I'm reading...mj scott

SHADOW KIN

I’ve known MJ Scott for years.  A fellow Melbournite we’d meet up at writers’ conferences, and even bumped into one another at the shops on occasion!  She finalled in so many unpublished writers comps it was only a matter of time before some lucky publisher grabbed her.

SHADOW KIN is the first novel in the Half-Light City series, and it’s a ripper!  I’ve been struggling with how to describe this book in a way that does it justice.  I read it in a gulp, which shows how much I loved it.  Why?   For a start there was such clarity and surety and in the writing.  I felt like I was in good hands.  It’s a story of a woman, a wraith, who has lived a life of darkness, and servitude, bound to a Blood (a vampire) in a most unsavoury way, and yet the flavor is so beautifully light.  Tenuous.  Diaphanous.  Like the whole balance of the heroine’s journey could fracture at any second.  The setting, against a steam punk background, is complimentary yet subtle.   The bad guys comfortingly recognizable yet unique.  The hero and heroine both inventive yet true.

SHADOW KIN is great adventure of a story, with beautiful nuance and light and shade (true, but also hee hee if you’ve read the book) with at its centre a romance with heart and hurt and wariness and desperation and hope.  It’s a story that will grab you by the shirtfront and tug you through the Half-Light City.

Thank goodness the second book of the series, BLOOD KIN is out in a few months.  Can’t come soon enough for me!!!!

More about the author here.  Buy Shadow Kin here.   Pre-order Blood Kin here.

Next I’m reading...Busted in Bollywood by Nicola Marsh.  What are you reading?  Which book MUST I read this year?  Find the other books I've enjoyed in my "I'm reading..." series this year here!  Or join me at Goodreads.