Grave Witch

Daniella and Evelyne discuss Grave Witch by Kalayna Price. Topics include problematic grim reapers, genre expectations vs. plagiarism, and the evolution of the Urban Fantasy genre.

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Announcer:

This is Intoxicated Literature.

Daniella Drake:

Hello, and welcome to Intoxicated Literature. I am Daniella Drake.

Evelyne Crowe:

And I'm Evelyn Crowe.

Daniella Drake:

And tonight, we're going to talk about Grave Witch by Kalayna Price.

Evelyne Crowe:

I actually really loved this book. It's one of my favorite books.

Daniella Drake:

I also love this book. This was one of those 20 teens books series that came out, yeah. It's a very urban fantasy, Fae series.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah. I think it was 2015, I want to say. It's definitely early teens for sure.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's about right. But I really enjoyed it and I read the whole series and I couldn't wait. This was back when you had to wait for the books to come out.

Evelyne Crowe:

Absolutely. Let's do our disclaimers before we get started.

Daniella Drake:

Spoilers, massive spoilers.

Evelyne Crowe:

Spoilers. We will ruin the entire book.

Daniella Drake:

Yes. And maybe some of the series.

Evelyne Crowe:

Maybe some of the series.

Daniella Drake:

Because we get confused.

Evelyne Crowe:

We get confused what's happened in this book and what's happened in later books because we are intoxicated, it's Intoxicated Literature.

Daniella Drake:

There will be swearing.

Evelyne Crowe:

Swearing and spicy times. Although in this book, there's not so much of that.

Daniella Drake:

No, not so much. But we do sometimes have adult content, so just be aware that that is happening. If you have not read this book or this series, maybe push pause and go read it and come back.

Evelyne Crowe:

Do that. All right.

Daniella Drake:

Okay. What are we drinking tonight?

Evelyne Crowe:

Pixie brandy.

Daniella Drake:

Which is basically just brandy.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's basically brandy.

Daniella Drake:

But they do talk about it in the book, so that's why.

Evelyne Crowe:

I am enjoying it because I'm a big fan of just brandy or whiskey in general.

Daniella Drake:

That's fair. I think you're enjoying it more than I am. But it was enough to get me intoxicated.

Evelyne Crowe:

Which is the only thing we're looking for.

Daniella Drake:

That is the goal.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yes. We have been pre-gaming for a while.

Daniella Drake:

We have. Yes, sometimes our calls just start as just catching up.

Evelyne Crowe:

Sister Chest. It's been a while for this one, so sorry in advance.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

Okay. The main character is Alex Craft, and she is a grave witch, which means she has grave magic. It's so weird how she can see the world through ... It's like running, it's so weird.

Daniella Drake:

It's grave sight, so it's what it looks like as it's decomposing.

Evelyne Crowe:

I would not enjoy that.

Daniella Drake:

No, I don't think I would like that either. And it ruins her eyesight. She doesn't have night vision anymore.

Evelyne Crowe:

She can't see afterwards. I would really not enjoy that.

Daniella Drake:

I wouldn't enjoy that either, yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

No, thank you.

Daniella Drake:

No, thank you.

Evelyne Crowe:

Then there's Death and Falin, and those are our two love triangle esque, love interest.

Daniella Drake:

I do want to talk about death a little bit because he starts talking to her when she's five.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, it's a little grimmy, it's weird.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, it's weird, and follows her around. He does save her life, and he does seem to really care about her genuinely. But also, I can't decide if he really cares about her specifically or if he cares about the way that she makes him feel.

Evelyne Crowe:

She can see him and no one else can see him, but she can because of her grave magic.

Daniella Drake:

But when she gets shot, there's that whole scene where they're doing the ... She's trying to save the soul of the person that wasn't quite dead yet during the ritual, and they somehow transfer powers to each other. And so I was reading that scene and I'm just thinking, "Does he care about her really? Or about what she can do for him?"

Evelyne Crowe:

That is the question. Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's a icky ...

Daniella Drake:

It is a little icky but it's weird too because ... And this is a sign of the times, 2015, he was hot. The first time I read this ...

Evelyne Crowe:

I was rooting for Death because you don't really know how icky he is when you first learn about Death. You just see this hot guy in jeans in her ...

Daniella Drake:

And a tight tshirt, you're just like, "Oh, who's this guy?"

And he saves her life. And you're like, "Okay."

Evelyne Crowe:

And Falin is this asshole.

Daniella Drake:

Yes. He's snarky, he doesn't treat her well.

Evelyne Crowe:

You're like, "Well, obviously I choose Death because Death is a nice guy. But is he a, 'nice guy'? Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, I don't know. Also, I'm not really a big fan of blonde guys.

Evelyne Crowe:

Really?

Daniella Drake:

Really not. And Falin is very blonde, so that's a mark not in his favor.

Evelyne Crowe:

What is it about blonde guys?

Daniella Drake:

I don't know.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's just a physical characteristic they can't help.

Daniella Drake:

I know. It's such a weird thing. But listen, it's not going to stop me. I see that they're blonde and I'm like, "Oh."

Evelyne Crowe:

Everyone has their checklist, but it's just like, "Okay, really? That's going to stop you? The blonde hair. Okay."

Daniella Drake:

Oh no, it's not going to stop me. I'm just saying. It's like, "Okay."

I guess it's fine, you've got six pack or whatever.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's funny because I don't go for platinum blonde guys, but I definitely have a thing for the surfer because we're 40, the surfer dude with the step haircut from the 90s.

Daniella Drake:

Seriously, really?

Evelyne Crowe:

Jonathan Brandis, the whole thing. Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

See, and here I am, I'm like, "You've got blonde hair and it's long. You need a haircut."

I am not a fan of long hair on guys. Half the time I'm watching a show with my boyfriend and I'm yelling, "You need a haircut."

Because I can't stand it, I just can't stand it.

Evelyne Crowe:

Not too long. I don't want to It past their ears. It has to ...

Daniella Drake:

Okay, that's fair.

Evelyne Crowe:

The step haircut. I don't know if you know what that is.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, yeah. I do. I remember Jonathan Brandis.

Evelyne Crowe:

You have to be a certain age to know what that is, I'm sorry.

Daniella Drake:

SeaQuest, man.

Evelyne Crowe:

SeaQuest, Jonathan Brandis and SeaQuest, that haircut.

Daniella Drake:

That is a deep cut. For any of you who are in your 40s, you're the only ones that remember that show.

Evelyne Crowe:

Oh, my God. That is such a deep cut. God, geez. Fuck, that is such a deep cut.

Daniella Drake:

I know.

Evelyne Crowe:

Whew, God. Yeah, that.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah,

Evelyne Crowe:

That haircut.

Daniella Drake:

No, I get it. Okay, that's interesting to me. That is fascinating.

Evelyne Crowe:

That is a specific look that I would always go for.

Daniella Drake:

Really?

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

I learned something new about you today.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah. Not blonde, blonde.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not even bleach blonde but ...

Evelyne Crowe:

Dirty blonde is what they would call it.

Daniella Drake:

Sun bleached. It's not bleach, bleach. Getting back to the book ...

Evelyne Crowe:

I could keep going on about how ...

Daniella Drake:

I know, I know. There were a lot of aspects about this book that I found fascinating. And one of the things that I really enjoyed was her friendship with Holly and Tamara. Because I think that they just are there for each other. There's no hesitation. They just have each other's backs, which I love seeing because so often, way too often, I feel like you see, "Oh, women have to be in competition with each other."

And it's just bullshit. And I'm like, "That's not what women do."

Evelyne Crowe:

Down with the patriarchy.

Daniella Drake:

Exactly, exactly. And it was nice too, because her friends are high up. Holly is an assistant to the district attorney, Tamara is the chief medical officer, or chief medical examiner. They're highly placed important government figures, which I very much appreciated.

Evelyne Crowe:

Which comes in handy because Alex Craft, we did not mention this, is a private investigator.

Daniella Drake:

That's right.

Evelyne Crowe:

It comes in handy having friends who can be like, "Hey, we can get you in to look at this body that we just got in. It's a little suspicious. You might want to take a look at this."

Daniella Drake:

And her magic is interesting, the grave witch magic.

Evelyne Crowe:

She can talk to ghosts. And ghosts are this transient ... They're memories, they repeat the same thing over and over again because they're traumatic memories. But then she can also talk to shades, which can tell her how they died, which are very important. And I think they're applicable in court.

Daniella Drake:

In this book, this is the first time that they're able to use her powers in a court case to prove someone's guilt. She makes history in this book by being the first one, because magic has only recently returned. And that's a recurring theme that you see a lot of the time in urban fantasy, especially from this period, the 2010s, where this is a trope that comes up over and over. Magic has come back and there are all these consequences, and now you know they're magical beings and normal people are really upset about it.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's all new. Part of this book is figuring out what is what, how that all works.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, exactly.

Evelyne Crowe:

A shade tells the truth, I don't think it can lie.

Daniella Drake:

They literally can't lie, they're literally just retelling what happened to them. Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

She can do that. She can pull a shade out of a dead body and be like, "Tell me how you died. Who was there?

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I love Alex though.

Evelyne Crowe:

She's great.

Daniella Drake:

She's great.

Evelyne Crowe:

I love her.

Daniella Drake:

She's a no nonsense, smart, capable person.

Evelyne Crowe:

Absolutely. And you learn that she has a mysterious family who is rich, but she's living in an apartment and you're like, "What? What's going on there? That's weird."

Daniella Drake:

And she reconnects with her sister in this book because her sister needs something from her.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, only calls her because she needs something.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. That's a little problematic.

Evelyne Crowe:

Interesting family dynamic. Got that going on. And so you don't know who her father is. You know he's highly placed, you don't know who he is, you don't know what he is. You just know that he's highly place. Her landlord is great.

Daniella Drake:

Yes. I love him. Caleb, he's awesome.

Evelyne Crowe:

I love him. He's a fae. They live in this place that appeared out of nowhere.

Daniella Drake:

Folded land is what they call it. Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

It came out of nowhere. It was in Georgia I want to say, outside of Atlanta.

Daniella Drake:

I think it's on the border of Georgia and Alabama.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, it just ... New land came out of nowhere.

Daniella Drake:

Because the fairies came out and said, "Hey, we're real."

And people were like, "Oh, what?"

And then all these random places just appeared because the magic came back.

Evelyne Crowe:

And that's where she lives. And Caleb is fae, and he owns this apartment she rents out. And he's wonderful, I love him so much.

Daniella Drake:

And she has a dog.

Evelyne Crowe:

She has a little dog.

Daniella Drake:

PC.

Evelyne Crowe:

Isn't he a Mexican, hairless? Is that what ...

Daniella Drake:

Yes, yes. And PC stands for Prince Charming, which I love. And the magic gargoyle outside her door that talks to her in her brain.

Evelyne Crowe:

Oh, my God. I love this so much. Oh, my God.

Daniella Drake:

There were so many little details in this book that I really, really, really, really enjoyed.

Evelyne Crowe:

It really wound everything together. Magic really is part of this world. She's living in a place where magic is real, the whole thing. It's fabulous. She is a PI but she's not serious about it. It's so funny. She's like, "I'm a PI, but I hate it."

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. She only got it because her best friend wanted it.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah. She hates it so much. She has a certification. She's like, "Okay, I'll do it but I don't want to do it."

She gets sucked into this new thing because her sister needs help. But then the F.I.B, think about it in black, but fairy, and Falin comes in because he's the fairy queen's top guy.

Daniella Drake:

Which we don't even know in this book.

Evelyne Crowe:

I'm sorry, but he is.

Daniella Drake:

Yes.

Evelyne Crowe:

And he's an asshole.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. He treats her horribly. He's really suspicious of her. She's investigating this crazy magic ritual that nobody else can even seem to see. She sees this body that has runes all over it, but nobody else has seen that. They've got these curse breakers that they bring in, and they don't even know that magic has been used. And she's like, "What are these symbols?"

And they're like, "What are you seeing?"

She goes, "Are you serious? They're so obvious."

Evelyne Crowe:

These things on the body right here. They're like, "What things?"

Daniella Drake:

Exactly. Someone has literally been body hopping, stealing people's souls, which is really disturbing. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating though, because she gets involved into politics, which she doesn't really want but she can't really help.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's a whole thing.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, it is.

Evelyne Crowe:

A whole thing.

Daniella Drake:

And she has to be in her dad's world, which is just complicated because he's really highly placed in the anti-magic group.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. He hates magic, and so he's in charge of the most prejudiced group ever.

Evelyne Crowe:

And all she is is fucking magic. And he doesn't want to have anything to do with her. And he's like, "Oh, God. I hate you so much."

Daniella Drake:

Exactly, yeah. What I love so much about this book ... This whole series, I feel the magic ... The world building was amazing. The characters were so great. They were all complex, they were all fun, they were all interesting. The story is fascinating.

Evelyne Crowe:

I like to pride myself on being able to figure out a story before the end of it, but I couldn't figure this one out.

Daniella Drake:

No, I had no idea what was going on. And I loved that. It kept me guessing until the end. I had no idea what was happening.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, that was great. I want to talk about it a little bit because I went on to Goodreads and I was looking at reviews for this. And one of the reviews, and I'm not hating the reader, readers are allowed to feel however they feel about books.

Daniella Drake:

Of course, absolutely.

Evelyne Crowe:

I just want to discuss it as a genre. At the time, I think it was 2015, we have Merry Gentry coming out, there's Anita Blake. Let's see, The Hollows was coming out. There were a lot of really big urban fantasy series that were coming out around the same time. And the critique was that this series had a lot of the same similarities as those other series. And so what I want to discuss is, okay, fair. If you felt that, that's fine. But what I want to discuss is what are genre expectations as authors feel pressure to have genre expectations, and what are not genre expectations?

Daniella Drake:

It is interesting because when you think about ... Let's talk about just generic book talk right now, and how many hashtags reference specific tropes, like Faded Mates, let's just throw that one out there because that's a popular one. There is an expectation within that trope of what you're going to get. At that time, I think that ... And this is true of film, this is true of TV, this is true of the publishing industry, they're always chasing whatever the big trend is. And at the time in 2015, the big trend was fae, urban fantasy, werewolf, vampire stories. That was the big thing. And so this book I think, checks a lot of boxes in that regard. Maybe not werewolves or vampires specifically, but the Fae aspect definitely.

Evelyne Crowe:

Fae Magic.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. And like I talked about too, at that time there were a lot of stories about magic coming back suddenly, or returning or whatever.

Evelyne Crowe:

I can say it seems really similar to Ilona Andrews too.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. What is her name? Magic Bites or whatever is one of the books. But it's one of those series where magic has come unexpectedly back. It's 50 years since that happened, and we're dealing with the repercussions of it. And that was a very big trend at the time. Do we really get mad about them writing to the expectation of the market ...

Evelyne Crowe:

Because I know as an indie author, and you're also one, is we're told so often you write to the genre.

Daniella Drake:

To market, yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

You write to market. And if the market says these are the hits that you need to get to, then that's what you write to.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

I would like to say okay, fine. But also when you have a market that's flooded ... I don't know. I found this book to be unique enough on its own.

Daniella Drake:

I think that that's what really sets it apart, is that it was a unique take. It was a unique idea. I thought that the underlying story that covers the entire series, connects the entire series, was very interesting. The twists were well done. I very, very, very rarely was able to figure out where it was going, which I very much appreciated.

Evelyne Crowe:

I haven't read The Hunters or The Hollows, so I can't speak to those theories.

Daniella Drake:

I liked The Hollows a lot.

Evelyne Crowe:

Okay, so you can correct me if I'm wrong in this aspect. I have read some of the Vampire Hunter by Anita Blake, and I have read all of Merry Gentry. And I don't think that these are similar to those at all.

Daniella Drake:

I really don't. I would say The Hollows is probably the closest, but I still think that they're very different in a lot of ways. I'm not sure that I would even compare this to another series. Definitely not Merry Gentry, I don't think, and Anita Blake ...

Evelyne Crowe:

No, not Mary Gentry at all.

Daniella Drake:

And definitely not Anita Blake, the vampires are not a huge part of the story.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's urban fantasy for sure, but if I were to assign a different genre to it it would be more suspense, murder suspense, thriller. Because it has that aspect of, "We need to find the killer."

Daniella Drake:

I agree. And each book is its own standalone story where it's like, "This is the case that we're working on and we need to figure it out."

And there is that overarching, her journey, which covers the entire series but yeah, I'm not sure that I would compare it to ... I definitely would not compare it to Anita Blake or Merry ... Partly too, those series are a lot more spice forward.

Evelyne Crowe:

Very spice forward. Merry Gentry is definitely focused on Mary and her men for sure, and their journey.

Daniella Drake:

I would say Anita Blake is also. The first one maybe not. But then it definitely becomes that.

Evelyne Crowe:

In fact, I would actually categorize them more as erotica than anything else.

Daniella Drake:

I agree, I agree.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, I'm not sure that I agree with that review, to be honest.

Evelyne Crowe:

I would say this is probably more closely categorized towards Ilona Andrews, but even so, it's not the same story. It's different.

Daniella Drake:

This is the thing, is that when you pick up a book and it's an epic fantasy, you immediately assume there are going to be big battles. It's going to be life or death. It's going to be world ending crisis. It's going to be a lot of the times, the chosen one. You're expecting to see these things. This is an urban fantasy where you're expecting to see, "Okay. Well, the main character is going to have more power than other people for some reason that we don't really understand. She's going to have connections into the fae world and the other worlds that we don't really understand. But she's also going to live in this world in an urban setting."

These are just things that you just assume to be true based off of the genre.

Evelyne Crowe:

And that's what readers want. They want that familiarity, they want that comfort. They want to know they can pick up an urban fantasy and that is what they're getting.

Daniella Drake:

You don't want to expect, "I'm going to watch this romantic comedy."

And then get a horror. That is not what you want.

Evelyne Crowe:

Absolutely. I'm not saying, "Authors, don't go writing urban fantasy and changing it all up."

That's not cool. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. You can play with tropes a little bit but the main genre needs to stay the same. And it's okay to not like a book.

Daniella Drake:

100%.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's okay to not like a book, but to accuse a book of plagiarism is such a ...

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, that's harsh.

Evelyne Crowe:

Harsh and serious.

Daniella Drake:

That's very serious.

Evelyne Crowe:

That's a serious accusation.

Daniella Drake:

Absolutely.

Evelyne Crowe:

You could take an author to court for that.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, that's pretty bad.

Evelyne Crowe:

To say you didn't like a book because it was too similar to other urban fantasies is a valid argument.

Daniella Drake:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Evelyne Crowe:

To say that it was middle of the road, it was too similar, it didn't stand out, I get that, that's fine. That's a three star read for me, that's a C read. That is fine. That's something I would be like, "Eh, I read that."

Daniella Drake:

I finished it but ... Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

But to say it's plagiarism, whew.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, yeah. That's going from zero to 100. Yeah, that's going from zero to the final solution. =

Evelyne Crowe:

Okay.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, I don't think we need to do that. That's really interesting. Because for me, the reason that I really enjoyed this series when I first read it, and on a reread, because I read it again for this episode, it was unique enough and the writing was very good, and the characters were complex and interesting. I really enjoyed it.

Evelyne Crowe:

I liked it. I thought it stood out from the other urban fantasies.

Daniella Drake:

I absolutely agree. And I read the entire series. This was one where I think I found it and then I think only two or three books were out at the time, and I read them all and then had to wait for the next ones to come out and could not wait. I was so excited. And every time a new one came out, I was like, "Oh, finally a new book."

Evelyne Crowe:

I think the last one came out in 2020, 2019.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, something like that. But again, I was so excited that it came out, even though it was the last one and it meant the series was over. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. But I can't wait to finish this series. It's been so good."

And I just really enjoyed it. And I'm not saying that that other person does not have valid points.if you don't like it, you don't like it, that's fine.

Evelyne Crowe:

You don't like it, you don't like it.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. There have definitely been books that I have not enjoyed that other people really loved. That's just a personal taste, it's very subjective. But for me, I found this book to be very exciting, very interesting. It was a page-turner for sure. I could not wait to figure out what was going on. Because I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out, which for me is a huge deal. I was so excited.

Evelyne Crowe:

A lot of the urban fantasy at the time, aside from I think Ilona Andrews, I think she was the one ... You have to discount Merry Gentry and Anita Blake because they were so ... That's really erotica at the time. But if you think ... Oh, God, Patricia ...

Daniella Drake:

Briggs?

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah. It was werewolf heavy, a lot of werewolves. But if you discount that, because Twilight was real big, there's a whole lot of that happening. It was so anti-POC too. There was none of that happening in this book. There was no shape shifting.

Daniella Drake:

Well, I think that's why I like this one so much is because I have never been a big vampire fan.

Evelyne Crowe:

There was no vampires.

Daniella Drake:

The werewolf thing, I'm okay but it's not a thing I love.

Evelyne Crowe:

There was no werewolves.

Daniella Drake:

And so to have this one where it really was just ... And this is why I liked Ilona Andrews too, because it was like magic has come back and there were shifters but there were all these other magic people as well. And so it was just a very different, exciting ...

Evelyne Crowe:

And the shifters weren't relegated to just one class of people or one type of person in Ilona Andrews, which is so important because it's so common in urban fantasy, especially from that early era. It was a dawn of urban fantasy in the early 2000s. I'm sure you can find an urban fantasy from before that, I think L A Banks ...

Daniella Drake:

But it became a big popular thing in the early 2000s.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah because Buffy The Vampire Slayer happened in the 90s, and it exploded after that. L A Banks happened in the 90s, and she was really popular. Again, Vampire Slayer, whole thing. But then the werewolves happened and the Omegaverse happened, and fan fiction and stuff. It just exploded with Twilight and all of that stuff. But one of the real common tropes is shapeshifters are all indigenous people or something. It's really gross.

Daniella Drake:

And I do think that there is this expectation when you say urban fantasy, that there are going to be werewolves and vampires. People seem to expect that, which for me, that's not the urban fantasy that I tend to like. I tend to like this with Alex Craft, is she can raise the dead and they can do actual magic and they have charms. And it's just very interesting to me. What would it be like if suddenly we were faced with magic coming back, and what would the world be like? And that to me, is fascinating.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, which is why ... Yeah. And that's what I wrote about. And then I made the shifter squirrels because ...

Daniella Drake:

I know you did. Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

And not just people of color.

Daniella Drake:

That's right, everyone.

Evelyne Crowe:

Everyone because it's boring otherwise.

Daniella Drake:

And I think that that's partly too why I like October Day. And yeah, Fae is a recurring theme, which is fine, but it's just an interesting thing to explore.

Evelyne Crowe:

The thing with Fae though is you can do so much with Fae.

Daniella Drake:

Anything, yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

There's so much lore to pull from with Fae.

Daniella Drake:

Absolutely.

Evelyne Crowe:

I know because I just looked into a whole shitload of it.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, for your next book coming out.

Evelyne Crowe:

I know. No, you can't. There's so much, so much.

Daniella Drake:

I think that that's really where we're going awry, is that the expectation for urban fantasy tends to be vampires and werewolves. And then when you don't get it, it's like, "Oh, it's just like these other books that don't have those things too."

Evelyne Crowe:

But when you have the vampires and the werewolves, you run into super patriarchal, super clan-ish, super roar, and you're just like, "Oh, my God. Why?"

I don't like it, not for me.

Daniella Drake:

Okay. Anyway, Kalayna Price, what else?

Evelyne Crowe:

Those were the main ...

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. I feel like that's all my notes that I had because this first book is a lot of setup obviously.

Evelyne Crowe:

A lot of set up, a lot of world building, a lot of here's who the important players ...

Daniella Drake:

Exactly. I did love the bar, which I can't remember the name of at the moment, I don't think I wrote it down. But the Fae bar that she goes to and then loses time because she goes out at the wrong time.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, it's like entrance to Ferry, isn't it? Or it's an entrance to somewhere and she ...

Daniella Drake:

It is, yeah. It's an entrance to Ferry. And the bouncer at the door is like, "You need to sign in? And then as you leave, you have to leave at the same time."

And she was like, "Nope, we're just getting out of here."

And he's like, "Ah, God, no."

And that's two days later.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, yeah. Fucking Ferry, man.

Daniella Drake:

But I liked that whole bar because it gives you a very brief glimpse into what Ferry is and the folklore around Ferry because it is a rich folklore to draw from. There are so many stories and fairies and crazy things that happen.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's true.

Daniella Drake:

But in this particular thing, it's the internal dance where you start dancing and you don't stop. You just keep dancing until the music stops. And one of the people that had been working at the morgue ends up there and she finds him and she's just like, "What the fuck are you doing here?"

And he's like, "I was only here for two hours."

And it's been two years or something crazy.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah, I know. It's nuts. I love it, I love it so much.

Daniella Drake:

I just really liked that aspect of the world building because it made it feel realistic, and you were in it. And I thought that was really well done. But yeah, the entire series, I very much enjoyed it. I think it's five, is it five books?

Evelyne Crowe:

I think it's five.

Daniella Drake:

I feel like it's five, I feel like it's five. And the last one came out in 2019, 2020, I can't remember but one of those. It is a complete series if you want to read it, if you haven't read it yet. I definitely recommend it. I really enjoyed it, and I reread it for this episode because it's been a while since I've read it.

Evelyne Crowe:

It's been a hot minute.

Daniella Drake:

And I got to be honest, I still enjoyed it.

Evelyne Crowe:

It was good. I liked it a lot.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah, I liked it. Yeah.

Evelyne Crowe:

Yeah.

Daniella Drake:

And then what are we reading next time?

Evelyne Crowe:

We are reading Taken To Voraxia by Elizabeth Stephens.

Daniella Drake:

Oh, it's a Sci-Fi this one.

Evelyne Crowe:

Sci-Fi. We're going outside the box.

Daniella Drake:

Oh, we are. We don't usually talk about Sci-fi.

Evelyne Crowe:

We're leaving fantasy. We're going into alien romance.

Daniella Drake:

Oh, boy.

Evelyne Crowe:

This is a whole different ball of wax.

Daniella Drake:

Yeah. I don't think I've ever read an alien romance, so this will be a new one for me.

Evelyne Crowe:

They all have the same things in common.

Daniella Drake:

Interesting, okay. Well, I can't wait. And yeah, I think that's it for tonight. I am Daniella Drake.

Evelyne Crowe:

I'm Evelyne Crowe.

Daniella Drake:

And this has been Intoxicated Literature.

Announcer:

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Intoxicated Literature. Drink well, friends.