ABOUT THE BOOKS
Book Synopsis for Blue Spirit: Gamer girl Skye MacLeod can see fairies, but only when
she’s tipsy. More Grimm than enchanting, some of these fairies are out to ruin
her life, wreaking havoc with her job, her home, and her relationships.
With the help of her tiny fairy friend
Minnie, Skye has to protect her vampire wannabe gamer friends from all-too-real
supernatural threats only she can see. Can she keep it together and hold fast
against a wicked fairy Queen’s plot?
Blue Spirit is the first book of A Tipsy
Fairy Tale series!
Book Synopsis for Restless Spirit: When Skye McLeod is asked by her pal Phil Jenson if she wants to cosplay at his game company’s booth during Big Con Weekend—and get paid for it—she jumps at the chance. Besides, Skye’s hit a rocky patch with her girlfriend Annabelle, who wants her to stop drinking and act more responsibly.
Then Skye gets a call from paranormal
detective Rebecca Burton for another job; something big is going on at the
convention, and she needs Skye to be her eyes and ears there. So now Skye’s
getting paid to have fun—twice!
Then The Night Duke, a creep from Skye’s
live role playing days, shows up and uses some weird mojo, seemingly turning
pretend zombies into real ones. After barely escaping an attack, Skye learns
the fairies and trolls within the magical realm are getting restless, and her
old friend, the Transit King, is in the middle of it.
Skye decides to once again enlist the
aid of her fairy companion “Minnie.” For Skye to enter the magic realm, she
needs to get tipsy. Then she’ll just have to control the powers within her and
contain the outside forces that threaten to spin into chaos. How can she
possibly screw this up?
I'm going to start out with one of the highest compliments I can give in a review. It's not one that I give lightly, so enjoy it and I hope you agree with it if you read these books.
There are no token characters in these books.
Sometimes, in books or movies, I get utterly and completely turned off by the obligatory characters. There is the struggling housewife, the sassy gay best friend, the husband who's not man enough for something, the makeover BFF, the Big Bad who is ripped off from something Joss Whedon... You get the idea. I can make you lists of things I would never recommend just because "I had to sit through two hundred pages of Mattie, the Prada-obsessed boytoy of Enrico telling the protagonist that she's a hot mess" or "The plot might have been interesting if the villain were at all original or motivated by something more complex than proving he's virile by galaxy domination." (Can you tell that I've been reading things slightly against my will recently?)
Let me give you an example. Our main girl has a girlfriend. Because this is fantasy, there are fairies. But they don't get old. We understand that the LARPing main character has a role-playing husband and her girlfriend isn't insecure about it, but joins the game to share an interest. I like books where there are real relationships and those aren't the only ones. The ensemble cast is brilliantly done and it feels like we're coming into the middle of a sixth season, but picking up the books for the first time.
In terms of world-building, I like the approaches to the fantastical elements. There are elements of demonic possession that seem fresh to me, the girl who has been a fan of The Exorcist for 20 years and writes about necromancy. Minnie--part-fairy, part-familiar, part-ninja--is my favorite character. One of my favorite parts of the book where they go onto even more familiar ground and run a booth at a Con is when we see sinister characters go very Sunnyvale After Dark until Minnie intervenes. It turns out that these utterly evil-seeming characters are hostages. This gives very good resonance to the character who's still dealing with the aftermath of being a "meat puppet" for a demon. It's like what would happen if Regan from The Exorcist grew up and was a social worker for a girl who is possessed.
I really don't want to give more away, so I'll leave you with this recommendation to go meet the cast of these books and find out how much more complicated it is.
These eBooks being reviewed were provided for an honest review, and that no compensation was provided.
Author Links:
Amazon Links for Blue Spirit
Print Version
Kindle Version
Barnes and Noble Link for Blue
Spirit
Amazon Links for Restless Spirit
Print Version
Kindle Version
Barnes and Noble Link for Restless
Spirit
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restless-spirit-e-chris-garrison/1123998495?ean=9781941706442
Oh my gosh, that IS a high compliment, thank you so much! I definitely see my characters as real people with their own motivations, fears, and hopes, and try to make sure they're all used as part of the story. I've dropped or combined characters in editing if someone seems superfluous, as well.
ReplyDeleteJust so you know, Minnie would be DELIGHTED to be described as "part-fairy, part-familiar, part-ninja".
If you're interested in demonic possession as a theme, Skye's "origin story" is from my Road Ghosts Trilogy, which is all about demonic possession (Frannie's origin is there too, and Gonzo is a major character in the series). Skye comes in late in the second book, Sinking Down, initially intended as comic relief, but she took on a life of her own, and was an obvious choice for a protagonist for Tipsy Fairy Tales when I was done with Road Ghosts.
Anyway, thanks again for your wonderful review, I will be insufferable for days among my author friends as a result.
Cheers,
Chrissy