Save the world-early and often 

Three months ago Jan learned that elves were real, our world wasn’t safe and it was up to her to save her boyfriend-and the world-from being englamoured into slavery. Now Jan has a new deadline-ten weeks, ten days and ten hours. That’s when the truce she arranged between our world and the elves’ realm ends, and the invasion starts.

While supernatural creatures work to defend humanity, Jan and the kelpie Martin have to find the preter queen, and use her to force the portals closed. But when magic mixes with technology, shutting it down isn’t as simple as closing a door or pulling a plug….

Jan’s geek-girl know-how might have gotten her this far, but they’re going to need technical skills and magic to shut the portals for good….

And their time’s nearly up

 

The Review:

Heart of Briar wasn’t my favorite Laura Anne Gilman novel, but despite that I squeed and requested Soul of Fire when it appeared on NetGalley. And after reading it I am glad I requested it.

 

It is was intresting read about Jan’s and her friends search for the queen. How they followed every lead, and got more and more desperate. But it was also intresting to see how that forced them to think out side the box, to disobey. But I liked the fact that I could sense a friendship between them, even if it in some cases wouldn’t last for much longer than it took to find the Queen.I appreciated to get a glimpse of how life was at the Queen’s nascent court, and how her allies slyly manipulated her to their own gain. Those glimpse gave tantialising insight into how their species thought, and their opinion about humans. Nalith, the Queen were creepy, but then all Preters gives me the creeps. I am fervently glad that Preters doesn’t exist. The book also revealed exactly how far the Preter Court were prepared to get Nalith back.

The setting shifted between the Farm, the Queen’s court and the Preter Court. I really appreciated all the detail and careful work Ms Gilman has put into creating the settings. All of the showed how unique and different the factions were. All of them, their motivations felt believable.

 The biggest problem I had with this book was that I didn’t feel an sense of urgency as they raced against time to stop the Preter Court. But despite the lack of urgency, I closed the book with a craving for more stories set in this world which is a sign of Ms Gilman’s greatness.

I have spent some time thinking about the issues I had with this duology, and the conclusion I have come to is that is a duology that you should read back to back really appreciate it.

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Grade: B-

The Particulars: Urban Fantasy, Harlequin, available in print and as e-book

The Source: ARC from NetGalley

Purchase at: Amazon, Kobo, Allromance