A loose sequel to The Lion of Farside. The newly widowed Curtis Macurdy has returned to Earth in 1933. He heads west to a lumber town in Oregon where he becomes a sheriff's deputy. After Pearl Harbor, he enlists in the Army and quickly becomes a para­troop­er. Despite showing great promise (and having been a general on Yuulith!), Macurdy refuses to be sent to Officer Training School. After some hair-raising adventures in North Africa that he only survives due to his Yuulith-trained magical abilities, he is recruited by the Office of …continue.

Sequel to The Bavarian Gate. Again widowed, Macurdy returns to Yuulith from Earth. He meets up with Vulkan, a bod­hisatt­va in the avatar of a wild boar, who is troubled by portents of trouble coming across the ocean. The voitar are invading the continent of Yuulith and Macurdy must pull together the disparate nations to fight back against the brutal voitar.

The series works better in a swords-and-sorcery milieu than in 20th century Earth, and this book is more enjoyable than its pre­de­ces­sor. Overall, the series is rather clumsily written. Emma said the books …continue.

Curtis Macurdy is a simple, Depression-era farmer married to the beautiful and exotic Varia. Varia is kidnapped and drawn back to her home in the parallel world of Yuulith. Macurdy follows her, but is im­me­di­ate­ly enslaved. After some training as a shaman, he shows promise as a fighter, and is sent to an elite regiment. He breaks out a few months later with two friends. Soon they fall in with outlaws and Macurdy quickly rises to the top, leading a successful rebellion.

Meanwhile, Varia is back with the Sisterhood, which she forswore …continue.

Mercy Thompson, heroine of Moon Called, is back. Mercedes the Volkswagen mechanic is a shape-shifter living in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington.

A new vampire is in town, one who also happens to be a demon-possessed sorceror, and he's killing in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly. The other vampires and the local werewolf pack need to shut him down before the general public catches on. In the end, Mercy's skills are needed to track him down and put an end to him. Along the way, she has two werewolves and a vampire paying court to her. Mercy …continue.

This is a very strange novel, which I abandoned half way through. The last book that I abandoned was simply wretched in every way, but this one is beau­ti­ful­ly written.

Giraffe is also utterly, mad­den­ing­ly pointless. It tells the (apparently) true story of the slaughter of a large herd of captive giraffes at a Czecho­slo­va­kian zoo in 1973. The main narrator is a he­mo­dy­nam­i­cist escorting a newly captured herd of giraffes as they are trans­port­ed by barge from Hamburg to the Czech zoo. He is a depressed-sounding young man with little liking for the Communist regime, …continue.

Lola Somerville, Brooklyn author, recently married to geek-hottie Doug (now there's a de­mo­graph­ic I can relate to), and best friend of hipster Annabel, starts tripping over bodies of chick lit writers. Someone is winnowing the chick lit best­sellers list and Lola feels compelled to find the killer.

This gentle parody is a cross between chick lit and Nancy Drew. Although happily married, Lola is as insecure and neurotic as ever. No longer worried about getting Mr. Perfect, she's more concerned about whether she's ready for a baby and whether her …continue.

Charlie Asher is the pluperfect Beta Male: nerdy, neurotic, and possessed of too much imag­i­na­tion. But he is not imagining things when people start dropping dead around him, after his wife Rachel dies giving birth to Sophie. Gradually, he comes to realize that he has somehow been appointed a Death Merchant, a sort of Santa's Helper to Death. His role is to facilitate the ascendance of souls.

Over the years, he tries to get on with his life, raising Sophie, running his second-hand store, grieving for Rachel, and collecting …continue.

Miles Roby is the manager of the Empire Grill on the main street of Empire Falls, a small Maine factory town whose time has passed. A quin­tes­sen­tial nice guy (i.e., con­gen­i­tal­ly unable to say 'no'), his life is about to undergo huge changes as his wife, Janine, is divorcing him. Janine has already taken up with an obnoxious gym owner, known as the Silver Fox. The diner is owned by Mrs. Francine Whiting, whose husband's family owned the mills that once brought prosperity to Empire Falls. Most of the town still dances …continue.

Blown Away is the latest in Ford's series about Frank Corso, in­ves­tiga­tive reporter, best­selling author, and abrasive jerk. Corso is pressed by his publisher to look into a year-old case in Penn­syl­va­nia where a victim was sent into a bank with a bomb chained around his neck, then blown up in the parking lot when he was pinned down by the police. Corso's questions provoke a couple of assaults upon himself, and then the FBI drag him to Los Angeles, where a series of identical bank robberies is taking …continue.

Laurie R. King is best known for two series of detective novels. One stars Kate Martinelli, an SFPD inspector living in present-day San Francisco with her lesbian partner, Lee, and their young daughter, Nora. The other is set in the 1920s and is written in the voice of Mary Russell, the young wife of the still-active sex­a­ge­nar­i­an, Sherlock Holmes.

Here, King ties both series together. Martinelli in­ves­ti­gates the murder of Philip Gilbert, the doyen of the local Sher­lock­ians, who recently came across a manuscript that seems to have been …continue.