Eileen Wilks

Lily Yu and Rule Turner have a wedding to plan which is difficult because Lily’s mother would quite like her to find a nice Chinese boy and Rule’s family have deep seated religious taboos against marriage and monogamy

It’s not going to be easy

But this pales to insignificance when the newly magical world throws up another threat – one from Madame Yu’s (Lily’s terrifying grandmother) past – one that even the dragons cannot fight directly

This series has had an amazing journey. It show more started like many other Urban Fantasy stories – we had Lily and her werewolf lover who fell in love because of woo-woo and somewhere along the way they solved crimes. It was good – but not exactly top 10 material or super original

Then the series exploded in every direction, we had Dis and Hell and the Turning and dragons and magical monsters and dimensions and gnomes and elves and everything and it was huge – far far far far too huge. It was nearly impossible to keep up and it was just messed up and drowning and confused

But last book we got more stability, that huge, wide world focused down to something very personal and close to Lily and Rule, it was very personal and only somewhat touched on the wider world

And now we’ve finally got to an awesome place. Enough of that huge meal of a world has been developed while at the same time we’ve had enough focus on Lily and Rule to keep it, well, focused and developed – and it can all come together to form an awesome whole. A huge world, some fascinating characters, a focused, undistracted story and a vast amount of potential. It has arrived. And I love it

I love Lily’s character as it has developed – her need to know things. And not just know things but needing to verbalise it. Her desperate need for order and organising things and making everything line up and make sense. Which is quite stressful given how random and huge and chaotic the world. Her flailing around in her relationship and upcoming marriage with Rule is so classically her – because she knows she’s doing the right thing and the thing she wants to do but it almost falls apart because she can’t verbalise it!

On top of that we get her epic control issues in a world that is so challenging to control. She would be an extremely awesome character if it wasn’t for the shadow of her grandmother who is always the most awesome. And her awesomeness doesn’t rely on her super powers (though her power is useful) nor is she super destructive or dangerous – but nor does that make her a damsel who is sheltered and protected – she can still more than save her own.

Rule has a lot of werewolf politics going on and it works so well – we see how Lupi politics and his personal life interact in complex but elegant ways. I kind of love how he doesn’t despair or panic or be really sad about his – he just flawlessly (much to Lily’s frustration) navigates it excellently. And yes, the whole werewolf politics down to the implications of leftovers at the BBQ

Of course there’s also Madame Yu. In some ways I was worried that revealing more of her story would ruin the character, yes, I’m shallow, but I’m happy to have a completely shallow mystery of pure awesomeness. But instead we get to see her awesome history, have a lot of her power explored and developed – and she still be ridiculously awesome beyond all measure

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Lily’s bond with Rule is as stretched and confused as it’s ever been – thanks to the lessons she is having in Mind Speech. This is the worst time for her to disappear when she cannot be found

But Lily vanishes following up on a favour she cannot deny – while at the same time a conspiracy strikes against the Shadow Unit. The whole apparatus designed to fight The Enemy, Ruben the head of the unit, Rule the head of two Lupi clans are all targeted in a devastating co-ordinated show more attack.

It’s the worst time for Lily to be out of touch as everything they’ve built begins to crumble.

Back to Lily as a protagonist! I always love this focus, because Lily Yu is an awesome protagonist and one of my favourites

And, of course, I love the world building. I love the massively creative world building. I love that such a lot of originality has gone into not only designing the world with this crash of magic into the technological world, the various magical societies from the Brownies to the Lupi who all have their own cultures and magic and language all really well done together. And then we have the dragons with their completely unique biology coupled with their own culture and traditions and opinions and beliefs. It’s excellent. It’s really original and well developed and nuanced.

And I love Lily. I do love lily. I love that she’s so sensible. I love that even when worried and angry and outraged and upset and emotional she’s still logical and capable and empathetic enough to see from a different point of view. I love how she can be angry with various supernatural beings while also acknowledging that from their point of view they’re a very different beings with vastly different values. She can acknowledge that, understand that, respect that – but not by being a complete door mat to them. The fact they have a dramatically different culture doesn’t mean they’re allowed to treat her in ways that she finds unacceptable because of it.

I also like how, when discussing the history of magic on this world we’re not assuming a global constant and acknowledging that just because something happened in the west didn’t mean it happened the same everywhere

Lily’s awesome. The world is awesome.

And I really like Demi; she’s a character with Aspergers who appears to have been well represented because of it. Her need for patterns and social difficulties along with her thought patterns seem very well presented while at no point being used to make her either this alien super hero (too often autism is created a some kind of weird origin story for some kind of mental super power). Her courage, drive, knowledge, determination, moral compass and navigating around the lupi and more powerful magical beings around her.

I also quite like the concept of the sinister government org – or some sinister human org. I mean we have repeatedly see various supernatural threats menacing humanity – but magic suddenly becomes real, there are plenty of bad people and bad organisations who are going to exploit that. Part of Lily’s worry about joining the Shadow Unit was her fear over what a unit like this could do with so little oversight. So common human greed and corruption needed to be flagged.

We continue to have excellent portrayal of POC as well – Lily Yu is Asian and informed by her culture and language. It’s more than just a description of her. The Lupi continue to be racially diverse (a leader of Rule’s guard is Jose) as do members of other organisations, the Shadow Unit, et al. Even in a book that doesn’t have that many humans, we still have some POC. We also continue to have awesome female characters – including both the awesome Lily and the Brownie’s, hilarious matriarchal culture.

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Every now and then I read a review that mentions something along the lines of, "I'm not going to summarize this book because you can read the description."

You kids are so cute with your functioning memories. Despite having placed book #7 of the series on my TBR list, I did not remember the general plots of books #3-#6, so I decided that I must have skipped them. Until I reached the last third of Mortal Sins and recognized a particularly tense emotional scene. I thought I remembered how it show more turned out, but I peeked to be sure. So I will continue to remind myself of the plots, who narrates and all those silly things, because apparently, if I don't, I won't.



However, don't consider that a mark against Mortal Sins or this series. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that people who would like a police procedural combined with a world rich in lupi and magic could do far worse than to pick up Eileen Wilk's World of the Lupi series. In most of them, particularly the first, Detective Lily Yu and Rule Turner, poster boy for the lupi-rights movement, are the leading protagonists. As the series progresses, each book may bring in other viewpoints depending on the case being worked. Mortal Sins concentrates almost exclusively on the stories of Lily and Rule as they attempt to wrap up issues in D.C./Virginia area.

Mortal Sins has two major plots: the personal one of a custody hearing for Rule's son, Toby; and the professional one of a series of seemingly unconnected killers who are almost fatally confused and whose victims smell of death magic. I thought the balance between the two was handled quite well, resulting in Lily and Rule feeling like a typical busy professional couple who were trying to balance needs of personal, family and professional lives. When Rule discovers the missing victims and both he and Lily note the death magic, she eagerly takes over the case on behalf of the FBI. Meanwhile, as Rule deals with Leidolf pack issues from the last book, the press gets wind he is in town on personal matters.

It's fun to watch Lily work, as her competence, focus, and drive often set those unused to her off balance. There's often some power dynamics when has to work with other agencies, and Wilks doesn't shy from bringing up sex, race, or species issues. Honestly, it's always a pleasure. Lily's such a thinking person, and her technique is to ask frequent questions, which often results in interesting answers for both her and the reader. Rule, however, often seems to be the feeling part of the couple, an absolutely enjoyable turnaround from normal female and male characterizations. The investigation struggles at first, as the team tries to sort out likely from unlikely scenarios. The fact that a great deal of magic was let into the world seven months ago means everyone is still discovering ramifications.

Wilks does a nice job of keeping the focus on the investigation and the family issues without getting distracted too much by prior plots or side characters. That said, it is likely a series that is harder to pick up without reading book one and two where Wilks does a more thorough introduction to her world. There's a bit of awkward info-dumping in the beginning of this one, but it's a nice shorthand for those forgetful folks (cough, cough). I thought characterization was extremely impressive, from Lily and Rule progressing, to Toby's nine-year-old perspective, to Granny.

I'd recommend this series to fans of urban fantasy. I think if you wanted to like Anne Bishop's Others series, but found it boring and illogical, this might be more palatable. Or if you liked early Anita Blake (minus the multiple sex scenes; while present here, they are quickly completed). I also suspect fans of the earlier Kate Daniels might enjoy this; while there isn't the prevalent humor and new mythology, there's a kick-ass, competent woman in charge. Thinking about it, I'd say it most feels like Shaefer's Daniel Faust series, with less smart-ass. Really, it's become my new favorite candy series, although it feels more satisfying than your average Skittles. Maybe it's a brownie read: solid and satisfying.

Note: series continues to maintain it's lead for "Worst Cover Art for a Series," 2018 reads edition. show less

In deference to Mimi, I'm letting my four stars stand.

Lily's years in Vice and Homicide prior to making detective had rubbed the green off, but her shield was still shiny. She figured she could be philosophical about handing this one off to one of the senior detectives... after she conducted the initial interviews at Club Hell.

Originally read back in my urban fantasy heyday, Tempting Danger was written in 2004 and added to my library back in 2010 (I have no actual clue when I read it) with a show more four star rating. I'm guessing I found Wilks through an anthology, [b:On the Prowl|285212|On the Prowl (Alpha & Omega, #0.5)|Patricia Briggs|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1422192630s/285212.jpg|276710], back when I was looking for more UF that wasn't completely paranormal romance, and on that level, it mostly satisfies.

It begins with Detective Lily Yu at a murder scene, examining a person who has clearly been killed by a large animal. Werewolves, or lupi, are no longer shot on sight, but this killing could re-open human-lupi hostilities, especially as poster-boy-lupi Rule is the lead suspect.

Everyone else reacted. Not Turner. He didn't shift position by so much as a finger. Rather, he seemed to gather stillness around him like a force field, a quiet whose power lapped out over the others, gradually silencing them. He spoke two words: "Who died?"

The narration is third person and primarily from Lily's point of view. She's easily one of my favorite things about the book. Methodical and analytical, she feels like an experienced detective, despite being only 28. We get a solid sense of her background in the department, her strategies for dealing with her peers, and her sometimes-challenging relationships with her family. It becomes almost a running joke with her and Rule that she has "a couple more questions," both professionally and personally. Secondary viewpoint is from Rule, with very minor page time given to another lupi, Cullen.

The plot is interesting, and a nice combination of police procedural and UF Big-Bad-Threat. It moves quickly, and Lily and Rule's separate problems end up dovetailing nicely.

It's interesting, to go back and read a book in a genre that has since exploded. There were aspects that felt very tropish to me, which is to say, the way people acted was not particularly surprising. It made me think quite a bit about UF conventions and where they came from. The first Sookie Stackhouse came out in 2001, Kate Daniels in 2007, Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan in 2004, Rachel Caine published her first UF in 2003, Carrie Vaughn in 2004, Marjorie Liu in 2005, Karen Chance in 2006, Cassandra Clare in 2007, Patrica Briggs' Mercy 2007, Jeaniene Frost in 2007, Karen Marie Moning in 2007, Nalini Singh 2006. By contrast, the first Anita Blake was in 1993, so perhaps it is not any wonder that this had an Anita Blake vibe to it. Wilks also had solid history publishing romance before this series, so that is evident as well.

There's parts about this that feel perhaps a bit stereotypical, but Wilks writes with such skill that things that might have been eye-rolling for me in a lesser writer just seem appropriate, if not fantastic. For instance, a Native American doctor-earth healer, a grandmother with mystical connections and the precog in the wheelchair all had the potential to become ugly tropes but empathetically were not.

Verdict? This holds up on re-read to an older, less patient carol., who would easily give it 3.5 stars. If a detective-paranormal is your jam, bring on the bread. I think I'll be dipping in and out of this series to see what Lily's up to. show less