I'm guessing that you have a few fans of Carrie Vaughn's bestselling Kitty Norville series lurking around your library. In between Kitty releases, those fans might get understandably antsy, so here's a few more Vaughn stories to keep them satisfied.
DISCORD'S APPLE (7/2010) is a stand-alone dystopic fusion of mythology, fairy tales, and modern life.
"Taking a break from the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series, Vaughn melds a near-future world torn by war with the legend of the fall of Troy in this brilliantly structured, beautifully written stand-alone." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE (4/2011) is a very different stand-alone novel following the decidedly average daughter of two famous superheroes (I'm sure you've already heard me singing praises for it).
Kirkus Reviews says, "In this warm homage to and deconstruction of classic comic books, a young woman demonstrates that you don’t need superpowers to be a hero."
And Library Journal specifically notes that this one is "a good bet for most public libraries, especially if they're home to Kitty Norville fans or comic book devotees."
And if your patrons just can't leave Kitty's world, they're in luck! Next month Tor will release KITTY'S GREATEST HITS (8/2011), a series of short stories following some of the other characters in Kitty's life.
Library Journal says, "This collection should please fans of the series, especially those who want to know more about the side characters, but readers new to the Kittyverse will also find a fine introduction to this richly populated, fascinating paranormal world."
Vaughn is exceptional at pulling the strange, fantastic, and otherworldly into the lives of very real and modern young women. And if you want to get more people hooked on Vaughn's work, it should appeal to fans of Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, and Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter Series.
Read moreSo. I'm reading an urban fantasy novel. Big shift from my usual epic fantasy reading, right? And I've come up with a quibble that struck me once before. I'm not going to point fingers at any manuscripts, that's not the point. What's done is done. But we can be vigilant in the future.
Urban Fantasy tends to have immortal characters that have been around for a very long time. Usually vampires. But in the case of this book I'm reading, it's dragons and dwarves. And sometimes these characters speak with weird affectations and accents. Why? Because they're centuries old? Us mortals manage to adapt or drop accents in the short spans of our lives, why can't immortal (or just long-lived) characters? Especially when it seems pretty important for them to remain inconspicuous.
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