The Fool's Journey - Kristina Jackson

When I first picked up this book, I was kind of excited about it.  The title, after all, refers to the first card of the Major Arcana of a Tarot deck.  The Fool, which is usually numbered Key 0, is depicted (in Rider-Waite-style decks, anyway) as a youth who's starting off on a long journey.  He is happily striding forth, a pack slung over his shoulder and a small dog bounding by his side. And his next step will take him right off the edge of a cliff.

The Major Arcana are sometimes used as foci for guided meditation.  You can also use them in sequence, in a series of meditation sessions -- a process known as "The Fool's Journey."  So I knew I was stepping into Pagan territory.

The plot can be viewed as a Fool's Journey of sorts.  The main character is Moira, a woman determined to get out of the secretarial pool by any means necessary, including what might be termed consensual sex, but only just.  Several months into this new and better job, Moira looks out her office window and witnesses her boss beating up another former secretary -- and this one, she learns, is pregnant with the boss's child.  The beating is so severe that the woman dies.  At the same time, Moira's boss offers her a seat on the firm's board of directors, but only if she submits to more of the same violation.

While sorting out her feelings about all this, she stumbles across a psychic fair, where she has a Tarot card reading done.  It's spookily accurate, of course, and before you know it, she is following the cards' advice.  She dumps her horrible corporate job, moves to a haunted cottage in Wales, and learns how to use magic.

While I applaud many of the novel's messages -- for one thing, nobody should ever stand for the sort of treatment Moira's boss dishes out -- it all just seemed too easy.  Once Moira gets to Wales, nothing serious ever complicates her life again.  Does the hot guy next door like her? Of course he does!  But will her be okay with her being a witch?  No problem!  Need a new home? Here's the perfect place, and with Pagan neighbors, to boot!

Neither psychic journeys nor real life are ever that easy.  More tension in the plot, and a setback or two for Moira -- maybe even the edge of a Welsh cliff -- would have made this book a lot more interesting.

One more note:  The cover shows Kristina Jackson as the author, and that's how Amazon has the book listed, but the title page gives the author's name as "Kay Darling."

Urban Shaman - C. E. Murphy

I did mention that I'd sneak in a trad-published novel every once in a while, didn't I?  Well, in honor of Valentine's Day, I give you a trad-pubbed urban fantasy.

I have a few favorite urban fantasy authors: Patricia Briggs (whose Mercy Thompson is a shapeshifter who fixes cars for a living and who loves the alpha of the local werewolf pack), Carrie Vaughn (whose Kitty books had me at "radio talk show host" and Denver, never mind the paranormal stuff), and C.E. Murphy.

Urban Shaman is the first book in the Walker Papers series.  The main character is Joanne Walker, who works as a mechanic for the Seattle Police Department (what is the deal with female mechanics in urban fantasy, anyway? No wonder I gave Naomi a white-collar job!).  Then, jet-lagged after her mother's funeral, she's dropped into a situation in which she believes she's witnessed a crime.  Somehow she talks a cabbie into driving her all over Seattle to track down the bad guy, only to plunge down a rabbit hole of weirdness.  Because, you see, Joanne Walker's birth name is Siobhan Walkingstick -- Irish fey mother, Cherokee shaman heritage on her father's side -- and she is, naturally, the most powerful shaman in North America, no matter how much she refuses to admit it.  But when the Celtic Wild Hunt shows up, she has no choice -- particularly when she manages to heal herself of a gut wound that should have been fatal.

It's not just her magical power that she's in denial over.  It's clear to everybody (here comes the romance!) that she has the hots for her boss, Capt. Michael Morrison.  But you know, the whole boss/employee thing, and, well.  We have lots of books to go.  Maybe they'll both figure it out eventually....

Every hero needs a sidekick, and Jo's is Gary, the cab driver who picks her up at the airport at the beginning of the book.  Gary is rock-solid and yet willing to go along on all of Jo's adventures; he says it's the most fun he's had since his wife died.  And he's right -- Jo's a lot of fun.  Her self-deprecating snark comes through loud and clear.

If you like urban fantasy, but you haven't read any of the Walker Papers books, give this one a try.  Happy Valentine's Day.

The Dimension Researcher (The Second Internet Cafe, Part I) - Chris James

Here's the other indie novel I mentioned in my list for Book Junkies Journal of my six favorite reads of 2012.

Y'all can breathe now; this one is sci-fi. 

First, let me explain about dimension research. James has taken the process of making a decision and run headlong with it.  In the reality he has invented for his series, every decision you make spawns a series of new realities: one that follows the path you decided upon, and one or more others that follow the paths you didn't take.  Researchers in Europe have figured out how to move from one of these dimensions to another.  Now, a consortium of nations has built a facility called the Second Internet Cafe, from which teams are sent to parallel dimensions to find out what could have been -- for example, how our world would have been enriched if So-and-so hadn't died in the Holocaust.  Think Connie Willis's Doomsday Book crossed with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (but without the daimons). 

Lucas Hunter is a brand-new dimension researcher.  On his very first day on the job, not only does he manage to annoy his team leader, ace dimension researcher Jean Bauer, but he also discovers that another nation has figured out how to do dimension research.  All of this is happening at the same time that the Russian prime minister is supposed to tour the  Second Internet Cafe -- and if he doesn't like what he sees, Russia will pull out of the project and the facility will have to close.

There's intrigue involved, of course, and politics, and some less-than-ethical stuff going on.  Lucas brashly appoints himself to figure it all out.  The one thing he can't seem to figure out is that his friend Kasha is in love with him -- but hey, even in our dimension, geeks have that problem.

James has done a great job with the world-building, and his science had me convinced.  His visual of the decision tree has stuck with me in the months since I read the book.  All in all, a good read.

Drawing Breath - Laurie Boris

Since I named three indie books to the list of my top 6 reads in 2012 for Book Junkies Journal, I guess I know what I'm reviewing for the next couple weeks.  (One of them was a later volume of Ed McNally's Norothian Cycle, which I'll get to eventually.)

For this week, it's Drawing Breath by Laurie Boris.

Disclaimer:  I write primarily fantasy, and up to now, I've been reviewing fantasy novels.  This book is not fantasy.  It's not sci-fi, either. Read it anyway.

The book is told from the point of view of two distinct characters:  Daniel, a thirty-four-year-old art teacher with cystic fibrosis, and Caitlin, a sixteen-year-old girl.  Caitlin's mother has rented their upstairs apartment to Daniel; partly in exchange, Daniel agrees to allow Caitlin into the art class he teaches at the local community center.  When that doesn't work out, he offers to give Caitlin private art lessons.

Caitlin, of course, has a gigantic crush on Daniel.  She fantasizes about a future with him, even as it's clear to everyone else that his health is failing.

I'm a sucker for voice in a novel.  Some of my favorite authors are my favorite authors because of their facility with sustaining a great voice: Patricia McKillip's fairy-tale lyricism and Kent Haruf's plain-spoken storytelling come immediately to mind.  Boris, too, does a wonderful job with the voices of her two main characters.  Caitlin's tumble of teenage emotions rings true, and so does Daniel's adult fatalism.

When things get complicated -- as they must -- Boris steers clear of the kind of morass that could have turned the plot into Jerry Springer fodder.  And the ending is just right.

Smoke and Magic (Blood and Gold: Book 1) - Patti Larsen

This week, I'm turning my random number generating app loose on my Kindle books. (Yes, I have both Nook books and Kindle books.  Yes, I know it's weird and a little compulsive to have both a Nook and a Kindle.  I don't know what to tell you.)

I think my problem with Smoke and Magic was that I didn't realize it was part of a series with a bloodline, if you will.  Larsen's "Blood and Gold" series is a spinoff from another series, none of which I've read.  And this book ends with a lot of stuff unresolved.  I mean, I'm writing my own series and I read a lot of books that are parts of a series, and I understand that you can't resolve everything in the first book or there would be nowhere for the story to go.  But you can't leave everything up in the air.  And I remember being annoyed when I realized this story had ended, and the rest of the Kindle edition was a lengthy excerpt from another of Larsen's books.

Anyway.

The main character here is Auburdeen Hayle, a 16-year-old hereditary witch whose mother leads an extremely powerful coven in New England.  Coven-related stuff gets tricky at home, though, and because of it, Burdie is packed off to London for a while to live with her mom's best school chum, Georgina Brindle.  Burdie is less than thrilled to be missing all the action at home.  But at least Mum lets her take Sassafras, their magical talking cat, along.

On the way to the Brindles', the horse-drawn cab Burdie is riding in has to stop for a traffic jam, and a strange young man gets in.  On impulse, she hides him from the authorities; he thanks her with a kiss on the cheek as he lets himself out of the hansom.

Finally arrived at the Brindles', Burdie meets the family: Georgina, her husband Bernard, and her children, Hugh and Kate.  Hugh falls for her, but he's an awkward kid whom Burdie feels nothing but friendship toward.  Kate's parents have kept her sheltered, and basically she's aghast at the amount of freedom Burdie has at home.  To top it off, Georgina has put a proscription on the use of magic around the house, and she won't let the girl leave the house unescorted.

Of course, there would be no story if Burdie meekly complied with all of these restrictions.  And you can bet your bottom dollar -- er, pound -- that the strange young man turns up again.  And wouldn't you know it, he's got magic, too.

Smoke and Magic is a promising beginning.  I just wish the author hadn't left so many questions unanswered at the end of it.

Back From Chaos (Earth's Pendulum, Book 1) - Yvonne Hertzberger

First, let me preface this by saying that I had no idea which book(s) I ought to review first.  I guess I could use the FIFO method -- first in, first out, or in this case it would be more like first read, first reviewed -- except it's been so long that I can't remember now the order I read them in.  So I've resorted to using a random number generator.

Yvonne Hertzberger, your number is up!

"Earth's Pendulum" is a classic fantasy series.  You've got warring nations, political intrigue, criminals, and magic.  In this case, much of the magic is Earth-based.  The Earth in this world is sentient -- an actual Goddess -- and not only does She feel pain when Her children act against Her wishes, but She has the power to enact retribution on them.  Unfortunately, this Divine retaliation often affects people whose actions are only tangentially connected to the wrongdoers.  And when a nation goes rogue, much of the planet can be affected.

You would think the people would recognize this, and act not in their own self-interest, but in the interest of the whole Earth.  Alas, people in this world are just as mean-spirited and pigheaded as on our earth.  Which is good in the sense that otherwise there wouldn't be a story here to tell.

Book One, Back From Chaos, opens in the aftermath of Bargia's invasion of Catania.  Both the Bargian king and his son and heir have been killed in battle, so rule of the newly-united kingdom falls to Gaelen, the second son.  As luck (and Earth) would have it, he's intelligent and kind, and much better suited to the job of king than either his father or his brother -- which is a good thing, because among his first acts is to convince only surviving member of Catania's royal family, Princess Marja, to wed him.

Gaelen has inherited a number of advisors from his father, and one of the challenges he faces is determining whether all of them will be loyal to him.  Among the group is a man named Klast.  Politically astute, unassuming, and trained in the deadly arts, Klast is perhaps Gaelen's best friend, as well as his most trusted adviser.

Owing to a troubled past, Klast believes he must be a loner -- a belief that's sorely challenged when he rescues Marja's maid, Brensa, after she is mistaken for Marja,  kidnapped, and violated.  It falls to Klast to teach Brensa to trust again, and perhaps, even, to love.

Hertzberger has built a believable world with intriguing characters, whose actions and reactions ring true.  Klast, in particular, is a great character.  Here's a guy who can hide in plain sight and whose brain is always clicking, always evaluating every nuance of every situation.  I was glad he was on our side.

The Sable City - M. Edward McNally

The Sable City by M. Edward McNally

I thought I'd kick off Rursday Reads with a no-brainer.  

The Sable City is the first in McNally's epic fantasy Norothian Cycle.  I'm always on the lookout for epic fantasy that doesn't recycle Tolkien's elves/dwarves/Orcs, and McNally does a good job here of inventing some new stuff.  Oh, sure, one of the main characters in this book (Captain Block) is a dwarf, and McNally adds a dragon (or two) and a demon (or several) here and there.  But the main characters are pretty much assuredly human.  Although you've gotta wonder about that guy with the katana....

Here's my review from Goodreads:

McNally does a great job with this, the first in (at least) a trilogy. I loved many of the characters -- the inept wizard Phin, the mercenary Zeb, the devil Balan (who, I suspect, is a refugee from our own world), and of course Tilda, the novice Guilder who, even after she's lost everything, just keeps on keeping on.

If you like epic fantasy -- and I know that a whole bunch of you do -- check out this series.