Bang Bang....
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Over the last year PYR has put out some excellent YA branded fiction; Lightbringer by K.D. McEntire was the flagship title; it is the first in what I hope to be many urban fantasy novels featuring live and ghostly characters referencing the mythology of J.M Barry's Peter and the Lost Boys. This world is one split between the living and the dead, the real and the Never, a place where the spirits of people animals and even loved things exist after their passing. In Lightbringer we are introduced to Wendy who much like Buffy has an inherited responsibility, Wendy's to reap the various souls lost in the never into the "light". We also see the world from the point of view of the riders, ghosts of those that died in their teens who persist in the never protecting the child ghosts from the decayed walkers who would feed on their essence.
Lightbringer is an action adventure tale, a love story and a mystery that pushes Wendy its protagonist deeper into the realm of the Never which reveals it has many more secrets then her mother ever told her. The novel deals with the complex relationships that we all have with family friends and our past which we may be trying to protect our loved ones from. K.D. pays respect to the memory J. M Barry, who created Peter and the Lost Boys and also makes me fondly recall my hours of enjoyment watching Buffy and the sarcastic wit of Joss Whedon. Like Fair Coin this is a YA that lacks nothing in complexity or heart and is nothing quite akin to the big names in that movement at the moment. Lightbringer is everything that a fan of Buffy or Once upon a Time might want in a novel and will please fans of the likes of Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs too; Its a book that is the beginning of something bigger and drops the next plot threads along the way but is a complete story fulfilling and heartfelt. Like any Romeo and Juliet tale you know tragedy is in the cards and here the cold or the burn of that pain is worth it.
The setting of these stories is also one close to my heart seeing as it is in the San Francisco Bay area and K.D. has a good feel for the area and made it come alive both the living and the Neverlands. She makes geek references to warm the heart and shows an obvious love for all that genre fiction has to offer in this and its follow up novel Reaper....
And now...
Reaper is the follow up and comes thankfully not even a year on the heels of Lightbringer. I will strive not to give too much away here but I will say that Reaper builds the size and scope of the Lightbringer universe quite some ways. Wendy is some the worse for ware in this story from the trials and reveals after then end of Lightbringer and has a new loved one in a mysterious death yet not deathlike state. I was struck by how absent her father is and maybe that is one of the reasons I feel a bit of kinship with her. We also see Piotr, her other main protagonist suffering the losses from Lightbringer; he is as much adrift as one can be and is searching for purpose in his confusing afterlife in the dark and ever more sinister Never. K.D. expands our knowledge of the realities of the wider world of the reaper with the introduction of more of the family of reapers( think the slayers council) and more of the hierarchy of the recently and long long departed in the Never. Things are no where near as clean and clear cut as we were lead to believe and the games afoot are more deep and complex then we assumed at the end of Lightbringer.
This is a novel that feels much more dangerous and cynical then the initial volume. The stakes are higher here as we learn why Wendy's mom kept her from the wider world and the role she played in keeping the wider world out of the San Francisco bay area that had been her stomping grounds. Reaper is a book that deals a lot with obfucation and betrayal and fear. There are multiple players working behind the scenes of fhe story and lying to the multiple protagonists and as a reader its hard to tell who is playing whom; and its half the fun of the read. I look back on Lightbringer and see the realities of that book broken down by the truths revealed by Reaper. This book does horrible things to our heroes and makes a great second act. Wendy is given some of the training she should have received from her mother. The roles of the Riders have changed in the aftermath but they are as much stalwart friends through thick and thin.
Reaper though a full novel left me hanging and I hate the mid season breaks just as much now as I did watching episodic TV in the late nineties. Reaper is a novel of twists and turns as much as any great spy of thriller novel and ratchets up the emotional tension a couple notches. Sure we and her heroes learn so much in the course of the adventure but even with all the new heroes and opponents it just may not be enough.
Existential horror is my thing and the eire portrayal of the land of the never appealed to my spiritual angst. Loved both these suspense filled horror tinged romance adventures.... K.D. has the goods as a writer and delivers with, I hate to say it but, both barrels with these novels.... all I will say is where is volume 3.... please....
Anyway here are the links to the novels and to K.D.'s web site...
K.D. McEntire can be found here on the internet go and check her out and really give the books a look...
