31st
Read: A Madness of Angels: Or, The Resurrection of Matthew Swift, Kate Griffin
I picked up this book because the first twenty pages or so was excerpted at the end of the most recent Felix Castor book. It teased at dark urban fantasy, and that’s precisely what Madness delivers. The world is a fascinating one, and the prose is exceptionally detailed, and at times somewhat overwrought and laced with non-standard spacing and the like—much of which is potentially explained by the vagaries of youth; the author was first published at a rather young age (her teens). Still, she does a fantastic job immersing us into the story of urban sourcerer Matthew Swift, returned from the grave with the help of the blue electric angels, and bent upon revenge against his former teacher. The twists are somewhat telegraphed, but the solid writing makes up for that—and I won’t even hold against her that she used the exact joke I’d planned for one of my subsequent stories. Great minds, after all.
