Sirens and Kitsune and Norns, oh my!
I swear, the capital of the Sunshine State has never looked better than it does in this fabulous urban fantasy crime thriller.
Back in the day, when I was working for the Gold Coast Libraries and reviewing books on their blog, I waxed a little bit fangirl about Trent Jamieson’s Business of Death trilogy, in part because that wonderful series is set in my home town of Brisbane.
So imagine my delight, last year, to read Angela Slatter’s Vigil, which has harpies on the Kargaroo Point cliffs, Norns in the West End, and so much more. It’s a glorious, dark tale full of myth, monsters and a very nasty vintage. You should definitely read it.
Needless to say I was looking forward to the sequel.
Corpselight delivered all it promised, and then some. It walks the fascinating line that the best urban fantasy always teeters on, showing a hidden underworld of magic sliding along with the mundane and recognisable real world. An insurance investigation sounds ordinary enough, but when the claim comes under “Unusual Happenstance” and involves supernatural mud inundation its rather more intriguing – and dangerous.
I’ve been reading a lot of Lois McMaster Bujold lately, and like some of her books, Corpselight considers motherhood from a number of different, and often dark, angles. It’s not always sunshine and butterflies in Brisneyland, of course, and it makes for gripping reading.
I’m looking forward to Conflux 13, at the end of the month, because Angela Slatter will be there – and I might just have to wax a little bit fangirl to her.
BTW – I wrote a post about brephophagists, the word for people who eats babies. It doesn’t come up much in conversation. The Creative Commons image, by Andrew Bossi, is of the baby-eating statue in Bern, Switzerland. As far as fabulous backstories for characters go, Verity Fassbinder (the heroine of Corpselight) has a cracker: her thankfully departed dad was a Kinderflesser – a child butcher – catering to Brisbane’s Weyrd communities more disgusting dining tastes. Nasty and, for dark urban fantasy, absolutely pitch perfect.