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Two wrongs make a great read
Apr. 21st, 2009 10:01 amLast night I finished LIVING WITH GHOSTS by Kari Sperring. If you promise to go out, buy a copy and read it, you're exempt from reading the following blog post.
The funny thing is that if I'd been paying attention, I probably would never have read this.
I buy a lot of first novels, despite only managing to read a fraction of them, and this book had been mentioned by someone at Boskone as an interesting debut novel that would soon be released. So when I spotted it at the bookstore, I added it to my stack. At the time I looked only at the front cover, and had the impression that it was urban fantasy. Oops.
Last week I took a break from the great virus meltdown of 2009 and when I picked a book out of my TBR, I chose this one. Mostly because of its cover--I was understandably in the mood for something dark. It took me about a page to realize that no, this was not urban fantasy. It took me only a couple of pages more to be hooked.
LIVING WITH GHOSTS is a satisfying blend of well-developed characters and intriguing worldbuilding. The richly realized Renaissance style city is a perfect backdrop for the blend of ghostly magic and intrigue. The characters are wonderfully flawed, complex and multi-dimensional. One of the things I liked best was how the romantic relationships are handled--unlike many urban fantasies where the character interactions are set on permanent teenage angst, these are adults, with all that entails.
When I finished it, I looked at the back cover blurb. I tend to avoid these because I don't want to be spoiled. In this case the blurb was both spoilery and boring--it read like a laundry list of soap opera motivations, and would have turned me off if I'd picked it up in the store.
So, back to my original point. I picked up the book because I thought it was an urban fantasy and I hadn't read the backcover blurb. I kept reading it because of the skill of the author, who drew me in to a world that was uniquely her own. Proving, I suppose, that in the end the most important recommendation is word of mouth, and thus I'm doing my best to pass it along.
And, of course, a cool cover doesn't hurt either.
The funny thing is that if I'd been paying attention, I probably would never have read this.
I buy a lot of first novels, despite only managing to read a fraction of them, and this book had been mentioned by someone at Boskone as an interesting debut novel that would soon be released. So when I spotted it at the bookstore, I added it to my stack. At the time I looked only at the front cover, and had the impression that it was urban fantasy. Oops.
Last week I took a break from the great virus meltdown of 2009 and when I picked a book out of my TBR, I chose this one. Mostly because of its cover--I was understandably in the mood for something dark. It took me about a page to realize that no, this was not urban fantasy. It took me only a couple of pages more to be hooked.
LIVING WITH GHOSTS is a satisfying blend of well-developed characters and intriguing worldbuilding. The richly realized Renaissance style city is a perfect backdrop for the blend of ghostly magic and intrigue. The characters are wonderfully flawed, complex and multi-dimensional. One of the things I liked best was how the romantic relationships are handled--unlike many urban fantasies where the character interactions are set on permanent teenage angst, these are adults, with all that entails.
When I finished it, I looked at the back cover blurb. I tend to avoid these because I don't want to be spoiled. In this case the blurb was both spoilery and boring--it read like a laundry list of soap opera motivations, and would have turned me off if I'd picked it up in the store.
So, back to my original point. I picked up the book because I thought it was an urban fantasy and I hadn't read the backcover blurb. I kept reading it because of the skill of the author, who drew me in to a world that was uniquely her own. Proving, I suppose, that in the end the most important recommendation is word of mouth, and thus I'm doing my best to pass it along.
And, of course, a cool cover doesn't hurt either.