Quote:
Originally Posted by Elsi
I'm currently reading In the Midnight Hour by Patti O'Shea, one of the free books from TOR, also free for the Kindle at Amazon. I'm starting chapter 8, and really enjoying the book. I think I may have discovered yet another genre -- paranormal romance.
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Another series you might like along that line is Laura Anne Gilman's "Retriever" series, featuring Wren Valere and her partner Sergei Didier. They're published by Harlequin's Luna imprint, which is devoted to fantasy of various sorts with romance as a sub-plot instead of the main element of the book.
Wren is a Talent - someone capable of sensing and controlling Current, a magical energy. She makes her living as a Retriever. A Retriever can find lost objects and get them back for the owner. In Wren's case, this usually means stealing them back from whoever stole them. Her partner Sergei is a Null, an ordinary human being who can't sense magic. He serves as her business manager and sets up her assignments when he's not busy running an art gallery.
Wren's life is complicated. For one thing, Current tends to flow along the same paths as electricity, so electronic devices like computers, cellphones and airport security scanners tend to misbehave in Wren's presence. For another, she's a Lonejack - an unaffiliated mage in a magical subculture dominated by the Cosa Nostradamus, a council of powerful mages who want every mage to be part of their organization and play by their rules. For a third, she has strange friends, like PB, a furry demon who looks like a four foot tall polar bear, works as a messenger, and likes cold pizza. For a fourth, she has to deal with the Fatae, a variety of species of magical creatures who are generally treated with fear and hostility by humans who become aware of them. For a fifth, Current is dangerous. It's hard to control, and it's easy to become a Whizzer, a mage who has channeled too much current and gotten lost in it.
And last but not least, she has a growing romantic relationship with Sergei, who has his own dark past and secrets that will affect Wren in unexpected ways. In many ways, the theme of the books is communication. It's what Wren and Sergei
don't tell each other (for the best of well intentioned reasons) that come back to bite them.
The books are gritty contemporary urban fantasy, set in present day New York City, where you might just see a Fatae if you look, since the city has everything else.
Available at Fictionwise, in secure Adobe, eReader, MS Lit, and Mobipocket formats. Go here:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/Series606.htm
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Dennis