I Pulled On My Crabby Pants

Just now. I did. Because look at what I found! LOOKIT!

A 4th Matthew Swift book!

I thought there were 3. I'm not sure why I only thought there were 3 because I swear I've seen this cover before. But I was CERTAIN there were only 3.
But there are 4.
Why does this make me crabby, considering how extensively I adore this series? I don't know. I really don't. I should be thrilled because Matthew Swift is exciting! fun! interesting! peculiar! But... but I... I have so MANY books to read...

And I'm stupid so I pick up a book that I KNOW will have follow-ups (if they aren't already sitting on the shelf when I buy the book). So EVEN THOUGH I have like, 8 dozen books waiting to be read, I keep buying books under the assumption that EVENTUALLY I'll get to finish a series and be able to stop buying that line of novels. At least that's the theory.

So I guess I'm not really crabby that there's a 4th MS book, making my trilogy a quad. For all that, this won't be the end either, and I'm getting caught up in another "epic" like Anita Blake by Laurell K Hamilton. Unlikely, but altogether possible. I wouldn't fight it I guess. I might learn to be excited about it again.  I just buy too many books. hahaha.


I'm surprised by how much I'm reading lately.
I picked up Fury's Kiss, the 3rd Dorina Basarab book by Karen Chance when I went home for Thanksgiving and I already finished it. (=  Huzzah! I suppose I should blog about it for you, eh?

Except that I seem to be discussing series in groups lately considering that I'm sort of attempting to close them and it's better to just start from the top, eh?  Maybe. It's more informative anyway.  Kinda spoils some of the surprises if you intend to read them, but when all of the books are already published you don't REALLY worry about the main character(s) dying off every time they're in trouble. Hello; there's three more books to go. =P But the reason I say "except" is because it's been like, ~2 years or something since I read the last one and I don't even really remember what happened in it. I mean I sort of do, but... not THAT well.

The Neon Court (Kate Griffin) and A Trace of Moonlight (Allison Pang) should show up in the mail tomorrow, hopefully. They were SUPPOSED to get here today, but I live in North Dakota, so 2-day shipping is kind of a farce. hahaha. Oh well. I'm excited anyway.

I also need to go pick up books #17 and #18 in my Anita Blake series, since I'm starting in on #16, Blood Noir. I'm ALMOST caught up. Almost. I feel like I'm spacing them out a bit more with my other literature so that I can keep having material to catch up to without having to constantly wait for the next one, you know? So that I have a steady stream of Anita Blake at my disposal, whether I'm actively reading it or not.

I'm still waiting for that next Merry Gentry book that she promised us. Book 7, which was supposed to be the end, was too damn open-ended. There HAS to be another SOMETIME. Hopefully, anyway. hahaha.

Wasn't I just saying I need to stop buying books...?

Abby Sinclair, Books One and Two

I have just been reading up a storm lately!  I take books to work with me and I read on my breaks. Cumulatively, that's about an hour of reading every day that I'm at work. I mean, it's interrupted, of course, because I have to eat and people talk to me and stuff. But still. I get my books read bit by bit. I'm reading before classes and stuff too. Waiting for trains in the car. Just chillin in my room. It's great. It's like I've rediscovered the love or something.

I'm still writing like crazy, of course. I just finished part one and the interlude to my novel. I'm in the beginnings of part two now. It's hard to make it correlate to the first draft just because so much has changed, though. It's not like I try to make them stick together, just that I try to use the draft as a guide. And that's hard at the moment. hahaha. I barely used the Part One draft at all.

FYI, this post will almost certainly contain spoilers. But... you know... whatever.

Anyway. Here we are. To the designated content.

A Brush of Shadows (Abby Sinclair, Book #1): Allison Pang

Two things:
1. I've already blogged about this book. Wayyyyyy back. In like, March of 2011. hahahaha. (Good luck finding it. (All it takes is scrolling. (It's probably not worth your time.)))
2. I don't recall her ever wearing anything in the book like what's depicted on the cover. hahaha. Except that necklace, which isn't really important yet.

So here's the deal.
Abby is the TouchStone for the Fae Protectorate, who is actually a princess, though I don't recall if that's stated right off the bat. So that could probably be a spoiler. Oh well.

This incubus named Brystion (nicknamed Ion) shows up and asks her to help him find his sister (a succubus, in case that didn't occur to you) but "off the radar" in a manner of speaking.  There's some real shady business goin on and because the three paths (Heaven, Hell, Fae (who are apparently a middle ground or something if I recall correctly?)) are not exactly on the BEST of terms, things should be kept on the down-low.

Things get complicated, as they always do; Abby turns out to be a Dreamer, which is something that he explains the meaning of but we still don't really get to see it (even by the end of book 2) because Abby hasn't learned how to control it yet. She's haunted by some pretty severe nightmares, though; nightmares she can't let go.

The bad guy here is Maurice. It's been too long since reading it for me to tell you most accurately what the deal is here. But he basically, like, painted Brystion's sister (and then Abby and I think a couple other people?) into these ugly ass paintings. And Abby ends up stuck in this painting with sharks (her biggest fear (which is totally irrational since she's never even seen one)) and she almost dies and there's a whole bunch of really tense drama and stuff. And then blah blah blah she's saved and whatever.

Brystion and Abby have this super heated love affair--go figure--but it's... it's... I liked it. I mean, it was nice. beautiful, in a way. passionate. But he left her anyway. That pissed me off. But she gave him a place in her Heart of Dreaming or whatever, so... I mean... there's that. (He can't have one because he's an incubus.)

A Sliver of Shadow (Abby Sinclair, Book #2): Allison Pang

As an aside, this model has a different facial structure (and body frame) than the last one. I'm not sure how I feel about it... Also, all of her hair is pink and purple in this one instead of just her bangs... Meh.

So here we go again. Sorta.

Maurice is in jail but the Queen is going insane and the Fae court is kind of a wreck. Moira's baby is in Abby's care until she hands him off to his father (which is a scandal!) to take care of stuff.
Now there's romantic stuff brewing with her body guard Talivar, who turns out to be the prince and Moira's half-brother.

Clusterfuck after clusterfuck. The Queen shuts down the CrossRoads, which puts the entire metaphysical community afluster, strands some, kills others, etc. The Demons actually threaten war on the Fae, which is actually where this one kinda leaves off. Because Talivar and Abby accidentally start it and then Abby pulls a stupid in order to save him and Brystion--who have a weird love triangle thing going with Abby now, which is... strange... but amusing and interesting nonetheless.

I was VERY unhappy about where this book ended. Very unhappy indeed. If you're unhappy because I just said a whole ton of nothing, I apparently grew weary of typing this post. And there's too much that counts as serious plot spoilers. And I don't wanna ruin TOO much. I already dropped a couple huge things there, even if you don't realize it yet.

So the third one is published as of October 30th, which is good, because now I need to read it.

A Trace of Moonlight (Abby Sinclair, Book #3): Allison Pang

At least they stuck with the same blasted model this time.

I am praying that the Barnes & Noble in Minot has this one, since they don't have The Neon Court (the other book I'm attempting to acquire and may just have to order from Ferguson books here anyway. I at least get a free used book out of 'em for it.)

I really want to know where all this shit is going. This book  better address it or I'm going to be cranky. And go insane. Who knows.

So this is on the "BUY ME!! XD" list. Go figure.

They're fun to read, guys, honestly. There's all kinds of weird drama and shit but it's at least amusing. And Pang makes all these connections to random shit via Abby. She quotes all these movies and games and shows--no shit, she actually makes reference to Portal. ("The cake is a lie," she muttered at one point. It was great)--and half of her analogies are like, real-life references. She hits up LotR a lot... It's fun. (=

Matthew Swift

A Madness of Angels; Or, The Resurrection of Matthew Swift
Kate Griffin

And so it begins.

Matthew Swift is a sorcerer in London, but it is immediately apparent that he is more than that. He has been resurrected after having been dead for approximately two years.

Before the night is out, Matthew is attacked by a "litterbug" (a summoned monster composed of, you guessed it, garbage. Which, for the record, he defeats with a dustbin. Not to ruin it. It's a marvelous scene.

Newly resurrected, Swift's sole missions are to (a) find his murderer and return the favor, and (b) find who resurrected him, find out why, and then, quite likely, kill them as well.

So the novel progresses and you learn more and more peculiar things about this Swift, but things are still left unsaid, left in the dark and unexplained, leaving an air of mystery and suspense until finally the truth is spilled--but not all of it. Only one set of truths. The rest take the entire duration of the novel to be uncovered, but that's a large part of what moves it.

The prose is marvelous and intriguing; Griffin doesn't write in chapters. Sections are broken up with white space or " *  *  * "; larger sections are broken up as "Part One: [Title]", "The First Interlude: [Title]". It's fascinating. I love it--partially because it proves to me that I am perfectly capable of publishing material that isn't in the typical, structured format, and that makes me happy. hahaha.  But there's also a number of places where the writing totally breaks into stream of consciousness style, which is also terribly moving in-context. (Also because I know things you don't. hahaha.) It just fits in the way that she does it.  Some of the paragraphs are these great, barely-connected run-on sentences (one or two sentences total in the paragraph) and it's just... magnetic. It really keeps you moving through the material because it's different, because it keeps switching up the style of prose. Besides the fact that it's just intriguing and fun material.

The Midnight Mayor; Or, The Inauguration of Matthew Swift
Kate Griffin

And so it continues.

Surprise! Swift survived the first novel. It got a bit hairy back there what with all the fighting and the murderous intentions. Secret societies, organizations pitted against magic (for "religious reasons"), psychotic colleagues, etc.

This novel opens just as suddenly as the last one did.
Matthew answered a public phone (because he will always answer the phone when it rings; it's part of who he is) and was blasted back down the street. And now he's being attacked by spectres, which are particularly rare for London. All I'll tell you is that the tools for their demise include beer and a cigarette. Happy imaginings. =]

Let me give you a visual of a spectre:
You've ever been strolling around a city and you see that kid shuffling along in a hoodie with the hood up and headphones going in, bobbing along to a beat that only they can hear? Now imagine said kid without a face. Just a gaseous space holding clothes in the proper shape. Now you've got a spectre--but you can hear their beats, and not all spectres bob to the same rhythm.

It's been said that, should the Ravens ever leave the Tower of London, should the Stone ever break, should the Wall be defaced, the city of London shall be damned. The Midnight Mayor's job is to protect the city--provided the Midnight Mayor actually exists, since Swift seems terribly skeptical--but if the city requires a protector, clearly there are things it requires protection from. Correct?
I am sure you have already deduced a few things with the help of the above paragraph coupled with the title. Namely, that the Midnight Mayor has died, that the position has been transferred to Matthew Swift, and that the city is in pretty deep shit.

Suddenly, the phrase "GIVE ME BACK MY HAT" is graffitti'ed across the city, written on the London Wall, on the wall where the Ravens were killed, on the window of the business housing the broken Stone--everywhere. Significant? You bet your ass.



Griffin does such a marvelous job creating suspense and then systematically untying knots that tie more knots until finally the whole thing comes undone at the end. You can't help but be drawn in, but be captivated by her vivid imagery and intense, peculiar descriptions of things. She uses such unexpected language that catches you off guard but gives you a perfectly exact picture of what it is you're looking at and it's amazing. She has swiftly (hahahaha) become one of my very favorite and most inspiring authors--and it only took two novels. (One, actually, but we'll say two.)

I do not have possession of book three, pictured below. I can't afford to go buy it right now either. Yay being broke. hahaha.

I have enough other books that I should read first anyway. But, if you read books, you should know just exactly how well THAT goes. That's the problem with series. I think I'll try to read the rest of my current Laurell K Hamilton book first, anyway. I need to catch up, preferably before the next one comes out. I think she's working on 21 now? Oi. But I'm on 15! And I have the next one. So once I start 16 I'll go buy the next two. Because I have to keep up that way.
I'm really excited to start reading The Neon Court though, even if the subtitle is "Or, The Betrayal of Matthew Swift". Because "Betrayal" makes me terribly worried, indeed. I am afraid of book 3's events but too intrigued to avoid it. Go figure.