Kelly Lasiter interviewed Marjorie M. Liu about her recent projects. Read Kelly’s reviews of The Iron Hunt and Darkness Calls.
Kelly: The HUNTER KISS series grabbed me from the first sentence of The Iron Hunt: “When I was eight, my mother lost me to zombies in a one-card draw.” I love that line, and I’ve been wondering ever since… how did that sentence first come to you?
Marjorie M. Liu: My mom was the inspiration,
March 16th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter | Marjorie M. Liu | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 18 comments |
Anyone who is familiar with the ballad Tam Lin knows it’s a story that is very much for grown-ups, or at least teenagers. Susan Cooper does a very good job here of adapting the old story so that it’s suitable for any age. It requires changing a few plot elements, but the essential spirit of the story remains the same.
Margaret is tired of sewing and acting polite and talking about future husbands with the other girls at her father’s castle, so she runs away to the woods of Carterhays to pick flowers.
March 16th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Susan Cooper | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fitcher’s Brides by Gregory Frost
A widower, with a little help from his cold-hearted new wife, has fallen under the spell of Elias Fitcher, an apocalyptic preacher who predicts the world will end within the year. Packing up all his earthly belongings, and his three daughters — romantic Vernelia, neurotic Amy, and practical, skeptical Kate — he and his wife move to a tiny village in upstate New York to await the end of days. There, the charming, charismatic, and utterly horrifying Fitcher takes a shine to Vernelia, and sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind courtship.
March 15th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Gregory Frost | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
This is a difficult review for me to write. Nancy Werlin makes several plotting decisions that don’t quite work for me, even though I can see the ways these decisions serve the narrative.
Impossible is a book I should have loved. I adore plots that hinge on the exact wording of curses and prophecies: “none of woman born,” “when two Mondays come together,” that sort of thing. Here is a whole novel based on that concept. Our heroine,
March 11th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Nancy Werlin | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Chick and the Dead by Casey Daniels
Pepper Martin thought her newly acquired ability to see ghosts was a one-shot deal. That once Gus Scarpetti moved on to the great hereafter, she could go back to her normal life where only the living talked to her. She was wrong. It seems Gus has been talking her up in the afterlife, and sends Didi Bowman her way.
Didi died in the 1950s and was the sister of Merilee Bowman, Cleveland native and bestselling author of the Civil War novel So Far the Dawn.
March 9th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2.5 | Casey Daniels | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Never wear your good shoes to Hell
In Cat’s Claw, Amber Benson picks up right where she left off in the tumultuous life of Calliope Reaper-Jones: office drone, wannabe fashionista, and daughter of Death himself. As the novel begins, Calliope learns that her maybe-boyfriend Daniel may not be as dead as he seems, Cerberus wants a favor in return for the hellhound puppy Calliope stole, and her parents have enlisted an eccentric “aura specialist” to train her in magic.
March 8th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Amber Benson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire
I was a little disappointed in Rosemary and Rue, the first OCTOBER DAYE novel, but I could see tons of potential there and looked forward to the rest of the series. A Local Habitation (2010) blows it out of the water, and blows most of the urban fantasy on the shelves out of the water while it’s at it.
In this installment, Duke Sylvester Torquill asks Toby to check up on his niece,
March 6th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Seanan McGuire | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Seventh Witch by Shirley Damsgaard
In The Seventh Witch (2010), Ophelia and Abby travel to the Appalachians to visit family, and learn that events of decades ago continue to echo through the present. Along the way, Ophelia learns a lot about herself and the future she wants to build.
Unlike previous Ophelia and Abby books, The Seventh Witch is not primarily focused on the “whodunit” aspect. There’s a murder, but the question is not so much who committed the crime but how and why.
March 5th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Shirley Damsgaard | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Except the Queen by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder
In Except the Queen, two faerie sisters, Serana and Meteora, accidentally learn a scandalous secret about the faerie queen and let it slip. For their transgression, the two women are separated and banished to mortal Earth to live among humans. They are completely adrift in this new world, and if that weren’t bad enough, their new human bodies are old and overweight.
I think Except the Queen is meant — at least in part — as an exploration of aging.
March 5th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Jane Yolen, Midori Snyder | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
and Falling, Fly by Skyler White
When I finished and Falling, Fly, the first words out of my mouth were, “Wow, what a mindf*ck.” The cover art, while a beautiful example of its kind, seems to imply a fairly standard urban fantasy. and Falling, Fly is anything but.
Skyler White unfolds this story through the eyes of two main characters, Olivia and Dominic. Olivia lives in a world of sensual depravity; she believes she is a fallen angel and a vampire,
March 3rd, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Skyler White | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.