Angela Slatter : Vigil (Review) Blog Tour.

Angela Slatter

Specialising in dark fantasy and horror, Angela Slatter is the author of The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, andBlack-Winged Angels, as well as Midnight and Moonshine and The Female Factory (both with Lisa L. Hannett). She has won five Aurealis Awards, one British Fantasy Award, and a World Fantasy Award, as well as being a finalist for the Norma K. Hemming Award.

Angelas short stories have appeared in Australian, UK and US Best Ofanthologies such The Mammoth Book of New Horror (Stephen Jones, ed.), The Years Best Dark Fantasy and Horror (Paula Guran, ed.), The Best Horror of the Year (Ellen Datlow, ed.), The Years Best Australian Fantasy and Horror(Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, eds.), and The Years Best YA Speculative Fiction(Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios, eds.).

She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006, and in 2013 she was awarded one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships.

Her novellas, Of Sorrow and Such (from Tor.com), and Ripper (in the Stephen Jones anthology Horrorology, from Jo Fletcher Books) will be released in October 2015.

Angelas urban fantasy novel, Vigil (based on the short story Brisneyland byNight), will be released by Jo Fletcher Books in 2016, and the sequel,Corpselight, in 2017. She is represented by Ian Drury of the literary agency Sheil Land.

 

Vigil  (2016) (The first book in the Vigil series)

Verity Fassbinder has her feet in two worlds.

The daughter of one human and one Weyrd parent, she has very little power herself, but does claim unusual strength – and the ability to walk between us and the other – as a couple of her talents. As such a rarity, she is charged with keeping the peace between both races, and ensuring the Weyrd remain hidden from us.

But now Sirens are dying, illegal wine made from the tears of human children is for sale – and in the hands of those Weyrd who hold with the old ways – and someone has released an unknown and terrifyingly destructive force on the streets of Brisbane.

And Verity must investigate – or risk ancient forces carving our world apart.

Review

I couldn’t resist reading this when the kind people at Jo Fletcher asked me if i would be part of the blog tour, the cover art alone is totally intriguing, that angelic, yet slightly disturbing image, something added to when you hold the book, not sure if its intentional but it has a waxy, almost slightly slimy quality to it which adds to the weyrd nature of the book.

When reading the book i could not help but make some comparisons to the first time i read Ben Aaronivitch, that sense of something a bit different but also something excellent in the making. While Vigil lacks the humour of Ben’s books (its supposed to)  it has a much more open and in your face Weyrd world, which requires more from the author in making the real world and the Weyrd blend and work hand in hand.

Angela Slatter managed it perfectly, not only did the narrative flow, but it was believable. Thats not an easy thing to accomplish when talking about Sirens, angels, boatmen and many other creatures of Weyrd origin.

Using a half breed (Verity Fassbinder) to cross the boundaries between worlds is a stroke of genius, an understanding of both worlds, and yet retaining that outsider hero element. Every chapter pulled… drove you to the next. I was forcing myself to put it down every night, wanting to see how all the threads of this plot would pull together, so i could finally see the whole Machiavellian plot that the author had kept shrouded until the end.

This series has huge potential for a long run, the characters have so much rich history (not just Verity) there are creatures as ancient as time, knowledge stretching over centuries all of which will lead to some very twisted ideas. The location was exotic and yet familiar, and the clash of normal to Weyrd culture so apt with all the modern culture clashes that the whole book resonates with the reader on a very real level (which is a surprise given the story). Bring on book 2…and 3 and many more.

(Parm)