Kick Ass Urban Fantasy Chicks

Urban Fantasy is my favorite genre at the moment. I can't get enough of it. I'm going to post a list soon of all the different novel series I currently follow, but suffice it to say that there is quite the handful. But I have found myself in a stagnant waiting period since October. I'm waiting until at least March for most release dates on my list at the moment. I was going a little stir crazy. So I picked up two new series over the last ... week and a half? And devoured them. It could be that I was a brain starved book zombie, but I rather think that the two authors I picked up were just kind of genuinely awesome.

First I picked up Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin books, beginning with Spider's Bite. The darker tone reminds me a little of Kim Harrison's Hollow's series, if you are familiar with her books. (If not, you should be. It's on my list of muchness.) What caught me about these books was that they were supernatural themed books that weren't steeped in vampires. There are vampires present in the universe the books are set in, but they are minor characters at best. Instead, Elementals, workers of elemental magic, are the top of the food chain. Also, the author includes giants and dwarves in her world without taking the urban out of urban fantasy and dragging the book into LOTR territory. Not that I don't like LOTR. It's classic, it's cannon, yadda yadda. This is just refreshing. I also like that while the main character is an elemental, she largely relies on her own physical strength and skill instead of throwing lightning bolts from her fingertips at every turn. Over all I give the whole series a rating of 5.5 toes.







And when that was done, it was like someone gave me one freaking M&M and I had to run out to the store and buy a whole bag to satisfy the resulting craving. That bag of M&Ms was Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series. Jane is my new girl crush. She's pretty much kick ass. She rides a motorcycle and carries a shotgun. Her business card reads "Have stakes, will travel." The first three books (fourth does not yet have release date.) are set in New Orleans. Also 5.5 toes.