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The 1st in the Marla Mason urban fantasy series.
Marla is the wicked witch protector of the city of Felport. But now a rival is preparing a spell to wipe Marla from existence. So Marla and her sidekick have travelled to San Francisco to find a magical artifact to stop her rival from staging her deadly coup. There are naturally complications. A magic worker of tremendous power is loose in the city and is killing the San Francisco sorcerers. Marla isn't too concerned about that, what she is concerned about is that the killer has stolen the very atifact she needs. Now Marla has to stop the killer from unleashing a blood god, reworking reality and ending existence as we know it. Because Felport is hers and nobody is taking it from her.
An excellent start to a brand new series. Marla is a bad witch, quite a refreshing change from the Mary-Sue heroines of numerous other urban fantasy series. She's nasty, mean, ruthless and murderous. So nobody better get in her way or she'll cut them. Anyway the plot is twisty, the 'heroine' is intriguing and the secondary characters, world building and magic system are very interesting.
There are so many good parts in this novel: Marla's best friend is a body stealing parasite, a washed up movie star is also a psychic and gets advice from things living in sewers and dustbins, a shamastic sex magician throws wild sex parties to build up power, a metal working artificer is also a cannibal, Marla annoys a snake god, deadly frogs and hummingbirds attack and Marla gets to see various parallel worlds.
This is a wonderful start to a fantastic new series.
Highest recommendation.
P-Con VI March 27th/28th/29th 2009
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