Random book review: Black Dog Blues

Black Dog Blues

Can I just have a gushy, girly book-nerdy moment here?
I. Love. This. Book.

The world building in this story is AMAZING. The author basically took real-world California and fantasy Faerie and SMASHED them together. As in "the merge," and event where the two worlds violently merged and resulting in a human/fae war that makes this world in some places almost post-apocalyptic, and in others filled with lush futuristic beauty... it's amazing. Have I said amazing? It's also filled with action, violence, romance/sexual tension, emotional pull, and just a lot of fun (driving a mustang through a dragon-infested desert on the way to an elvin city while outrunning the monster dogs of the wild hunt anyone?). I've read another of Rys Ford's books, Dim Sum Asylum, and really enjoyed that too. She has a magical way of taking the sparkly fae and making them all gritty and edgy. Love it.

The Kai Gracen Series: Book One

Ever since being part of the pot in a high-stakes poker game, elfin outcast Kai Gracen figures he used up his good karma when Dempsey, a human Stalker, won the hand and took him in. Following the violent merge of Earth and Underhill, the human and elfin races are left with a messy, monster-ridden world, and Stalkers are the only cavalry willing to ride to someone’s rescue when something shadowy appears.

It’s a hard life but one Kai likes—filled with bounty, a few friends, and most importantly, no other elfin around to remind him of his past. And killing monsters is easy. Especially since he’s one himself.

But when a sidhe lord named Ryder arrives in San Diego, Kai is conscripted to do a job for Ryder’s fledgling Dawn Court. It’s supposed to be a simple run up the coast during dragon-mating season to retrieve a pregnant human woman seeking sanctuary. Easy, quick, and best of all, profitable. But Kai ends up in the middle of a deadly bloodline feud he has no hope of escaping.

No one ever got rich being a Stalker. But then few of them got old either and it doesn’t look like Kai will be the exception.