Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series:

• Ill Wind – 4 stars
• Heat Stroke – 4 stars
• Chill Factor – 4 stars
• Windfall – 5 stars
• Firestorm – 5 stars
• Thin Air – 5 stars

I first learned about these books from one of those if-you-liked-this-you-might-also-like-these promotions from Amazon, with regard to Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, which as you know I love. I picked up the first one, read a few pages, thought it would be amusing, and bought it. One near-sleepless week later, I closed the back cover on the 6th of I don’t know how many books. I got sucked in in a way I haven’t been in a while. Fast paced, ferociously entertaining, though at times a bit fluffy, the Weather Warden series is skillfully-written, innovative, and simply unputdownable. The series gets better as it goes on (with Windfall being the best of the series so far, I think), though I confess I am becoming a bit tired of the dun-dun-DUN! surprises—to be fair, this may also be a function of me reading all of these too close to one another.

I like Caine’s way of getting her characters out of one bad situation only to dump them into a worse one, but as I said, it does become a bit wearying after a while. That said, these books are supremely enjoyable, and a worthy addition to one of my (surprisingly) new favorite subgenres: the urban fantasy.

It’s strange; though these books aren’t as well written as Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books, nor (and this is the important thing) as well plotted, I gave them an average rating higher than the Briggs books. The 4 and 5-star ratings for me are largely emotional, and though technical excellence will usually net a book a 4, I’ve really got to have an emotional connection with the book to push it up to that 5. Now that I think about it, though, the Briggs books really are better than these, as well as emotionally engaging, so I think I’ll have to revise their ratings up to 5.

Cast in Secret by Michelle Sagara – 4 stars

The third book in The Elantra Chronicles, while displaying Sagara’s usual mastery, just wasn’t as engaging for me as the first two books in this series. Beautifully written and fast-paced, as usual, but somehow not as epic, or as awe-inspiring as Cast in Courtlight, which I just loved. Sagara reports on her LiveJournal site that she’s just finished the first draft of Cast in Fury, the 4th Elantra book, and I can’t help but be excited by that.

Hunter’s Oath by Michelle West – 4 stars

The first in a fantasy duology set in the same world as the Sun Sword series, but a few years previous to the events thereof, it’s as good as I expected, though not, in the end, quite as good as its follow-up. Surprisingly, it’s a bit more accessible than the Sun Sword books, a bit more informal, more in the vein of the recent Elantra books. A promising beginning to a good series (whose second book I’m reading now). Recommended.

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child – 2 stars

I know: this is shocking. A 2 star book from Lee Child? Never say. Sadly, it’s true. Child was just going through the motions here, churning out another book on a tight schedule, and it showed. It felt forced; for one thing, if Reacher is so smart, why would he bullheadedly go down a wrong path without thinking twice about it? Completely disregarding, mind, a very reasonable possibility any reasonably intelligent person would have come up with in 5 minutes? So that Child could drag out the story for another 100 pages, that’s why.

This book was a huge disappointment, and simply does not compare with the rest of his work. 2 stars for being well-written enough—for all the flaws this book has, that wasn’t one of them—for me to make it the whole way through without too much complaint.