Take Vegas, add several pantheons chock full of jaded god- hood plus a multitude of immortal minions and you have a rich environment for Jamie Wyman's debut novel WILD CARD and any books in the series to follow. (Please Jamie, please write some more!)

Catherine Sharp's soul was sold for love. She's been spending more than a decade doing the bidding of the bitch goddess Eris trying to earn it back, in her free time between grunt tech jobs. One more task and Eris has given her word to be done with Cat. Too bad you can't trust the Goddess of Discord any further than Cat can throw Eris' unctuous personal servant, Marius the Satyr.

I did a double take when I found out this book was a debut novel. I would have bet good money Jamie Wyman had been publishing for years. I even checked for short stories via her blog and came up empty. What this means is that Jamie has been honing her craft for years pretty much on her own. Like most authors, she doesn't live in a vacuum, and she had an editor to work with on this particular book via Entangled's Danielle Poiesz but even with that level of help on board it is rare I get to read a first novel with the polish this one shows. The pace is dead on, the level of excitement in the hairy scary scenes is piquant and perfect and the characters have depth, energy and seem to be acting from rock-solid motivations made clear without dragging down the plot.

If you have a taste for urban fantasy and a kick- butt heroine (she can really do some damage with a hammer, this girl) I highly recommend you go spend your money on a copy of WILD CARD and encourage Jamie Wyman to write a sequel. I'll be waiting.