Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

ISBN: 9780441019458

I bought this book.

I admit I was a little sad when I read the blurb on the back of this book and I realized it wasn’t a direct sequel to the first Edge book, On the Edge. But Andrews is one of my auto-buys so I snatched it up on release day nonetheless. Am I glad I did.

William is a changeling, reviled and abused by the fae-ish bluebloods from the magical Siamese sister to our world called the Weird. After playing a secondary role in the first book William, crushed at the loss of Rose to his friend Declan, hides out in the non-magical “real” world, the Broken. Between the Weird and the Broken is the Edge, where the descendents of exiled, abandoned or escaped Weird families now live.

Tempted by one more job from his military background, and a chance to kill a long time mortal enemy who’s know for slaughtering changelings, especially children, on principle, William ventures back into the Edge. The Mire is a swamp that’s not just filled with Edgers trying to survive, but also with exiles from the Weird who are too strong magically to survive the crossing to the Broken. In the Mire William stumbles right into an old blood feud between two swamp-folk families that makes the Hatfields and the McCoys look like a squabble. One side has just teamed up with William’s enemies and the other…is headed by the brilliant, beautiful and deadly Cerise.

Cerise has been the head of her family for only a few days, since her parents disappeared, the first act in the flaring of an old blood feud that she’d rather move past. In fact, she’d like to move past the swamp, being poor and having to deal with the deadly (and crazy) blueblood she found in the swamp, but to do so she’d have to abandon her family, an act that would make them targets for the stronger land owners in the Mire.

Bayou Moon is a thick book, pushing 500 pages. But it’s a solid filled read, with tons to catch a reader’s interest. The hot-blooded romance is tempered (a lot) by wicked fight scenes, more enemies than you can count and a surprising almost-science fiction twist. Its a fast ride, compelling with a pitch perfect take on non-human characters and a plethora of truly imaginative fantasy elements. Humor, attitude, action and some really sexy leads, Bayou Moon is an awesome addition to the urban fantasy (rural fantasy? Swamp fantasy?) genre and a great place to start for readers wanting to know what all the buzz is about.