Yash Joshi Joshi itibaren Mont-d'Origny, Fransa
This is an excellent debut novel from the writer. It feels very Ruth Rendell-ish. The narrator is Karen, a rather conventional straight A student who is sucked into the world of Rex and Biba, a brother and sister and eccentric duo with a dissolute lifestyle - inevitably her magical summer with them ends in murder, secrets and lies which echo down the years. There's a shocking climax - i actually felt quite sorry for Biba! Plus the writer conjures up the heavy atmosphere of a sweltering summer really vividly - it warmed me up on dark cold Feb evenings!
** spoiler alert ** More adventures of Harry Dresden. I found Harry to be more likable in this book - maybe because he re-examined some of his old-fashioned ideas about "protecting" women. In this book, he is overrun with werewolves - he has to sort out the good guys from the bad guys. Strange alliances result in the final battle against the ultimate bad guy. This book explores a number of different varieties of werewolf - those who choose to become werewolves and shift shape by their own magic, those who use talismans for the shift, those who are cursed, and those who retain human form but adopt the raging hunger of beasts. Shape-shifting is even explored from the opposite side - Tera West is a wolf who has learned to use magic to assume the human form. I am annoyed with myself that I never figured this out - I had to wait until the author revealed the secret! It is similar to Poledra, Polgara's mother from the Belgariad. A fun read - moving on to the next! I don't know how far I'll get in this series. So far, the stories have been self-contained, with enough carryover to make the second book more interesting.