends all of his energy trying to save his ex-girlfriend Susan from the vampiric curse that’s pretty sure to claim her, and as a result, he may lose his office, his apartment and what few friends he has left. Mab, the Winter Queen of Faerie wants him to figure out who killed the Summer Knight, and most importantly, prove that she isn’t the murderer. Harry tries to refuse her offer, but there are more complications thrown his way.

The White Council of wizards arrive in Chicago, and most of them want to gift wrap Harry and deliver them to the vampires, hoping this will make the vampires stop waging war. The only way Harry can keep them from basically stripping him of his wizard status and giving him up to become a vampire chew toy, is by accepting Mab’s offer. If he doesn’t figure out who killed the Summer Knight and stole his power, the Summer and the Winter Queens go to war against each other at Midsummer Eve, and that will have catastrophic results for the entire world. He should probably clean himself up a bit.

More on my blog.

Malin’s #CBR5 Review #26: Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs

Half Cannonball completed!

This is the seventh book in the Mercy Thompson series, and this review will probably contain spoilers for stuff that happened in earlier books. It’s also not a good place to start reading the books. You want to start with Moon Called. The spin off series, starting with Cry Wolf, is also very good.

Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson Hauptman is out Black Friday shopping with her stepdaughter Jesse when she suddenly has a panic attack and crashes into the car ahead of her. It turns out that the reason she freaked out is because her husband, the alpha of the local werewolf pack, and all the werewolves of the pack have been subdued and kidnapped by shady, possibly government operatives. Only one of the wolves escaped, and he’s in pretty bad shape. Realising that both she and Jesse are prime targets, Mercy has to act quickly to get them to safety and try to figure out how to save her husband and the rest of the pack. More on my blog.