Book Review: Moon Over Soho; Ben Aaronovitch.

I am a mere day into August and already I have finished a book! Okay...so I was basically done with it on the last day of July...but still I'm feeling very productive! I enjoyed this book too, so it's got me excited about reading number three when I get round to it!

SOURCE: Gift
TYPE: Paperback

TITLE: Moon Over Soho
AUTHOR: Ben Aaronovitch
SERIES: Peter Grant (#2)
PUBLISHER: Gollancz
PAGES: 373
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Mystery

RATING: 4/5 Stars

Blurb:
I was my dad's vinyl-wallah: I changed his records while he lounged around drinking tea, and that's how I know my Argo from my Tempo. And it's why, when Dr Walid called me to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing. Something violently supernatural had happened to the victim, strong enough to leave its imprint like a wax cylinder recording. Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, had apparently dropped dead of a heart attack just after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn't the first. 

No one was going to let me exhume corpses to see if they were playing my tune, so it was back to old-fashioned legwork, starting in Soho, the heart of the scene. I didn't trust the lovely Simone, Cyrus' ex-lover, professional jazz kitten and as inviting as a Rubens' portrait, but I needed her help: there were monsters stalking Soho, creatures feeding off that special gift that separates the great musician from someone who can raise a decent tune. What they take is beauty. What they leave behind is sickness, failure and broken lives. And as I hunted them, my investigation got tangled up in another story: a brilliant trumpet player, Richard 'Lord' Grant - my father - who managed to destroy his own career, twice. 

That's the thing about policing: most of the time you're doing it to maintain public order. Occasionally you're doing it for justice. And maybe once in a career, you're doing it for revenge.

What I Liked:

• Aaronovitch once again displayed his fantastic world-building skills by combining a very in-depth knowledge of London with a hugely imaginative paranormal world. Now that I live in London I can appreciate it a lot more too, and actually have a much better idea of where those places are. At one point, during a very slapstick ambulance ride, I found myself yelling 'I work there!" at the book. Due to the fact that I know London well-ish, I found the paranormal side to the story intriguing and a lot of fun. Boy do I wish this was real!
• The plot was really nicely put together and I preferred it to what I found in 'Rivers Of London'. The ending was definitely more satisfying, with the right touch of sombre (rather than all out ridiculous). It actually made me feel a little sad to read. As well as that, I hugely appreciated the consistent mentions of Jazz in this book. I'm a rather big fan of Jazz music and loved all the references to one of my favourite time periods of all time.

What I Disliked:

• As I was reading this book, despite loving Peter Grant (the MC) in 'Rivers Of London', I realised that I don't really connect with him or many of the gang that he surrounds himself with. Peter is hilarious of course, and I adore his ironic humour, but he doesn't make me feel any real emotional connection to him. I was glad to see much less of Lesley (my least favourite character) but was horrified to find that actually Beverley Brook was not a permanent part of Peter's life, but had been brushed to the side and turned into a mere link in the chain of women that seem to want to seduce Peter Grant. Ugh.

Overall Conclusion:

This is my favourite of the series so far in terms of plot and the world-building just keeps getting better. I'm really not feeling a whole lot of love for the characters (except Peter's comedic genius). Nightingale bores me, Peter's inability to stop using women for sex frustrates me (but of course they all seduce him because that's what all women do apparently), Lesley strikes me as petty and selfish and using Peter's obvious feelings for her to be a bitch half the time, and frankly my favourite character is Molly. Nevertheless, the diversity of characters found in this book in terms of PoCs, LGBT characters, ethnic minorities and how they are portrayed was deeply impressive. More of that please!

Book Review: Rivers Of London; Ben Aaronovitch.

My reading speed is definitely increasing since I decided to take part in that Readathon! I've already finished this book! This was probably helped by the fact that I took a trip to London on the slow train, meaning I had approaching 3 hours of reading time while travelling, but I've absolutely devoured this book and can't wait to share my thoughts. I am entering it for the 'Jumble Your Genres' challenge (this month is Paranormal).

SOURCE: Gift
TYPE: Paperback

TITLE: Rivers Of London
AUTHOR: Ben Aaronovitch
SERIES: Peter Grant (#1)
PUBLISHER: Gollancz
PAGES: 392
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Mystery

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

Blurb:
My name is Peter Grant. Until January I was just another probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service, and to everyone else as the Filth. My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit - We do paperwork so real coppers don't have to - and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from a man who was dead, but disturbingly voluble, and that brought me to the attention of Chief Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. And that, as they say, is where the story begins.

Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated. I'm dealing with nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden - and that's just routine. There's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious, vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.


The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it's falling to me to bring order out of chaos - or die trying. Which, I don't mind telling you, would involve a hell of a lot of paperwork.

What I Liked:

• You all know I love it when an Author knows his stuff, and this Aaronovitch seems to know London like the back of his hand! Having been there quite a lot myself, it was fantastic to read about it in such great detail and actually recognise the places that are described. In fact, I read a good portion of this book on the train to and from London yesterday, and it certainly made the trip more interesting! There's a lot of research, world-building and hard work gone into this novel and I am one grateful reader.There's huge potential in this Paranormal world! I loved being introduced to all the ghosts, vampires and spirits that only inhabit a small portion of London and am eager to read more! 
• Peter Grant is a fantastic main character. He has such a sense of humour and I loved reading from his point of view and listening to his humorous opinions on the world around him. He takes the mick out of Britain and it's policing system a lot too, and being a British Citizen I think it made me appreciate the humour a lot more. If you like a funny main character, try this book out! A lot of the side characters he surrounds himself with are great too! I loved Beverley Brook and the whole River Spirit clan, Nightingale was cool too and Molly was definitely intriguing.

What I Disliked:

• The organisation of the plot, at times, felt a bit chaotic. A crime of a supernatural kind has been committed and Grant spends a fair bit of the book trying to sort it out. At the same time, he's settling disputes, heading off on seemingly unimportant side missions, learning magic, trying to seduce a woman or two and also trying to research the exact properties and effects of his new-found powers. Most of the time, this was fine but at times I got a bit confused and felt like I'd been thrown in at the deep end.

Overall Conclusion:

I really did enjoy this book. There was so much to it! Great characters, intriguing plot concept and phenomenal world-building put me in a good mood. The sense of humour put me in an even better mood. At times it felt like a little too much had been crammed into this one and things go in the way of each other every so often. As well, despite the mostly awesome side characters, I really hope I wasn't supposed to like Lesley because I didn't. She was so irritating! Still, I look forward to the next in the series, this was a very promising start.