Book rec: Industrial Magic
I'm inspired by the other book recs I've read here!
I've just finished Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong, & enjoyed it immensely.
The book's genre would fit into the popular supernatural/paranormal fantasy sub-genre category, I guess. Belonging to the same category as say, Tanya Huff's Blood Magicand Smoke and Mirrorsbooks, or Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blakevampire series.
Certainly, it is far more interesting reading than the later books of the Anita Blake series. Like the Anita Blake & the Blood Magic books, it features a feisty female central protagonist, with paranormal powers (she's a witch) investigating a crime in a world where the supernatural/paranormal is present. The world of Industrial Magic includes: witches; sorcerers; shamans; mortal half-demons (products of human-demon liasons); werewolves and vampires.
The central protagonist is not actually particularly strongly-characterized, but the plot moves along at a rapid place, & without the (increasingly annoying) interruptions of romantic/sexual entanglement that flaws the later Anita Blake books. It's an engrossing well-plotted & intriguing light read - & fascinating with its depiction of the intersection of the supernatural/paranormal into RL. It's extraordinarily easy to accept the existence of huge profit-making sorcerer-cabals, & political machinations & social prejudices among the various individuals within this fictional world. Sorcerers do not think highly of witches, & vampires believe they are the natural ruling class... (a situation allegedly worsened by the Anne Rice vampire books - this made me laugh! Apparently, all the really class-conscious vamps have moved to New Orleans *snicker*)
Compared to the highly recommended Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series that I've also recently finished reading... well, I'd rather be positive about Industrial Magic than negative about Twilight - let's just say that I found it considerably more interesting & the central protagonist considerably less annoying!