An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris

This new series by Charlaine Harris imagines an alternative history for the United States that evokes a dystopian Wild West feel.

Title: An Easy Death
Author: Charlaine Harris
Series: Gunnie Rose, Book 01
Publish Date: October 2, 2018, by Saga Press
Genre: Urban fantasy, western fantasy
Narrator: Eva Kaminsky
Source: Purchased

Publisher’s Description: Set in a fractured United States, in the southwestern country now known as Texoma. A world where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted, especially by a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose. Battered by a run across the border to Mexico Lizbeth Rose takes a job offer from a pair of Russian wizards to be their local guide and gunnie. For the wizards, Gunnie Rose has already acquired a fearsome reputation and they’re at a desperate crossroad, even if they won’t admit it. They’re searching through the small border towns near Mexico, trying to locate a low-level magic practitioner, Oleg Karkarov. The wizards believe Oleg is a direct descendant of Grigori Rasputin, and that Oleg’s blood can save the young tsar’s life.

As the trio journey through an altered America, shattered into several countries by the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression, they’re set on by enemies. It’s clear that a powerful force does not want them to succeed in their mission. Lizbeth Rose is a gunnie who has never failed a client, but her oath will test all of her skills and resolve to get them all out alive.

Possible spoilers beyond this point.

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Invested Ivana says…

I’m never quite sure how I will react to the first book in a new series. Sometimes I adore it, sometimes I feel more cautious. It all depends on how invested I feel in the new world and characters.

With An Easy Death, I feel reserved, though I enjoyed it quite a lot. I was quite invested at the start of the book, where Harris shows us Lisbeth’s day-to-day life. Then that life is taken away from her, introducing the conflict in the story. Maybe that made me a bit gun-shy.

Eli and Pauline, the other two primary characters, aren’t ones I feel easy with. I’m not supposed to, as the reader, as Lisbeth isn’t herself. She’s never sure of their trustworthiness and intentions. But she has to work with them anyway to fulfill her contract and protect herself.

Since the book is told from Lisbeth’s perspective, perhaps I feel reserved because we know very little about Eli’s world, even though it has the potential to affect Lisbeth greatly. It will be interesting to see if future books let Lisbeth explore the world of the Russian wizards, or if she’ll have more adventures in the former southern US.

Though I feel reserved about the start of this series, I am looking forward to seeing where it goes. 4 Stars.

Other recommendations…

The Shadow series by Lila Bowen, The Devil’s West series by Laura Anne Gilman, or the Dark Alchemy/Wildlands series by Laura Bickle.

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Dark fantasies set in the Old West have been gaining popularity. Here is a list of them I found on Goodreads (though I’m not convinced all of those listed fit the bill). I finally got a chance to read one of them, Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen. The book has been on my TBR list for a while and several authors have spoken highly of it.

I received an ARC of this book from the author/publisher. All opinions are my own.

Title: Wake of Vultures
Author: Lila Bowen (aka Delilah S. Dawson)
Series: The Shadow, Book 1
Publish Date: October 27, 2015 by Orbit
Genre: Urban fantasy, western paranormal, dark fantasy
Source: NetGalley

Publisher’s Description: A rich, dark fantasy of destiny, death, and the supernatural world hiding beneath the surface.

Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people and hard ground dusted with sand. She’s a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don’t call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her. When nothing, not even a sickle to the eye can stop him, Nettie stabs him through the heart with a chunk of wood, and he turns into black sand.

And just like that, Nettie can see.

But her newfound sight is a blessing and a curse. Even if she doesn’t understand what’s under her own skin, she can sense what everyone else is hiding — at least physically. The world is full of evil, and now she knows the source of all the sand in the desert. Haunted by the spirits, Nettie has no choice but to set out on a quest that might lead to her true kin… if the monsters along the way don’t kill her first.

Possible spoilers beyond this point.

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Invested Ivana says…

Though I am a fan of dark fantasy, history, and different cultures, I’m not usually a fan of “westerns.” So I wasn’t really sure how I would like Wake of Vultures. But I’m happy to say I liked it a lot. If you’re a stickler for the definitions of the genres, you might have a hard time calling this either an urban fantasy or a western, but it is a great story regardless of what you call it.

Nettie Lonesome is trying to find her place in the world. Is she a daughter or a slave? Is she a ranch hand or a monster hunter? Is she timid or brave? Is she human, or something else? She can’t take for granted anything she thinks she knows about the world because nothing is what she thought it was.

A part of this book is about how your childhood experiences shape you and screw you up both. A larger part is about how you and only you get to decide who and what you are. Life presents you many opportunities to figure that out, but you decide how they shape you. The author’s comments indicate that she was intentional about the diversity issues she addressed in this book, which is awesome. Nettie is a half-black, half-Native American living with white folks. She identifies as male, though she is biologically female and experiences attraction to both genders. At times she feels she has to hide what she is; at others, she feels the relief of being accepted. It’s quite an emotional ride for Nettie, and she handles it better than most of us ever would, I think.

And, of course, there are monsters to hunt. Skinwalkers, vampires, harpies, werewolves, a water horse, a siren (yeah, in the desert-dry Old West), and some Native American creatures that are new to me. Can’t have either a western or an urban fantasy without something to hunt.

I’m really impressed with this first book in the Shadow series, and I’m hoping I get to read book 2, A Conspiracy of Ravens, fairly soon. This is a series I am really going to enjoy.

Agent Annie says…

The narrator of this book did a wonderful job capturing Nettie’s voice. Nettie/Rhett is a wonderful main character. The book kept my attention and I enjoyed being introduced to the world that Lila Bowen created with all sorts of different “monsters.” I also thought the author did a nice job introducing subtle elements of sexual orientation and gender identification and the different ways people are treated according to their race. The note at the end of the book was good to know since the author explained where she used historical fact and where she completely made up stuff.

The only issue I had with the book was the way in which Nettie defeats the cannibal owl. This was supposed to be the biggest, baddest monster out there, and had been for decades. The final battle scene and the death of the cannibal owl seemed just a bit too easy for me to accept even though Nettie was reaching the height of her own power. The final pages of the book did reinstate my high opinion of the book, and I look forward to reading more about Nettie in the next book, Conspiracy of Ravens, and then Malice of Crows (do you feel a bird theme going?) I give this book 4 stars.

Recommendations

Check out Dark Alchemy by Laura Bickle. It’s not really a western, but it felt like a western to me when I read it. If you just want a taste of western paranormal, try the anthologies Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West by John Joseph Adams and Westward Weird by Martin H. Greenberg.

I received an ARC of this book  from the author/publisher. All opinions are my own.