Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance

January

A Hard Day’s Knight (Nightside) by Simon R. Green (Ace Books)
Kitty goes to War (Kitty Norville) by Carrie Vaughn (Gollancz)

March

River Marked (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs (Orbit)
Invincible (Chronicles of Nick 2) by Sherrilyn Kenyon (ATOM)
Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood) by J. R. Ward (Piatkus Books)

April

Ghost Story (Dresden Files 13) by Jim Butcher (Orbit)
Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Orbit)
Born of Shadows (League 4) by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Piatkus Books)

June

Hunt the Moon (Cassie Palmer) by Karen Chance (Signet Books)
Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy) by Mira Grant (Orbit)

July

Kitty’s Big Trouble (Kitty Norville) by Carrie Vaughn (Gollancz)

August

Pale Demon by (The Hollows) Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager)
Retribution (Dark-Hunter) by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Piatkus Books)
Downpour (Greywalker) by Kat Richardson (Piatkus Books)

October

Envy (Fallen Angels) by J. R. Ward (Piatkus Books)

Fantasy

March

Land of Painted Caves (Earth’s Children Book 6) by Jean M. Auel (Hodder & Stoughton)
Twilight’s Dawn (Black Jewels) by Anne Bishop (Roc)

April

Shadow Chaser (Chronicles of Siala) by Alexey Pehov (Simon & Schuster)

Chick Lit

February

To the Moon and Back by Jill Mansell (Headline)

March

Summer of Love by Katie Fforde (Century)
Kiss and Tell by Fiona Walker (Sphere)

May

Any Man of Mine by Rachel Gibson (Corgi)

Crime

January

You Belong to Me by Karen Rose (Headline)

May

Virals by Kathy Reichs (Arrow (Young))

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The stories revolve around a private detective (John Taylor) who has a knack for finding people and things, and the twist is the dark core of London – the Nightside.  A fantasy world within the normal world in which just about anything is possible.  Something from the Nightside gives a good introduction to John and the Nightside location, and Agents of Light and Darkness drive us a little further into the underlying threads Simon is trying to build.

Being both quite short, neither story really has a multi-threaded complex plot, rather we follow John on investigations which lead him through the mysterious, dangerous and fantastic world that is the Nightside.  We’re introduced to lots of characters with weird skills and histories and presented with magical beings and supernatural situations.  Most of the story is driven by either John’s internal monologue, or his conversations with the characters around him, interspersed with action and violence.

The book is certainly engaging, but at times I had to work hard to ignore the flaws.  Although John’s gift is the ability to find anything, he has built a reputation in the Nightside of being dangerous, and that reputation gets him out of rather more situations than it ought to.  Characters we meet are increasingly bizarre without any single thread tying them together, characters from science fiction, history, fantasy, the supernatural all mingling together.  At times I felt like I was looking at a rainbow made up of 86 colours, it might look pretty but you can’t really get a sense of any detail or specifics.  I ended up letting a lot of the background wash over me.

We are led to believe the Nightside is huge and heavily populated, but when it comes under massive sustained attack in Agents of Light and Darkness I didn’t get the sense of thousands of people trying to escape, just a small few making a desperate stand.  The Nightside is full of flat, endless hoards of non-descript fantastical beings.

Despite those issues, I did finish the book and I enjoyed it enough to pick up the second (Haunting the Nightside) which is again comprised of two stories.

Into the Nightside is pulp urban fantasy, it’s easy reading and the main characters are just engaging enough to keep you turning the pages despite the flaws.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

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