Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

MagnusChase and the Gods of Asgard.

By Rick Riordan.

Disney Hyperion.

Magnus Chase, son of Frey the god of Summer, fell off a bridge, died, and became an einherji – one of the Norse champions of Asgard. He lives on Floor 19 of the Hotel Valhalla together with his friends Alex (who occasionally changes sex), inseparable friends Hearthstone (an elf with father issues) and Blitzen (a dwarf with a literally killer fashion sense), Thomas Jefferson Jr. (a crack-shot Civil War veteran who can never resist a personal challenge), Samirah (devout Muslim Valkyrie) Halfborn Gunderson (Viking berserker with a straightforward approach to life), and Mallory Keen (an Irish revolutionary with mother issues). And then there’s Magnus’ sword Jack, sentient Sword of Summer with a penchant for singing hit songs from the 70’s and 80’s. Life in the hotel is cozy – if you don’t mind dying every day in the ultra-competitive rehearsals for Ragnarok: Watercolor lessons to the death, anyone? The trouble is, Ragnarok might come early. 

 

Loki, god of mischief, is on the loose once more. He’s building an army of giants and undead warriors aboard the gigantic warship Naglfar. Magnus and his friends must recapture Loki before he brings about the end of the Nine Worlds. Bravely setting forth on a banana-yellow magic longship, they encounter a mead-loving sea giant with particular dietary requirements, a Yorkshire giant with a talent for creating murderous pottery, Hearthstone’s father who should never have taken a cursed ring, and a group of giant thralls who really should have unionized. Immortal relatives and Magnus’ feelings for Alex make life even more colorful for the heroes before they have to face Loki for the ultimate trash-talk smack-down.

Riordan’s offbeat and wry sense of humor infused with a deep knowledge of Norse mythology makes Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard an entertaining read from start to finish.

Snap Judgment

SnapJudgment

by Marcia Clark

Thomas & Mercer

Criminal lawyer Samantha Brinkman is used to sparring with respected attorney Graham Hutchins on a TV legal show, and he turns to her for help when his daughter Alicia is murdered. After a high-pressure upbringing Alicia Hutchins won a place and much-needed independence at USC, and she seemed to have a glittering future. When Alicia was found with her throat slashed, suspicion turned on her controlling ex-boyfriend Roan Sutton – but then Sutton is found dead a few days later. Was it suicide – or did Graham Hutchins avenge his daughter?

A witness places Graham at the scene, but he denies any blame for Sutton’s death. Samantha and her team, investigator Alex and BFF/receptionist Michy set to work on the case, but uncover more questions than answers. Alicia’s halo slips a little as Samantha investigates the circumstances. Was Alicia a good girl having fun for the first time in her life, or were there darker forces at work? Matters are complicated for Samantha when a big time criminal shows up to call in a favor. Javier Cabazon isn’t the kind of guy you can say no to. He wants an important witness tracked down – or Samantha and her father Dale will pay the consequences. With Cabazon’s deadline, and the police closing in on Graham Hutchins, Samantha and her friends need to pull out all the stops. She plays by her own rules and is willing to bend or break any law to get results – but can Samantha cut through the mass of motives and family secrets to pull it off this time?

SnapJudgment sees the return of a terrific character in Samantha Brinkman. Marcia Clark renders the world of high-stakes law and flexible morals in perfect three dimensional clarity. 

 

Song of Edmon

Song of Edmon

Adam Burch

47North

Edmon Leontes’ birth was marked in spectacular fashion by a new Fracture opening in the heavens above the tidally-locked world of Tao. His father Edric, proud ruler of the House of Leontes proclaimed its appearance an omen that his son would one day be mightier than he, that the new Fracture would lead to wealth for Tao as it traded with new worlds. Thereafter he seemed to forget about Edmon, allowing him to remain in the care of his mother Cleopatra, matriarch of the Island of Bone in the perpetual light of the Dayside. 

Edmon’s idyllic upbringing crashes to a halt one day when a stranger arrives on the island to claim the rights and privileges of fostering. Phaestion of House Julii is impossibly beautiful and adept at the arts of combat to an uncanny degree. He moves through life with all the assurance of one born to rule – and he claims Edmon for one of his Companions, his elite bodyguard. Edmon must move away from home to begin initiation into the dark and savage martial culture of the more technologically advanced Nightside, where the powerful Houses jockey for position around the throne of the decrepit Wusong, ruler of Tao. 

On the Nightside trial by combat is held as the ultimate expression of humanity, yet Edmon discovers there are secrets the glittering nobility prefer to remain hidden. When a shocking act of betrayal casts him far from his privileged upbringing, Edmon must use all the resources he has and can find and become a player, not a pawn – or else the world he knows will end. 

Adam Burch’s Songof Edmon is a powerful debut with distinct shades of Herbert’s epic Dune novels. The world of Tao and its cultures come to life with a clarity that is sometimes brutal but never less than gripping. 

 

Match Making for Beginners - review

Match Making for Beginners,

by Maddie Dawson

Lake Union

Marnie McGraw, an ordinary young woman from Florida, is all at sea when she encounters her fiance Noah’s Old Money Virginian family for the first time. An innocent faux-pas immediately sets her at odds with Noah’s mom – but earns her a firm ally in the formidable shape of his great-aunt Blix Holliday. Blix sees much of herself in the younger woman and is elated by the discovery, because she’s dying and needs to find someone to replace her as magical matchmaker extraordinaire.

Marnie’s wedding to rich, feckless fly-by-night Noah is a disaster. Divorced within weeks, a shell-shocked Marnie is rescued by her family and renews her teenage love affair with Jeremy, now a doctor of physical therapy. Maybe this time she’ll settle with a nice, stable, boring guy and live the suburban life she thinks she wants. But Fate has a surprise in store when Blix passes away, leaving Marnie an eccentric brownstone house in Brooklyn, two lodgers – and a whole host of problems to solve. 

There’s Jessica, still in love with her ex-husband, although she won’t admit it. There’s Lola, Blix’s old friend and neighbor, reluctant to show her attraction to her late husband’s best friend. There’s Patrick, a physically scarred man with a shining soul who’s reluctant to show his face outside the brownstone’s basement apartment. And then there’s Noah, crashing back into Marnie’s life with his own agenda. Torn between Florida and Brooklyn and a growing attraction to Patrick, can Marnie negotiate the perils, pitfalls and magical chaos of Blix’s world and find the life and love she needs?

Match Making forBeginners is a lovely, lyrical, funny and moving story about lost souls and those who find, love and guide them. Marnie and Blix are great characters with true personalities you’ll love to read more adventures of. 

Her Beautiful Monster - review

Her BeautifulMonster

by Adi Tantimedh

Leopoldo & Co./Atria/Simon & Schuster.

Ravi Chandra Singh, investigator with Golden Sentinels of London, thinks he’s a holy fool. To him the gods of Hindu mythology are far from mythical: he sees them everywhere (except when he’s making love to gorgeous girlfriend Julia – the gods do have some discretion). His colleagues know about his oddity, yet they’re fine with it. His Machiavellian boss Roger Golden even sees Ravi’s budding shamanism as an asset to the firm. As for Golden Sentinels’ own implanted CIA spook Marcie, who knows what she really thinks?

The case of a Russian oligarch’s missing will leads Ravi and Co to a murderous family of blue-bloods. The case is wrapped up with the firm’s usual skill, but the result has disturbing geopolitical implications. To give them a break, Roger sends Ravi and Julia on an easy fact-finding assignment to observe the firm’s LA office at work. 

La-La Land lives up to expectations, with wannabe movie stars, beautiful people, and celebrities causing scandals. No scandal has the potential to be bigger than the case of Hollywood mogul Gossamer Rand Ross. Ross’ enthusiastic amateur efforts to assist the CIA in a little matter of gun running comes off the rails when brush fires encircle the city. Ravi and Julia are dragged into the middle of it all, and things turn especially hairy when old faces from Ravi’s past show up – including Ravi and Julia’s former lover Ariel, mercenary and sociopath extraordinaire. When Ravi sees the goddess Kali licking her lips, he knows the smelly stuff is going to hit the fan. Are the gods here to help, or are Ravi and Julia heading for a fatal fall?

Her BeautifulMonster is a rollicking journey through the dystopian world of modern mores, where East meets West in a fusion of laughter and wince-inducing pathos. 

Babylon Berlin - review

Babylon Berlin

by Volker Kutscher

Sandstone Press

Germany, Spring, 1929. Inspector Gereon Rath was a homicide detective in his home town of Cologne, but a shooting in the line of duty led to a newspaper scandal his career couldn’t survive. Thanks to his father’s heavy political and police connections, Rath transferred to Berlin and took up a position in E Section – the Vice squad in the city police HQ on Alexanderplatz. Under the avuncular guidance of Chief Inspector Wolter, Rath begins to find his feet in the vibrant and dangerous city. He also falls in love with ambitious police stenographer Charlotte Ritter.

When a dead Russian dissident somehow crashes a stolen car into the Landwehr Canal, the troubled Rath spies a chance to resume a career in homicide as a member of the crack A Section – but this is Berlin and nothing’s as it appears. Somewhere there’s a hidden fortune in Russian gold. A radical group of Russian exiles, a Berlin crime king, and corrupt cops at the heart of Alexanderplatz all conspire to be the first to find it. Rath must pursue a dangerous course through the illegal nightclubs and Communist neighborhoods of the city if he’s to win the case and get the girl – but a shocking encounter on the streets of Berlin throws everything into doubt.

In Babylon Berlin, Noir detective fiction merges seamlessly into the complex and hedonistic world of pre-Nazi Berlin. Kutscher’s period research, descriptions and realistic, sympathetic characters drive a narrative that’s hard to put down. 

Incarnate - review

Incarnate

by Josh Stolberg

Emily Bestler Books/Atria

Based in the small Alaskan town of Jarvis, Dr. Kim Patterson is a brilliant psychiatrist with a maverick approach to her profession, but her flouting of hospital rules isn’t appreciated by her superiors. Kim is walking a fine line between residency and dismissal when she encounters nineteen-year-old Scarlett Hascall in the psychiatric ward. Immediately Kim sees Scarlett’s condition isn’t being correctly diagnosed: She has multiple personalities fighting to control her, and Kim can’t resist doing her best to help the girl.

Across town Detective Zack Trainor is dealing with a missing person case. Isabel ‘Izzi’ Wilcox went missing some days ago. Her lowlife boyfriend looks a likely candidate for Izzi’s disappearance, but as Zack investigates things don’t seem so clear cut. When Zack discovers a link to Kim’s patient, he and she clash over the right way to proceed with Scarlett’s case – but Scarlett is full of surprises. Other dead and missing people from the town begin to emerge through Scarlett’s person, and Kim and Zack realize something seriously strange is going on. Is Scarlett the world’s most cunning psychopath, or is she really channeling the dead? Kim and Zack find they have to rely on each other as they pursue the case all the way to its shocking conclusion.

Incarnate has a great character partnership between off-beat but likable Kim Patterson and the more straight-laced Zack Trainor. The small world of Jarvis comes to life under Stolberg’s touch in a story that grips all the way to the end.