Caitlin Kittredge

What a dark and twisted tale! I wanted to read this as soon as I saw that it was a team effort between Caitlin Kittredge and Inaki Miranda. I fell in love with Kittredge's writing in her Iron Codex series. She pulls a lot from H.P. Lovecraft for her inspiration, and her stories always have this air of both menace and adventure to them. Miranda is the illustrator for the FABLES series, which I love! So, as you can probably tell, I was pretty darn excited to dive into this graphic novel.

The show more illustrations were spot on to what I was expecting. Slightly gritty, and perfectly dark enough to convey the atmosphere that this story needs. Eve Coffin's story definitely isn't a happy one. She comes from an ages old family. A family with a history of awful secrets and untold power. Eve wants to take that power for her own, and use it to break away. Unfortunately for her, this is a power that won't be controlled. All Eve manages to do is wake something. Something evil, and hungry.

Flash forward to an adult Eve who's now on the police force. The panels slowly unfold to reveal a troubled woman with who is trying her best to flee from her past. Every time she thinks she's distanced herself from the darkness, it pulls her right back in. There are little things that I noticed while reading. Things like a mysterious problem with Eve's eye, and her affinity for crows. These are never fully explained, but it didn't hurt my feelings. I think it's a great build up for what's to come.

This is a brilliant introduction to a brand new story. It's not quite horror, but it definitely borders on that. Coffin Hill looks to be a promising foray into paranormal romance, with a main character who has a lot to offer. There's so much about Eve that isn't revealed in this first installment. So many secrets that are still left to be uncovered. I, for one, am ready to embark on the rest of this journey. show less

First read: 2012
Re-read: September 2015
The plot: Several months have passed since the events of Devil's Business, and now Jack and Pete are parents to baby Lily. Pete receives a mysterious summons to a club known as the Prometheus Club and is forced to attend. She and Jack are ordered on a mission for the club that links back to Pete's last case for the police force (which was the plot for the first book; Street Magic). At the same time Pete comes into possession of a magical artefact known show more as a Soul Cage, and she knows that the Prometheans would do anything, including murder, to get their hands on it.

This is a brilliant instalment in the Black London series. One of Kittredge's strengths in her previous novels is her evocative descriptions and although she is more restrained here, it actually works well. This novel harkens back to more classic Gothic novels; there is a close-knit country village with some seriously supernatural secrets and the outsiders (Jack and Pete) who don't know what they have stumbled into. Factor in some very creepy children, demonic possession, ghosts, zombies, goddesses, arcane secret societies...and Jack's estranged father...and you get the best novel of the Black London series.

Rating: 5/5 stars show less

First read: 2013
Re-read: September 2015

The plot: Jack begins to have visions of an apocalyptic London, a futuristic world where the walls between the Black and the daylight world have crumbled, Pete is dead and his daughter Lily has been taken by demons. Belial, a demon Jack and Pete have dealt with in the past, assures Jack his visions are flashes of a possible future. Jack must work to find out who or what causes this version of the future and stop it before it can ever happen.

Dark Days is show more a fantastic end to the Black London series. It is epic in scale, with Kittredge showing us such an incredibly vivid, futuristic, apocalyptic London, as well as taking Jack back to hell, then back into the daylight world of the present where Pete, Lily and Margaret are still safe. It is real rollercoaster of a book, and the desperation and the depth and strength of Jack's love for Pete is so powerful here.

And that ending! I was so pleased to get a proper resolution on Jack's future with the Morrigan but I would never have anticipated the ending Kittredge provided for us as a consequence of Jack's dealings with the Goddess. Allowing Legion to temporarily win and permanently merge the Black to the daylight world was a huge game changer. Jack was able to kill Legion with the Morrigan's help but now the residents of both London and the Black are now forced to live alongside each other and learn to accept that there was a whole other world they didn't know anything about.

In a way I am glad the series ended at this point. While it would have been interesting to see how Jack and Pete (and everyone else!) adapted to this new way of life, it would have also felt a little pointless. The major plot points have all been resolved and while there was a small teaser at the end of the last chapter that hinted at a future adventure it would have turned the series into a more generic UF series if Kittredge had followed through with that idea and written another book in the Black London series.

Dark Days completes a brilliant series and I'm sure this wont be the last time I re-read the Black London books.

Rating: 5/5 stars. One of the best re-reads of 2015. show less

First read: 2011
Re-read: June - July 2015

The plot: Jack has a bounty on his head and decides to get out of London for a while, at the same time Pete has been given an opportunity to work on a gruesome murder investigation in L.A. so they head over there together to help with the investigation. Meanwhile Jack is struggling with the change in his relationship with Pete.

This is the slowest book of the series so far for me. I actually put this down for over a month when I was half way though and show more read a couple of other novels before I came back to this. I think the main reason for this is that I didn't like the switch of locations in this novel.

One of the things I love about the Black London series is the British setting. Kittredge doesn't always get it quite right but I enjoy reading an urban fantasy series that is set in a world recognisable to me (at the beginning of Devil's Business Jack almost gets assassinated in a Sainsbury's!). Most urban fantasy series are set in America - a setting I am only familiar with through the medium of books, film and television, which makes it almost as fantastical as the actual fantasy - and by switching the action in this book to America it loses a lot of that uniqueness and makes it a more generic UF novel.

However the plot is still decent, Jack is still one of the best anti-heroes in urban fantasy, and Kittredge's writing is as descriptive and wonderful as ever:

"This Hell was a mass of corridors made of stone and iron, veiled in steam. Machines clanked from far below his feet, and noxious yellow smoke poured from crooked chimneys that bent in over the street like arthritic fingers." (pg 245)

Overall rating: 3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4/5 stars) show less