Mini Book Review: Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

I just finished reading the second last published book in this series and realized that I had not put any reviews up on the blog. So now I am going to do some short reviews of the books. Rosemary and Rue is the first book in the series and introduces us to the character October Daye and her world as a changeling.

These books are awesome because they return to the kind of magic spoken about in the original tales of fairies and fairy tales. These books really have a grip on the sense of horror and dread that those old tales brought forth. The names of the different Fae alone are so old school that I get chills.

I will say that I love this series, but the first book has some draw backs. It is the slowest of the series so far and really seems to have been a hard thing to write. At time it drags and gets boring. On the other hand I really did not guess at who the killer was until it was revealed. I mean I was kind of shocked. But once I got through this book and moved to the second one I fell in love with the series.

Mini Book Review: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Decent enough urban fantasy. Not very urban because the world is like half destroyed by magic and everyone rides horses now. There are some really great concepts in this book and the series but nothing is really explained for a while. I mean the entire first book is over before the authors (this is written by a couple) get around to making any kind of explanation as to why the world is messed up. A few things come up that are not really explained or talked about in depth but they seem kind of far fetched and I have trouble staying in a book when I am expected to accept something that I didn't know was there until just then. That the tricky bit about fantasy you have to choose how much to explain and this one is a little sparse on the definitions. Anyways I will keep reading because it's similar enough to Mercy Thompson to keep me reading.