fuonlyknew

I was excited to sign up for this tour organized by Bewitching Book Tours.

I had never read anything by Laura Bickle and was looking forward to something a little unusual.

What I got was, oops, need to save that for my reviews.

Read on to see why I loved this series so much!

       EMBERS

Anya Kalinczyk #1

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN: 978-1439167656

April 2010

“One of the most promising debut novels I’ve read in a great while… I’d highly recommend this book to anybody who reads fantasy. It reminds me in many regards…of another exceptional first novel…Emma Bull’s seminal War for the Oaks, and there’s not much higher praise that I can give.”

           —Elizabeth Bear on Tor.com

“Bickle has something great in Anya. Embers has everything: demons, ghosts, dragons, love, sex, police, and murder.”

           —M.L.N. Hanover, bestselling author of Darker Angels

“Gritty but never grim, Embers is a truly urban fantasy, where the soul of a city haunts every page. I can’t wait for more of Anya and the unforgettable Sparky!”

           —Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Shade

Unemployment, despair, anger–visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit’s unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.

Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya–who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern–suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil’s Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya–with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team –can stop it.

Anya’s accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she’s risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she’s ever faced.

My Review

I’ve never heard of a Lantern before. Sure, I’ve heard of psychic mediums, but a Lantern is new.

Apparently Anya can see ghosts, the good and the bad ones.

Her moonlighting job with DAGR puts her in contact with all kinds of ghost. As a Lantern, she draws in, or consumes the ghost, banishing them forever. She assumes they just cease to be.

As an arson investigator during the day, she’s investigating a serial arsonist and comes to realize the case also has ties to her night job.

She’ll have to set aside her differences with the leader of DAGR and work as a team to catch this guy.

The authors description of Detroit is so close to the way many big cities are now. Rife with crime and disillusion, people are without hope. That would make these cities prime hangouts for the darkness of the otherside.

Dragons, demons, evil spirits, and lots of ghost busting made this book one adventure after another.

The DAGR team is a mixed bag of characters, with a witch, a go to guy, the leader, and a tech wizard.

Anya’s romantic history with Brian is one reason she tried to distance herself from the group. She worries about the growing hollow in her chest and it’s hunger for more spirits.

She says it’s her “scariness” is why they aren’t a couple. That and her invisible familiar, Sparky.

Brian couldn’t care less,. He just wants Anya.

Anya is my favorite character, as she should be, being the star. She’s emotionally compromised, carrying around a boat load of guilt, and dealing with her oft times out of control Sparky.

I also really liked Katie, the witch. By day she runs her bakery shop, specializing in wedding cakes and pastries.

One scene cracked me up. She is working on the topping, a bride and groom, and the bride puts her through hell until she gets the figures just so, but not before Katie givess the bridezilla her just desserts.

Katie smirked, ” I did make her butt a bit bigger for revenge though.”

I think I like Katie, a lot.

Then there’s Sparky.

Anya’s mother gave him to her when she was little. When he’s not nosing around or working with Anya, he sleeps coiled around her neck. To anyone else, he is a pretty necklace.

No one else can see him, not even her paranormal friends. But they can tell when he’s around. Electronics go haywire, often causing fires.

Sparky is a Firedrake, also called a hell bender, a fire elemental salamander. Where Anya goes, he goes, and he comes in handy. When he’s not a necklace, he’s a walking breathing small dragon, with lots of powers.

Picture him as a frilly eared komodo with iridescent skin.

Problem is, he’s like an overgrown puppy with a mind of his own, always getting in trouble. If Anya doesn’t watch him closely, he gets into all kinds of mischief.

Like this scene.

She looked down to see the salamander creeping across the tile floor, stalking a microscope perched on a table. Anya stepped on his tail, pinning him to the floor. Sparky glared at her in irritation, straining forward with his legs churning in futile slow motion against the tile…

Sparky switched directions, circling around to get a better look at an unattended slide projector that had attracted his attention. Anya adjusted her stance to remain on his tail, trying to look nonchalant – not like she had to pee.

There were lots of funny scenes with Sparky and some really sweet ones too.

But keep in mind, he’s also her protector and has many weapons.

As the clock winds down to Devil’s Night, Anya and the group are desperate to stop the arsonist. They have a good idea of what he’s up to and no one wants to find out who or what Sirrush is.

 This is a fantastic story, well written, with attention to detail and lots of research. The technical aspects are written in laymens terms making it easier to follow and the story more genuine.

There are some super characters you come to love and care about, along with a sweet. lovable, funny sidekick.

Something just struck me about Embers. I didn’t want to let the characters go. Bittersweet when I reached the end. But wait, I also had Sparks, Book Two, and I wasted no time diving right back into this series.

5 Stars

EMBERS is available now from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Read an excerpt at http://books.simonandschuster.com/Embers/Laura-Bickle/9781439167656/excerpt

And now for SPARKS

SPARKS

Anya Kalinczyk #2

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN 978-1439167687

September 2010

The second book in Bickle’s series about Anya Kalinczyk is just as wonderful as the first—Anya is a compelling and likable protagonist and Bickle does an outstanding job in her portrayal of the city of Detroit; there are ruins, yes, but also hope in the ashes. Anya never takes herself too seriously and there is a scene in a baby supercenter that is absolutely not to be missed. (4 stars)

                 – RT Book Reviews

…a charming and inventive read.

                 -Elizabeth Bear, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, December 2010

WITHOUT A TRACE…

Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern, who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city plagued by unemployment and despair. Along with her inseparable salamander familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human combustion.

After fire consumes the home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or, more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor, promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.

My Review

I’m back in this series and the gang is all here.

It’s always exciting to start the next book in a series you love. The hard part is doing a review.

How to tell you about it without spoiling it for you.

This case also has ties to her night job.

Someone or something is burning people, reducing most of their bodies to ash. It’s like they just burst into flames and burn up.

Residual traces let Anya know there is something otherworldly at work which leads her right to Hope Solomon. a psychic medium sucking the money out of poor innocents.

She’s doing more than that, and Anya and her team, along with her faithful familiar, Sparky must rush to stop Hope before she becomes too powerful to stop.

While this is going on Anya has big problems with Sparky. She never thought to check what sex Sparky was and is astonished to find her bathtub full of salamander eggs. Over 50 of them.

This is a pickle, since, like Sparky, nobody else can see them. With Hope lusting after them, they devise a camera that can detect their heat signature and take turns guarding them.

A scene where Katie drags Anya and Sparky into a baby store is down right hilarious. Anya gets caught up in the buying game, and you won’t believe what heppens. By the time they are done… I want to tell you what happens so bad. I read this scene twice, it was good.

When it’s apparent that Sparky won’t stay with them if Anya leaves, they design a portable incubator bag for her to carry them in.

This struck me as funny. What would people think if they looked in that bag and saw nothing.

Another thing was what are they going to do with over 50 baby Sparky’s crawling around, getting into mischief.

One thing to remember. They may be babies, but they are also hellbenders, with their own powers, and you’ll discover they’re not always cute and cuddly.

Sparks takes you to the gates of Hell and through them.

I was so worried about what was going to happen to my beloved characters. I just couldn’t see how they would all survive.

I did survive the end of the book. Sparks is every bit as good as Embers and I can only hope for more books about these awesome characters. Soon.

5 Stars

SPARKS is available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

 Read an excerpt at http://books.simonandschuster.com/Sparks/Laura-Bickle/9781439167687/excerpt

Author Bio:

Laura Bickle has an MA in sociology-criminology (research interests: fear of crime and victimology) and a BA in criminology. She has worked in and around criminal justice since 1997. Although she does read Tarot cards, she’s never used them in criminal profiling or to locate lost scientists. She recently took up astronomy, but for the most part her primary role in studying constellations and dark matter is to follow her amateur astronomer-husband around central Ohio toting the telescope tripod and various lenses.

Writing as Laura Bickle, she’s the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket – Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she’s the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE.

More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness is here: http://www.salamanderstales.com/

Laura/ Alayna’s blogs

http://www.salamanderstales.blogspot.com and http://delphisdaughters.blogspot.com

She’s also at Facebook