Elicia Hyder

I've become so jaded that I couldn't stop myself from waiting for the dealbreaker throughout the entire book. The moment where one of the usual suspects would shatter my suspension of disbelief. It never came.
While this is a classic Urban Fantasy story it is surprisingly unique in its lore and world-building and borrows only in broad strokes from the UF trope pot.
While the MC is a badass she never comes across as too perfect or unbelievable.
She is grumpy and somewhat jaded from her police work and her former military career and doesn't back down from a challenge but she still tries to be fair and do right by people.
The most important thing for me though probably is her common sense. It's far too rare to find MCs with actual common sense nowadays. It's not a case of magic intuition provided by the author.

The thing I loved the most about this book is the characters. Each one felt like a real and internally consistent person, not the typical clichée cardboard cutouts or walking contradictions I have almost become used to enduring.

While this book already has an interesting plot, it's very much an introduction with the purpose of getting to know the cast and the world.
The reader slowly learns everything as the story progresses without any dry exposition or other clumsy world-building.
There never was a boring moment and the writing felt very natural and easy to read.
A lot of time is spent getting to know important characters and their relevant backgrounds so it will be interesting how the second book will change with more time for the plot.

The big problem after first books is that authors can theoretically spend as much time as they want polishing and working out kinks. This is not true for a second book especially if your first book is a hit and this will no doubt be a successful one. You only have a year or two at most for the second one which frequently forces authors to make concessions. I really hope the second one can follow up.
Another vibe I seemed to pick up is the chosen one that has to save the city/world. It's never said in so many words but it appears to go towards something of that sort.
I personally hope it won't because raising the stakes is not at all necessary with a cast and world like this.… (mere)