Embers by Laura Bickle (Anna Kalinczyk, #1)

So, is it hot in here, or is it just me?   Ok, couldn't resist that one.......     I had posted a teaser from this book, and finished it a few days ago.   

Here's the summary, courtesy of Goodreads: By day, Anya Kalinczyk is an arson investigator in the Detroit Fire Department. At night—accompanied by her elemental familiar, a salamander named Sparky, and an eccentric group of ghost hunters—Anya pursues malicious spirits. The rarest form of psychic medium, a “Lantern,” Anya doesn’t allow spirits to communicate through her with the physical world like most mediums, she devours restless harmful souls and incinerates them. She’d like to get closer to Brian, a ghost-hunting techno-wiz, but a lifetime of those she loves getting hurt makes her hold back. Her two roles mesh when, on the trail of a serial firebug, she discovers an arsonist is attempting to use the fires to rouse Sirrush, a supremely powerful elemental, from the salt mine beneath the city of Detroit. Anya must capture the arsonist before Devil’s Night, when the spell will be complete and Sirrush will rise to raze the city.

And here's what I thought:  I could definitely hang out with Anna Kalinczyk.  She's a down to earth person, who just happens to be a Lantern, a rare kind of psychic medium.  But she's completely cool --- she's not unearthly beautiful, impossibly smart, and just too amazing to be real; she's a real person who just happens to be a Lantern.  I really appreciated that Laura Bickle wrote Anna to be this way; she's not too perfect, and that's what makes her a great character.   Bickle also created a really interesting story here, where there is a real-life setting, completely with some real-life situations, mixed in with the magical.  There's just enough of both elements to make the story gritty and intriguing, and somehow, pretty believable.

And did I mention that this book has a little humor, and a little romance mixed in?  Anya's salamander, Sparky, is a great character all by himself and is creatively written to be a foil to Anya's character.   There are some deep emotions explored in this book, and Sparky sometimes acts as a bit of a counterpoint, or a grounding element.  To me, without him, the story wouldn't be as good.   Anya definitely struggles with being a Lantern, and feeling completely alone at times, just because of her abilities.    Lucky for her, she's got some good friends to help her out.

The romance element could have been completely left out and the story would still have been good.   For any of you younger readers -- heads up -- there's a brief (and only sketchily described) bit of sex towards the end of the book.   The romance didn't detract from what was going on in the story, and I can see where it lent a certain edge to Anya's personal struggles.   That said, though, if this book had been an urban fantasy romance (with the romance being a definite stronger flavor in this mix), I wouldn't have gotten through it.    I was really more interested in Anya's own story, and the mystery and danger building throughout the book.

All in all, a good read.   Whipped right through this book, and will be reaching for the next one, Sparks, just so I can see what happens next.  

* and extra bonus points to the author for including a very nicely written librarian in this story, who does a great job helping Anya.    :)       Well-written, non-stereotypical librarian characters always get extra gold starts in my book!!!

And where did this book come from?  Library, of course!  :)

It's Friday! And you know what that means........

it's time for another Book Blogger Hop!    Hosted by Crazy for Books, this is a great weekly event where you can discover new blogs, cool people and oh yeah -- post your blog in the list.   :)      I have a few days free now, so I'm planning on hopping through the list over the next day or so.


This will not only let me discover some great blogs, but will also help me not be cranky about not being able to go to BEA .....  and not find black sandals in my size.   ;)


So hop on over to Crazy for Books to start your weekend off right!   !!

Teaser Tuesday!!!

Tuesday already?!?!?   Must be time for Teaser Tuesday, which is this fun and cool thing hosted by Miz B over at Should Be Reading.  This meme asks us to:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teaser comes from a new book I've been devouring: Embers by Laura Bickle.   "In Vross' view, police work was a game for the boys.  They took Anya's marbles and went back to their fort to play with her evidence and set their plastic soldiers out on the street to hunt for the villain she'd described to them."   p. 108

Really liking this book --- should be finished in a day or so.   :)

Pastworld by Ian Beck

I posted a Teaser from this book last week, and just finished it over the weekend.   Shall we start with the quote on the cover?  "The dark secrets of the present are living in the past...."    Creepy?  Intriguing?  Yes.

Here's the summary, from Goodreads:  What if all of London were really an amusement park—a whole city returned to Victorian times to entertain visitors from the twenty-first century? That's the wildly original premise of Ian Beck's Pastworld, a high-stakes mystery set in a simulated past.
            Eve is a lifelong resident of Pastworld who doesn’t know she’s living in a theme park until a mysterious threat forces her to leave home. Caleb is a visiting tourist who finds the lawlessness of the past thrilling—until he suddenly becomes a fugitive from an antiquated justice system. And in the midst of it all, in the thick London fog a dark and deadly figure prowls, claiming victim after victim. He’s the Fantom, a creature both of the past and of the present, in whose dark purpose Caleb and Eve will find their destinies combined.

And here's what I thought  (**spoilers**):   I had originally picked this book up because it was on a display in our library, and then realized it had been on my TBR list for a while.   I have a bit of a fascination with Victorian London, and this sounded like a cool twist on that.   The premise is interesting all by itself: a London preserved into a park, where visitors are required to wear period clothing, carry period money.... and on their own in this very real world where crime (and punishment) are all very, very real.   The characters of Eve and Caleb were well-written, although I sometimes found some of the supporting characters to be a little more interesting.  Bible J in particular was someone I wouldn't mind getting to know better --- he'd make an interesting main character in another book.     What I really felt was thought-provoking, and what stayed with me was what was revealed to be the purpose of Eve.  Not just who she was, but her purpose.  And stop reading now if you don't want a spoiler ----   but Jack the Ripper is alive and well in this London.  And Eve is involved.    Okay -- spoiler done.

This was an interesting book that made me think, and I enjoyed it.   I found wonderful reviews done by other bloggers, as well:   Wondrous Reads and The Book Smugglers, if you'd like another opinion. 

Hoppin' around.... must be.....

Friday!!!!    And that means it's time for another Book Blogger Hop!   The Hop is this great thing hosted by Crazy for Books, and it lets people not only put a little link in to their own blog, but more importantly, discover other bloggers!     Every week, I seem to discover a few new blogs to add to my Reader, and it's a lot of fun!   :)

So stop on over to the Hop!!!


seriously... I look forward to this each week because not only do I discover cool blogs, but it also means it's the end of another week  (whew!)

Teaser Tuesday!

I finally feel like I'm getting back on track again!   And it's that time again --- for Teaser Tuesday!!!


Teaser Tuesday is this very cool, weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading and it asks us to...

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 This week's teaser comes from Ian Beck's PastWorld, a book which I picked up from a display in our library.    "Even Caleb gasped.  He hadn't wanted to give his father the satisfaction of seeing how interested he really was in the city below them, didn't want him to see that a great flicker of excitement had just at that moment grown, doubled, trebled, as the airship slipped gracefully through the gloomy fog bank and floated over the dream-like city itself."   p. 69

Kraken by China Mieville

Summary (partial summary -- courtesy of Goodreads): With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.
             In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.
             As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.
             All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.

Ok -- I don't always like to take summaries from another source, but for this book, I thought it might be best.  For me to attempt to summarize what's going on in this story would be .... confusing.  No doubt I'd miss something, or not explain it well enough...  and there's so much here, so much wonderful rich detail, that I know I wouldn't be able to do justice to this book by trying to tell you what it's about.

So what did I think about this book?   This author is one my all-time favorites.  The worlds he creates in his stories are awful and wonderful, terrifying and beguiling, horrible and beautiful.  I know that might not make any sense.   I don't often encounter other readers who love his books like I do.  And they're not easy reads.  This book isn't an easy read (at least, I don't think it's an easy read.  Doubtless, there's someone out there who'd argue with me about this, but they're not the one writing this post, are they?).   When I pick up one of Mieville's books, I tell myself:  don't think too much --- just relax back into the story and let it wash over and through you.    This book was no different.   There's a lot going on here, and it can be tricky to keep everything straight.    There's a lot of tension, and scary moments, but there's also some sly humor to balance things out when it gets too dark.  I know the description above says this book is strange, funny, and scary --- it's all those things and more.  It's dark and uncomfortable, but I can't stay away from it.   Does that make sense?  Maybe only to my mind.

I have met people who loved Un Lun Dun (a book group I'm in read that book), but I tell them:  even if you love that story, you might not love anything else by this author.   Just because I love The Scar and Perdido Street Station and Iron Council didn't mean I was going to love The City and the City (although yes, I did love that book, as well).   I find this author extremely compelling just because what he writes is strange and uncomfortable, and like nothing I've ever read.  

Let's leave with a little sentence that made me smile.....  "The world lurched again.  Reeled, as in the was punched sense, rather than the dancing."   p. 391       

And where did I get this book?   I treated myself to a copy from The Book Depository UK. 

And, this book met the guidelines for the Chunkster Challenge by being 450+ pages of adult literature.  This weighs in at 481.