Living the Fictional Dream

Isn’t the summer a great time for reading? I’ve been up to my ears in books this summer, and enjoying every minute of it!

The most recent novel that I finished was No Humans Involved, the seventh book in Kelley Armstrong’s excellent Otherworld series. The series focuses on women with supernatural powers, which places it smack in the middle of the urban fantasy genre. Rana introduced me to the series a few years ago, and I’m glad she did.

The first two novels in the series are narrated by Elena, the only female werewolf and probably my favorite of Armstrong’s narrators. The second two are narrated by Paige, a witch. The fifth novel in the series is narrated by Eve, a witch/half-demon became a ghost after her untimely death. The sixth novel is back to Elena, and the newest one is narrated by Jaime Vegas, a spiritualist who is actually a necromancer (she can see/communicate with ghosts and raise the dead).

I wasn’t actually looking forward to a novel from Jaime’s point of view. She’s never been one of my favorites as a supporting cast member. However, once I got into the novel, Jaime grew on me, and now I quite like her. The same thing happened with Eve, so I should probably just relax and trust that I’ll like whomever Armstrong chooses as her next narrator.

Despite her profession, Jaime has always been afraid that one day her necromancy will make her go mad. She would rather ignore a ghost than talk to it, because, more often that not, what the ghost wants, she can’t do. And then she signs on for a TV show in L.A. and finds that the house is haunted by ghosts who can actually touch her. There have been some strange goings on in L.A. that aren’t in the normal line of things, and it’s up to Jaime to find out the truth, with a little help from a half chaos demon named Hope and her long-time unrequited love, Jeremy, Alpha of the North American werewolf pack.

I won’t give away any more of the plot, but I enjoyed this novel very much. Jaime is surprisingly resourceful, despite her innate ditziness, and the relationship between brash Jaime and cool and collected Jeremy is fun to watch.

The world building in this series is really well done, and it is one of the things that makes the Otherworld series a delight to read. And even though the series is built around the women in this world, the men are compelling characters in their own right. Armstrong doesn’t give anyone the short shrift.

The other thing I like about Armstrong is her website. Every year she writes an original novella or series of short stories set in her urban fantasy world and publishes it online for all her fans to read. Talk about a way to keep your readers coming back for more. It also totally embraces the new give-and-take that the Internet allows novelists to have with their readers. Should I ever become a published novelist, I would love to do the same!

So, if you’re looking for good, action-packed urban fantasy with strong female characters, give Armstrong’s Otherworld series a try. And if you’re already into the series, don’t miss out on No Humans Involved!