Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Left Hand Magic, by Nancy A. Collins

(pb; 2011: second novel in the Golgotham series)

From the back cover:

"Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Golgotham has been the city's supernatural ghetto for centuries.  Populated by countless creatures from myth and legend, its most prominent citizens are the Kymera, a race of witches who maintain an uneasy truce with New York City's humans. . .

"Tate Eresby has accepted the unusual sights and sounds of Golgotham and has made it her home.  Unfortunately, trend-setting hipsters have descended upon the community - along with an anti-Kymera faction known as the Sons of Adam.  The sudden influx of tourists escalates racial tensions to a boiling point when two Kymerans are attacked, another is murdered, and rioting fills the streets.

"Tate's relationship with Hexe, the current heir to the Kymeran throne is also full of tension.  Hexe's uncle Esau is an anti-human activist who's ready to declare war on the Sons of Adam - and who believes Tate is a spy.  But is it possible that Tate's time in Golgotham has left her more than human?"


Review:

Fun, relatively light* and fast-moving read that might especially appeal to those readers looking for an urban fantasy novel-series that's a shade darker and more mature than a YA novel (this is not meant in a demeaning way - there's hints of sex, but nothing even remotely explicit and the magic and violence of the first two books is PG-13 at worst).

There's a 'mystery' - hidden villains and secret associations - element to the book, but, as in Right Hand Magic, they're easy - intentionally so - to suss out.

I enjoyed this a lot, found it difficult to set down; in fact, I read it in a couple of hours.  Left Hand Magic is worth your money and time, if the above-paragraph description sounds like that something that would grab you.

Followed by Magic and Loss.

[*compared to Collins' dark, ultra-violent Sonja Blue series]

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