James Fahy: Crescent Moon

You guys know how much I love vampires. And you know I love postapocalyptic worlds. And if we add dystopia, what do we get? Heaven for our eyeballs and minds? Yup!

This is a second book in Phoebe Harkness series and I must say that the author has outdone himself. The book number one was very good but oh my goodness the places we go in the second one!

The wallflower-ish doctor from a paratoxilogy lab, who wants nothing more than to be left alone with her research, gets tangled up in some GO politics and instead of doing her regular job, she kinda has to work as a bridge between the species of New Oxford. Ever heard of not shooting the messenger? Well, you are probably among the rare few ;-)=

Phoebe is a very realistic character and is very easy to like immediately but what I found surprising, however, was the positive feelings I developed towards Cloves - she's one tough cookie with a sailor mouth who does everything for her personal gain only yet I grew fond of her. She works for the story really well.

Furthermore, the humour of the book is amazing and the allusions to our pop culture as well as to classic pieces of art are woven into the text seamlessly so that you start cracking up in the least likely situations and you even start googling stuff because you're sure you've already heard of the Voynich Manuscript before but was it in the supernatural context? *headscratch* (see, it will effortlessly make you smarter).

But don't get the idea that this is a funny book. Or a romantic one (as in, ohhh, the vampire is having a shower right behind this wall, those suds sliding down.... *headshake* hello reality!) Far from it - it's actually as scary as hell. As I mentioned in the review of the first book, the bonewalkers are terrifying and I'm not going to change my opinion. Give me an angry shape-shifter or a creepy faceless girl any day but those robed masked weirdos supposedly doing everyone's bidding are the most suspicious crowd.

The book doesn't end on a cliffhanger so you can choose if you continue reading the books or not but I sure want to because something far bigger is coming and I can't wait to see it!

GENRE: postapocalyptic dystopian horror goodness with fun as a cherry on top

FANGS OUT: dark and clever
FANGS RETRACTING: keep them out, you'll need them
TOTAL SCORE:

James Fahy: Hell's Teeth

I ever thought I wasn't influenceable when it comes to social media. I know the ads around are customised to compel me to buy the kind of stuff I search for on the net and that nothing is as it seems but somehow ever since I joined bookstagram, there are people I can easily talk to about books and what more - there are authors who talk to us lowly humans :-)= And that's how I've got this book. I had to buy it because a) vampires and b) the author actually interacts with his followers. Big thumbs up just for that alone. 

So, this is a first book in a series BUT it doesn't end on a cliffhanger. That's sweet. You already know I like the series where I can decide whether I'll keep on reading or not. Cliffhangers are too pushy. 

Somehow people created these human devouring pale creatures (originally to be supersoldiers) who turned on them and when they thought everything would be lost, supernatural creatures stepped out of the shadows and helped them keep the pale ones at bay. But somehow they still aren't treated equally with humans despite their abilities. 

The story takes place in what was saved of Oxford and follows a doctor working in a lab (to find the cure or basically anything to help the battle against the pale creatures). Somehow while working on a cure which doesn't really work (as in exploding rats) she gets to work for Cabal (a weird version of the ruling body which wants to make everything visible for its citizens) to solve some unusual situation. Just because she once talked to a vampire who was standing across a whole room from her. That made her an expert on supernatural beings - and this absurd world and turn of the events is spiced up by her sarcastic side which shows up during deadly situations.

It was entertaining, adventurous and I appreciated the lack of romantic element - yeah, there was mild flirtation with the hot vampire but it wasn't distracting from the main story so that doesn't count. Yeah, I liked it a lot. It was fast-paced and there were many twists.

GENRE: postapocalyptical dystopian adventure

FANGS OUT: awesome leading character, nice twists
FANGS RETRACTING: I'd like to know more about the society since it's quite important
TOTAL SCORE: