August | 2019 | My Haunted Library

August 25, 2019
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Review: Bewitched and Betrothed

Bewitched and Betrothed—Juliet Blackwell, 2019. 4/5

Lily Ivory has her hands full running her vintage clothing store, worrying what her darkly handsome and brooding fiancé, Sailor, is up to, and wrangling her grandmother’s elderly West Texas coven that’s in town for her wedding. Oh, and saving San Francisco from an evil cupcake baker who’s teamed up with a literal demon from Lily’s past. An ordinary week for good-witch Lily, and her gobgoyle familiar, Oscar.

Lily is alarmed when her friend and co-worker, Maya, finds a shirt that may have belonged to a former Alcatraz inmate. The shirt has seriously malevolent vibrations and Lily doesn’t want it in Aunt Cora’s Closet. Moments after they donate the shirt to a pair of Alcatraz National Park Service Rangers—with strict warnings to keep it in a locked display—park ranger Elena is kidnapped, and the shirt with her. Forces of good face off against forces of evil in epic battle on Alcatraz island.

This series (Witchcraft Mysteries) is a guilty pleasure. Well, not really guilty, because the books are well-written, well-plotted, and outright fun. These are cozies with teeth. In Bewitched and Betrothed, there are serious threats here to characters we’ve come to enjoy: murder, violence, demonic sacrifice, and really, really bad guys (and gals). The supernatural mystery zips along, neatly balancing the light tension of Lily’s personal predicaments with her fate-of-city problems.

For our cozy side, there’s heaps of comforting contentment: lots of fashion, girl power, offbeat supporting characters, and smoky romance, all set against the vivid, bustling backdrop of San Francisco. Start with the first title, Secondhand Spirits, and welcome to a gratifyingly curl-uppable series.

August 11, 2019
by Jennifer 3 Comments

Review: Boomtown

Boomtown—James A. Moore, 2019. 3.5/5

Jonathan Crowley is pissed.

It is 1869 and he’s been killed. Again. This time by a gang of renegade soldiers while trying to defend a helpless Irish family. Now, having been prised out of the ice and mud, he’s back and out for revenge. He is so focused on revenge that quite frankly, Mr. Crowley is not interested whatsoever in helping the humans in Carson Point, Colorado fight off an ancient and powerful evil. Or in stopping the wizard Albert Miles who’s got his own dark designs on the town. Yep, Crowley’s putting his monster-hunting mission on the back burner while he goes after the men who killed him.

It doesn’t matter that the conscientious albino undertaker, Mr. Slate, is having trouble keeping dead bodies, well, dead. They’ve taken to leaving the mortuary and hanging malevolently around the edges of town. Crowley doesn’t care that a group of Native Americans (also very dead) seem to be possessed by…something…and are changing into something even worse. Or that a monster is eating folks’ horses. Or that the town deputy, in charge now because the sheriff is—you guessed it—dead, is fathoms out of his league. Crowley’s got one thing in mind: payback.

Jonathan Crowley ranks up there as one of my favorite characters. Known to bad guys as The Hunter, he’s been around for centuries protecting humankind from nameless evils. He’s an average-looking, bespectacled fellow who packs a mighty aura of menace and a smile that makes evildoers think again (if they’re smart enough). Humans make Crowley impatient. Stupidity makes him extremely irritable. And evil things that prey on humans? They elicit a violent zero-tolerance policy. Usually.

Boomtown is dark Western horror. Moore’s author’s note (“Warning Shots”) informs us up front that this title is especially grim because of—unusual for Moore—violence towards women and young children. We’ve got cringeworthy monsters and a unique, seemingly immortal adversary. There’s a lot going on between competing evil powers, gunfights, and magical battles.

Moore excels at making us feel the bitter high-country winter and gritty frontier atmosphere. We learn quickly that the book’s title is ironic. The miners, immigrants, former slaves, and merchants are all out to make fortunes in a town that is a supernatural bust.

Boomtown is a standalone Crowley tale, and I enjoyed it as a grim shoot-em up with a character I enjoy. But believe it or not, I wanted a little more of the humans’ side of the story. (Who would have thought I’d ever say that?) It’s true: I needed a little more connection to the supporting characters in order for the creepy stuff (and carnage) to be totally effective.

If you’re already a fan, you’ll like Boomtown. If you’re new to Mr. Crowley, I’m going to suggest you meet him as I did with the 3-book Serenity Falls series. Writ in Blood is first: neatly plotted, very creepy, truly great horror. I think the series is out of print, but you can find used copies, or check your library. Definitely worth it.

August 4, 2019
by Jennifer 5 Comments

Review: Discount Armageddon

Discount Armageddon –Seanan McGuire, 2012. 4.5/5

Braving your bogeyman of a boss—literally—and dealing with dragons under Manhattan are all in a day’s work for cryptozoologist Verity Price in this first installment of McGuire’s InCryptid series.

Verity shares her shoebox of an apartment, (a semi legal sublet from a Sasquatch) with a colony of fervently celebratory talking mice. She gets by waitressing at a strip club and dreaming of a professional ballroom dancing career. That’s the normal side of Verity’s life.

The…abnormal…side of her life? She’s the local protector of cryptids: supporting and protecting monster and human communities from each other.

Not only is Verity a mad-skilled free runner, and a serious weapons specialist, but she can kill a man—or monster—six ways from Sunday. It runs in the family. Once a part of the fanatical, hidebound Covenant, which believes the only good cryptid is a dead one, the Price family went rogue generations ago when they realized cryptids had as much right to be in the world as any human.

Now, Covenant member Dominic De Luca is in town for his first solo mission. Verity and Dominic’s explosive mutual animosity is complicated by equally fiery mutual attraction. But the two face a bigger problem: cryptid virgins are disappearing at an alarming rate, weird lizard men are prowling the sewers, and there are rumors of a dragon sleeping beneath the city.

Discount Armageddon is great fun. McGuire skillfully builds a rich, urban cryptid world, tucking it seamlessly alongside the mundane city-life of ignorant humans. Excitingly unique monsters good, bad, and indifferent abound. A back matter “Field Guide” to NYC cryptids offers tongue-in-cheek details (in case you need help identifying a ghoul at your local bar). The characters—human and otherwise—are great, too, brought to life with breezy dialogue and a touch of surreal humor. Verity herself is skilled and sassy, with a tender heart under all that armament. The plot races along to a highly satisfying conclusion. Yes! At last! I can’t wait to get ahold of the next book.