Antidotes to a bad Sue

[larryhammer]

After surgically dissecting one book, I feel I should say something good about a book. I'd laud All the Fishes Come Home to Roost by rachelmanija, but it's getting enough notice around here it doesn't need my hosannas -- aside from noting that all the praises are deserved and none of the snarks are. So a book I've not seen mentioned: Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson.

It's packaged as chick-lit with fantasy elements, but it's more like a fantasy with chick-lit elements. Yes, the protagonist is a young woman narrating her vicissitudes in the work and dating worlds of New York City, but it's blended into a delightful froth of urban fantasy about an ancient magic spell consortium trying to update itself as a modern corporation. Should appeal to fans of Undead and Unwed and Kitty and the Midnight Hour, even without the former's shoe fetish or the latter's talk radio snark -- instead it has an intelligent young woman trying to make her way in Manhattan. And lying underneath it all is a fannish sensibility deploying guarded pop sci-fi references to good effect for anyone in the genre. Best scene: a Girls Night Out with fairies where they end up kissing frogs in Central Park.

It's nice to have a bright heroine who's often but not always right -- and earns her mistakes. And her promotions. My strongest caveat is that it's the first of a series, which means nothing gets tied off love-interest-wise.

It turns out, although I hadn't read any of Swendson's previous novels (she's published five category Romances), I've been a fan of hers for a decade: she wrote the Stealth Geek FAQ when she was a student.

---L.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, sounds interesting.

[larryhammer]

I think you'd like it. (So would rachelmanija and cofeeandink.)

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Doe ssound interesting, though 'earns her mistakes' makes me groan and roll my eyes.

[larryhammer]

As opposed to the Sue-ish way of claiming angst for piddly stuff, I meant. Possibly not phrased the best.

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yes! That makes sense.

Footnote

[larryhammer]

The Amazon link above currently bundles this book with Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom: "What would happen if Buffy the Vampire Slayer got married, moved to the suburbs and became a stay-at-home mom?" Which sounds like a perfect pairing and yet another Book I Must Get.

--L.

Re: Footnote

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Good gravy. Please tell me that Carpe Demon doesn't actually look like that excerpt, on the page.

My eyessssss!

Re: Footnote

[larryhammer]

It looks like a distillation to PDF that went bad. I've had that happen, looking like that. I'm pretty sure the physical page is white.

---L.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the praise-- and the recommendation. I'd never heard of that book before, and it sounds fun.

[larryhammer]

Praise deserved, as I said. (I'm especially intriged by the interludes: I wouldn't have thought to structure them the way you did, and it would have suffered for it. I'm also tickled you included Greg's suggestion.) (And I want to read the sequel eagerly enough I'd volunteer to be a first reader in a heartbeat, as if you don't already have enough.)

This book was a hand-sell by a WFC dealer, I forget whom. In return, I rec'd The Will of the Empress to him.

---L.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

By sequel, do you mean the Red Cross book I mentioned, or something else?

[larryhammer]

The Red Cross book. Or any book.

---L.