“I would have sworn fairies were too big to fit into a frog’s mouth.”
Dead Witch Walking – Kim Harrison
This series was such a fun read. 13 novels in total and I well remember waiting on tenterhooks for that last one to come out. The only disappointment was that the series ended there, though it did feel, to me, like a natural conclusion and a fair ending all round. Kim Harrison’s Hollows series creates a world of magic, as you might guess, where witches and vampires and fairies and many more all live together in… Well, not harmony, which is often the point of the novels.
It’s a colorful world, chock full of unique characters that do more than simply provide the typical roles you might find in another urban fantasy book, they feel real. As real as a pixie or a demon ever can feel, that is. All these characters are delved into over the course of the series and all change and grow, sometimes in very surprising ways. Our heroine, Rachel Morgan, is a sympathetic character whose humor often shines through, though she does seem to get the short-end of the stick rather often and accepts it with a grace that is difficult to fully buy into for me. Or perhaps I’m just severely lacking in it and she is representative.
Either way, as the books progress (and they do progress, many of the people and relationships are constantly growing and changing) I came to care about the characters more and, if anything, sometimes wished we could leave Rachel’s head for a while and go inhabit one of the other intriguing personalities. She has, in fact, recently written some prequel books set in this same world that do exactly that and I’m looking forward to diving into to those (starting with ‘The Turn’ which takes us back about 50 years to the point at which the supernatural world came out of the closet).
The books are written with a very light touch, lots of tongue-in-cheek humor and slightly outrageous situations but this doesn’t stop the serious moments from hitting home (and be ready for one or two particularly hard-hitting ones mid-way through the series). As is often the case, there are some family secrets lurking in the background for the heroine a little further down the line and a couple of romantic entanglements to spice things up. Each book has a specific story line it seeks to cover, in addition to furthering multiple side-stories, and this gives you a sense of completion at the end of each book that is quite satisfying – even as you are reaching for the next one.
Book Travels 