If you can’t move, from concussion, stress overload, or body cast, these will take take you away, like Calgon.
- 46. Smoke Bitten: A Mercy Thompson Novel book 12 by Patricia Briggs (Penguin, 2020). I’ve hopped around in the series. They are compelling, but mental potato chips. Feisty female coyote will go toe-to-toe with anyone.
- 48. Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega Book 1) by Patricia Briggs (Ace, 2008). This takes a Vietnam vet and his trauma and history into the story. This adds a new twist with an Omega, a wolf who is a healer. Trigger warning for abduction, harassment and rape.
- 49. Fair Game (Alpha & Omega, Book 3) by Patricia Briggs (Ace, 2012). It seemed hopeful that a Black character’s interaction with the Fae would lead to a Black regular, other than the continually cussing dangerous wolf character but the character of Leslie kind of fizzled as a hook. A near verbatim recycled conversation but with a different pair of characters about grandmother’s rolling pin. But then poets reshape better the next time an idea.
- 50. Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 1) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2019). This was the snappiest of the Jezebel books, with repartee like a 1930s movie, but contemporary in content. I love that its basis of magic is 10 Jewish men trying to attain immortality and releasing angel magic on the world, instead of the usual trope of descending from Goddess Primeval who everyone but Mundanes worships monolithically. This is a different beast of fantasy where there’s nuance and community with complexity and natural fondness for each other.
- 51. Death & Desire: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 2) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2020). This continues from book 1 as if the next chapter although there is closure with each book. It’s less funny but stuff gets real and characters get deeper and broader. It’s a complicated chess board but moving step-by-step, and doesn’t bog.
- 52. Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 3) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2020). The characters develop and not only the main character.
- Revenge & Rapture: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 4) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2020) somehow expands on aspects yet adds closure and opening at the end. I can’t imagine how a mind conceived and interweaves all this. Despite the name, it’s not the protagonist’s revenge, unless, as they say, the best revenge is living well despite.
