by AJ Reardon

A Review of 3 Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Faeries

It's no secret that I really like faeries, and I enjoy urban fantasy featuring faeries. Within the past few months I have read three novels that fit that description, so I figured hey, why not roll them up into one big review? Here they are in the order I read them.

Thistle Down By Irene Radford

I looked at this one several times over the course of a couple of months before finally deciding to give it a chance when I had a reading material emergency while on vacation (what was I thinking, packing only one book for a week-long trip?). I figured it would be a nice, light Summer read and if I liked it, there was a sequel I could pick up, too. This book is very light. It reads almost like a young adult novel, except all of the characters are adults. In some ways it also reads like the very worst sort of Christian fiction, with excessively nice good characters, villains who just need to be redeemed, and a lack of a real sense of danger or strong conflict, but it also doesn't have any religious message. I was never really drawn into this tale of pixies and humans working to save the forest surrounding their small town (I guess, technically, it might not be urban enough to be urban fantasy, but whatever). That said, I might have recommended it for those who enjoy some fluffy, non-offensive reading material now and then, if not for the fact that the story just... ends. The main plot gets resolved and then the book is done, without wrapping up any of the loose ends or even properly setting up the idea that they might carry over to the sequel. Very unsatisfying.

Black Swan Rising By Lee Carroll

I bought this one without realizing that it was even about faeries. It looked like a stand-alone urban fantasy that would just have general magical themes, and the main character is a jeweler (like me!), so that was a definite plus. There are a couple of misleading things about this book. The first is that it is actually the first book in a series. The second is that although it starts to be about faeries, all of the sudden about 100 pages in, SURPRISE VAMPIRE! What? His vampirism does fit into the plot in its own way, but when it happened it almost felt like the authors said "Well I guess the only way to get ahead in this genre is to have a vampire love interest, so here you go! He's gonna totally suck her blood guys!" Oh, did I say authors? Lee Carroll is a pseudonym for a husband and wife team working together. Good for them! I think it's cool when spouses work together on a creative project and it makes me wish that I liked this book. Which I did not. There's such a mish-mash of ideas going on here, and a really weird relationship model (I don't want to get into any more spoilers after already revealing the SURPRISE VAMPIRE). I don't think the book is bad, the writing was mostly good, I just personally did not like it that much and will not read the rest of the series.

Ashes of Honor By Seanan McGuire

And then there's this, the sixth book in the October Daye series. Well, it pretty much went without saying that I would like this one. This series is what I hold all other faerie urban fantasy up to. I want other books that are like this, but different... this same level of dedication to faerie lore, characters that I love this much, and stories that I find this hard to put down. I found Ashes of Honor to be especially good. It really sucked me in and made me want to live in Toby's world (but not to have her life because things are pretty rough for her as per usual). It made me want to take the time to re-read the whole series to remind me of details I was starting to forget (I'll probably do that before book 7 comes out next year). It left me with ideas about subplots, and how they're going to be resolved, and it left me especially impatient for the next book. Except not. In a way, this book ended so perfectly that I would have been happy with the series ending this way, with a bit of bitter-sweetness and hints of things to come, but still feeling wrapped-up. Compared to the non-ending of Thistle Down, this was just what I needed. I will continue to recommend the October Daye series to anyone who's looking for new urban fantasy to read. This series just keeps getting better and better.

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Copyright © 2012 By AJ Reardon E-mail AJ at: ErtheFae@aol.com Visit AJ at: www.erthefae.net