"First in a Brand New Urban Fantasy Series Brings Humor and Danger As Well As a Surprise Ending"
Reviewed by Diana Troldahl
Posted September 13, 2011
Fantasy Urban
Arcadia "Cady" Bell has been living way under the radar from
the moment her parents went into hiding after being
wrongfully accused of a series of ritual murders of the
leaders of magical orders. Her parents faked the family's
death and Cady built a brand new life at age seventeen. In
the past seven years she has managed to build a life as a
co-owner of a bar catering to earthbound demons (who look
pretty much like humans except for their auras) and kept her
head down and her eyes on the goal of keeping her parents
safe from the revenge of the survivors of the murder. Unable
to approach any of the groups of magic users without
endangering her parents, she has taught herself how to use
her unique (even among magicians) talents. If not happy,
life at least was mostly safe until her parents were caught
on camera at a gas station whipping up the brouhaha again. Her only chance to save her parents and herself is to track
down the Aetheric demon who truly murdered the leaders and
compel it to reveal who commanded it to kill so many years
ago. In the process of searching she gains the help of Lon,
an earthbound demon and famous photographer with a wacky and
charming teenaged son. With his help and connections, she
has a slim chance to avoid paying for the deaths with her
own life. KINDLING THE MOON is the first in a new series featuring
Arcadia Bell. Filled with humor as well as danger, the story
kept me riveted from the first page to last with a surprise
ending that had me sitting on the edge of my seat. Jenn
Bennett is an award winning visual artist but this first
book proves she has all the writing skilz she needs to
succeed in this field as well. Book two of the series,
Summoning the Night is due out in April 2012.
SUMMARY
Meet Arcadia Bell: bartender, renegade
magician, fugitive from the law. . . .
Being the
spawn of two infamous occultists (and alleged murderers)
isn’t easy, but freewheeling magician Arcadia “Cady” Bell
knows how to make the best of a crummy situation. After
hiding out for seven years, she’s carved an incognito niche
for herself slinging drinks at the demon-friendly Tambuku
Tiki Lounge.
But she receives an ultimatum when
unexpected surveillance footage of her notorious parents
surfaces: either prove their innocence or surrender herself.
Unfortunately, the only witness to the crimes was an elusive
Æthyric demon, and Cady has no idea how to find it. She
teams up with Lon Butler, an enigmatic demonologist with a
special talent for sexual spells and an arcane library of
priceless stolen grimoires. Their research soon escalates
into a storm of conflict involving missing police evidence,
the decadent Hellfire Club, a ruthless bounty hunter, and a
powerful occult society that operates way outside the law. If Cady can’t clear her family name soon, she'll be forced
to sacrifice her own life . . . and no amount of running
will save her this time.
ExcerptI knew better than to be preoccupied when Tambuku Tiki
Lounge was overcapacity. Crowds are ugly; it doesn't matter
if they're human or demon. Our bar held a maximum of
sixty-five people per California ?re code. My business
partner treated this rule as more of a suggestion on
Thursday nights, when Paranormal Patrol made us a midtown
hot spot. Easy for her; all she had to do was sweet-talk the
county inspector out of a citation. She wasn't the one being
expected to break up drunken, demonic brawls.
"Hey!" My eyes zeroed in on a college kid stealing a drink
off the bar. "Did you pay for that? No, you didn't. Get your
grubby paws off."
"That woman left it," he argued. "Possession's two-thirds of
the law."
"Nine-tenths, jackass," I corrected, snatching the ceramic
Suffering Bastard mug out of his hand. An anguished face was
molded into the side of the classic black tiki mug, half
filled with a potent cocktail bearing the same name. When I
dumped the contents in a small bar sink, the kid acted like
I'd just thrown gold in the trash. He glared at me before
stomping across the room to rejoin his broke buddies.
If I were a bartender in any other small bar in the city, I
might be encouraged on occasion to double as a bouncer. As
the only trained magician on staff at Tambuku, I didn't have
a choice; it was my responsibility. After two years of
sweeping up broken glass and trying to avoid projectile
vomit, I'd seen enough demons-gone-wild behavior that would
make a boring, corporate desk job appear attractive to any
normal person. Good thing I wasn't normal.
"Arcadia? Cady? Hello?" Amanda leaned across an empty bar
stool, waving her hand in front of my face.
"Sorry, what?"
"I said that I need another Scorpion Bowl for booth three.
Jeez, you're distracted tonight," she complained, unloading
two empty wooden snack dishes from her tray before circling
around the L-shaped bar top to join me.
"How wasted are they?" I craned my neck to see the booth
while scooping up Japanese rice crackers from a large bin. "They've passed over the halfway mark, but they aren't there
yet. No singing or fighting." She wiped sweat from her
forehead with a dirty bar towel. Amanda was one of three
full-time waitresses we employed at Tambuku. Tall, blond,
tan, and permanently outfitted with a stack of worn, braided
hemp bracelets circling her wrist, she looked like the
stereotypical California girl.
Her family had lived on the central coast for several
generations in La Sirena, a small beach community thirty
minutes away from the city; it captured its bewitching
namesake with photo-worthy vistas of the rocky coastline and
the blue Paci?c that bordered it. Her parents had a ceramics
studio there, and we'd commissioned them to make most of our
tiki mugs and bowls, which now sat in neat rows on bamboo
shelves behind the bar.
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