Review: The Chronicles of Viktor Valentine #2: What Lurks in the Shadows

The Chronicles of Viktor Valentine #2: What Lurks in the Shadows by Z Brewer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If I remember correctly, Pibling Z announced this series with only two books to start, but reading this quick little all-ages thriller makes it clear that there has to be at least one more to resolve certain cliffhangers. As a loyal Z Brewer Minion Horde reader almost all the way back to the beginning of their career, this book gave me flashbacks to the original Chronicles of Vladimir Tod something fierce, with Viktor having to deal with not only friendship drama with Damon, but Alys as well. Not to mention Joss McMillan being back in the picture to train Alys as a Slayer, October still refusing to speak to Joss even though she's married to his cousin Henry...and, of course, Lilith being Lilith and lurking on the periphery with her unknowable, mysterious schemes. And it happens that I read this book on the same evening when I cracked open a bottle of Sprite Vanilla Frost, so similarly named to the Prairie Frost which Viktor drinks at times in this book. While I didn't get to read this one at Halloween (due in large part to my having moved in October of this year), hopefully if Book 3 comes along at Halloween next year, I'll be able to properly read it during that season...

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Review: A Daughter of Fair Verona

A Daughter of Fair Verona by Christina Dodd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another surprising new find in the mystery section of the Washington County library system, this is the first of a speculative new series of quasi fantastical historical thrillers set in medieval Italy and focusing on Rosaline, daughter of Romeo and Juliet, who faked their mutual suicide and broke free of their feuding families to start a family of their own. It’s a bizarre combo of Shakespearean wit and Rosaline’s twentysomething snark to lend the prose a modern twist or two. Naturally, literary professors would be liable to shit their pants reading this - I’m especially picturing David Strathairn’s character on A Man on the Inside - but for the rest of us, it’s a promising start to a new series, and while it doesn’t quite stick the landing, I’m still glad to have Book 2 on my shelf already.

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