The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening. The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before or while listening to the podcast. If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done. Enjoy!

This entry is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Industrial Magic

The story starts with the attack upon Dana MacArthur, daughter of a Cabal employee. Dismayed by her inability to persuade other witches to form a new coven because of their disapproval of her relationship with Lucas Cortez, Paige Winterbourne is not entirely happy to find his father – Benicio Cortez – on her doorstep with news of the new case.

Lucas and Paige decide to travel to Miami to visit his father and introduce Paige to the family, as well as to hear further details about the attack. They discover that Dana’s is only one of a series of similar attacks upon the children of Cabal employees. That night another child, the son of Benicio’s bodyguard is killed. The father, Griffin, asks Paige and Lucas to investigate.

Concerned about Savannah, they arrange for her to stay with the werewolf Pack. They then arrange to meet up with Jaime Vegas, a necromancer. Jaime manages to contact Dana, who is believed to be in a coma, getting what details she can from her about the attack. In the process she discovers the girl is dead.

Investigation leads them to the home of Everett Weber. They are unable to find him, but do find a lot of encrypted computer files. Paige breaks the code to reveal a list of the children of Cabal employees. They track down Weber, but before they can persuade him to come with him peacefully, a Cabal SWAT team cause a hostage situation. Paige is injured and Everett taken into custody.

The trial results in Weber’s swift execution, but almost immediately another child is killed – the grandson of Thomas Nast.

Jaime, Lucas and Paige go out to the swamp where Weber would be buried to contact him. They meet Esus. He gives them details about the man who hired Weber. When they continue to investigate, they start to be plagued by a ghost, but Jaime struggles to contact it. Eventually, they discover that the ghost is that of a vampire.

Their search leads them to the home of Edward and Natasha, two immortality-quester vampires. Natasha has been killed, she is the ghost, and Edward is looking for revenge. They set a trap, but it backfires. Lucas is shot, and both he and Paige find themselves in the land of the dead. There Paige meets Savannah’s mother, Eve, who guides her. The Fates offer them a choice, and their decision returns them to the land of the living, where they find the werewolves have begun to search for them.

A trap is set for Edward at a charity ball, but it goes wrong. Jaime is kidnapped and Benicio ignores the plan in order to save his son. Jeremy, Savannah and Paige help to save everyone. Benicio executes Edward.

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening. The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before or while listening to the podcast. If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done. Enjoy!

This entry is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Dime Store Magic.

Set nine months after the events of Stolen, or as Paige observes at the beginning of the novel “nine months, three weeks and two days”, Dime Store Magic begins with Paige receiving complaints from the Elders about Savannah, clearly not for the first time. The Elders hate trouble and object to anything that might draw attention to the Coven. The same day Paige receives a petition for custody of her ward from Leah O’Donnell, a half-demon involved in events at the compound the previous year.

Paige meets Leah and her lawyers, Gabriel Sandford, at the Cary Law Offices in East Falls. There she recognises Gabriel as a sorcerer. It is revealed that the custody claim comes not from Leah, but Savannah’s father, Kristof Nast. Nast is the head of the Nast Sorcerer Cabal in Los Angeles, California.

After she gets home, Paige is confronted by Victoria and the other Elders who are concerned because Leah’s intent to use Paige’s status as a witch in the custody battle threatens to expose the Coven. Paige persuades them to give her three days to clear matters up. She then arranges a meeting with Grantham Cary Jr., the local lawyer. It is decided to request that Nast submit to DNA testing to prove his paternity claim. Sandford, as Paige expected, refuses on behalf of his client.

In order to force her to submit, Leah and associates begin a dirty tricks campaign that includes placing a hand of glory on her property and setting up satanic altars in the fields behind. Paige comes under investigation by the town sheriff’s department and also the social services.

At this point, Lucas Cortez turns up on Paige’s doorstep and offers his services. His offer is refused as witches do not trust sorcerers. The media set up camp outside Paige’s house and, on a drive into town to pick up a takeaway, Paige’s car is deliberately run into by Grantham Cary Jr because she refused his offer of paying his fees by sharing his bed. Furious, she confronts his wife at his house and then returns home. Cary leaves a message on her answering machine asking her to come to his office to talk. However, when she gets there it is to discover Leah is there too. The half-demon uses her powers to throw Cary out of a window, framing Paige for his murder.

Paige is taken to the police station, from where she is released by Lucas Cortez, despite Paige’s protests. They then go to a Coven meeting, but receive little support from the other members. Angry, Paige agrees to talk to Lucas and he provides her with background information on the Cabals.

The next day Paige receives a call telling her to come to the funeral home to pick up her file from Cary’s people. Thinking this is strange, as it is currently Cary’s visitation, Paige nonetheless agrees and she and Savannah go to the home. However, whilst they are there Nast employees stage a scene that involves bodies raising from the dead and illusions. Paige and Savannah are rescued by Lucas. The police arrive but are forced to let them go.

Events continue to escalate with other incidents occurring. The Coven get increasingly anxious, and Social Services turn up to check on Savannah. However, the interview does not go well as Savannah is upset – at least until she discovers that she has begun to menstruate. Cortez grows concerned because the menses ceremony associated with a witch’s first period can be vital to ensuring her loyalty to her Cabal and he believes that this will increase the urgency of any action Leah and her colleagues take.

Paige also grows curious about the differences between witch and sorcerer magic. She starts to realise that there were once several grades of spell: primary, secondary and tertiary. However, at some point the higher level spells were lost or deliberately destroyed, only a few surviving in old grimoires that the Coven Elders refuse to let the other witches use. These grimoires are kept by Savannah’s aunt, Margaret. When they visit her to borrow her car, Paige takes the grimoires. She, Savannah and Lucas then drive to Salem, Massachusetts. There, the two witches argue. Savannah insists on the ceremony her mother wished to use, not the Coven approved one Paige underwent. Paige finally agrees to Savannah’s wish, but the ceremony requires them to get certain ingredients which requires them to go to the cemetery. Afterwards, Paige shares the knowledge of the grimoires with Lucas and they become lovers.

The next day Paige’s house is fire-bombed, and she and Savannah are kidnapped by the Nast Cabal. Nast presents his claim to Savannah. Savannah agrees to it provided she can have Paige do the originally planned ceremony and also that Paige can stay. Kristof Nast accepts. They then meet Greta and Olivia Enwright. They are supposed to be teaching Savannah, however during this lessons they force her to sacrifice a boy and drink his blood. Savannah is deeply upset. Nast denies any knowledge. Sandford observes that the Cabal Witches had expected Greta’s daughter to succeed her, not Savannah, and that the ritual might have been a form of revenge.

Paige is secured and gagged so that she can’t spellcast. Sandford brings her to the notice of Lucas’ family and one visits her. He orders her death by sundown. Friesen takes her away to kill her, but Paige manages to escape. When she returns to Nast’s house, it is to find all hell has broken loose in her absence. Savannah has called a demon as she attempts to raise her mother from the dead. Nast is killed trying to save his daughter. Lucas tells Paige a spell that will permit her to look like Eve Levine temporarily. They use this to get Savannah out of the house.

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening. The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before or while listening to the podcast. If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done. Enjoy!

This entry is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Circus of the Damned.

Circus of the Damned takes place in October, two months after The Laughing Corspe and begins with Anita meeting Jeremy Rubens and Karl Inger to discuss a potential job. Rubens explains that he has formed Humans First to eliminate vampires by any means necessary, and asks Anita to reveal the identity and resting place of the Master of the City. Although Anita considers whether turning Jean-Claude over to them would free her from the vampire marks he placed upon her in Guilty Pleasures, she ultimately refuses, at least in part because their plan is not good enough and would result in them getting killed. Rubens reacts badly, but Inger is more thoughtful, and Anita agrees to reconsider their proposal if they are able to develop a more promising plan.

Anita then receives a call from Dolph to assist in a crime scene investigation. Arriving at the scene, she determines that the victim, Carl Rupert, was killed by bites from multiple vampires. Anita informs Dolph that she believes that a single master vampire must be leading a pack of other vampires in order to coordinate the attack, and that because the victim died of bites from multiple different vampires, he will not rise as a vampire himself.

In order to learn whether any rogue master vampires are operating in the city, Anita requests a meeting with Jean-Claude, and is invited to meet him at the Circus of the Damned, a supernatural circus and Jean-Claude’s daytime resting place. Stephen leads her into the circus, past an act where a snake charmer is charming a giant, apparently supernatural, cobra. Arriving at an inner chamber, Anita meets Jean-Claude, together with Yasmeen, a master vampire ally of Jean-Claude’s, and two people reclining naked in bed, Richard Zeeman and Rashida.

Yasmeen confronts Anita, alternately challenging and attempting to seduce her. Jean-Claude explains that Anita’s refusal to concede that she is his human servant is causing him political problems, and tells Anita that if she accepts her role, he will resolve the confrontation with Yasmeen. Of course, Anita refuses. Jealous of Yasmeen’s attention to Anita, Yasmeen’s human servant and lover, Marguerite, challenges Anita to a duel, which Anita wins. Angry over Anita’s defeat of Marguerite, Yasmeen attacks Anita, but Anita continues to refuse to ask for Jean-Claude’s aid. Anita is ultimately saved by her silver cross, which comes into contact with Yasmeen’s bare skin and burns hot enough to burn both Anita and Yasmeen.

The confrontation is then cut short by a crisis in the arena outside. During the confrontation, the giant snake, apparently once worshipped as a god in ancient Egypt, killed the snake charmer and is now out of control. (Although Anita does not explicitly state this, there is a chance that this event was caused by Mr Oliver, who Anita later learns has power over snakes and seeks to replace the Master of the City.) Jean-Claude, Yasmeen, Marguerite, Rashida, Stephen and Richard all rush down to fight the snake. At Jean-Claude’s request, Anita assists, both by increasing Jean-Claude’s powers with her presence and with her gun. With Anita’s help, the snake is killed, although it nearly tears Rashida’s arm off in the process.

Jean-Claude criticizes Richard for not doing all he could to fight the snake, then informs Anita that neither he or Yasmeen are the rogue master vampire responsible for the recent murder and that he does not know of any other master vampires who might be suspects. Jean-Claude admits that although he would normally know if any new master vampires had arrived in his territory, current events are sufficiently chaotic that he might not know in this case. Anita agrees to drive Richard home, together with Stephen, who is nearly unconscious from the strain of transforming to his wolf form and back to human. Anita is attracted to Richard, a handsome and kind junior high school teacher who is inexplicably mixed up with Jean-Claude, and after some initial resistance, agrees to go on a caving date with Richard the next Saturday.

After dropping off Stephen and Richard, Anita arrives at her home and finds Edward waiting for her. Edward has accepted another contract to kill the Master of St. Louis, and wants Anita to tell him the Master’s identity and daytime resting place. (In Guilty Pleasures, Anita found clues that strongly suggested that Malcolm was the client who had hired Edward to kill Nikolaos, the Master at that time. However, in this case, Anita does not find any clues as to whether Humans Against Vampires, Mr Oliver, or someone else is responsible for the contract on Jean-Claude.)

Edward tells Anita that he had followed Anita to The Circus of the Damned and watched the fight against the giant snake. Based on that fight, Edward guesses that either Jean-Claude or Yasmeen is Master of the City. As with Rubens and Inger, Anita considers whether handing Jean-Claude to Edward would free her from her human servant status, but decides to delay, and successfully bluffs Edward into believing that the true Master of the City is someone else. Edward demands that she tell him the Master’s identity and resting place soon or face the consequences.

Edward leaves and Anita goes to sleep, but is visited by a dream of Jean-Claude. Later that day, Anita visits the gym to work out with Ronnie and learns that Carl Rupert, the murder victim, was a member of Humans Against Vampires. Ronnie also reminds Anita that their friend Catherine has scheduled a Halloween party for the day Anita had planned to go out with Richard. Ronnie teases Anita about having a date, and Anita calls Richard, who agrees to go with her to the Halloween party and take a raincheck for the caving.

That evening, Dolph calls and asks Anita to inspect another vampire murder. The victim, a woman, has also been killed by a vampire pack. As night falls, Anita and Dolph notice a change come over the woman’s corpse, as she transforms from merely dead into something luminously beautiful. Anita realizes that if the rogue master vampire is powerful enough, its victims might rise after a single bite. If so, the victims, each of whom died while being bitten by an entire pack of vampires, would rise as an animalistic vampire. Anita becomes concerned that the hospital personnel might be unprepared for the previous victim to rise as a vampire and calls the hospital but gets no answer. She then calls Bert, who tells her that new hire Larry Kirkland is covering her animations for the night, and that Rupert had a “dying will” asking to be staked, and that because Anita was unavailable, John Burke has gone to the hospital to perform the staking. Anita and the police rush to the hospital to learn why no one is answering the phone.

Anita and several police officers arrive at the hospital, and find the morgue wing deserted. Apparently, Rupert awakened in an animalistic state, killed the vampire counsellor, tore open the steel morgue door and went on a rampage, killing nurses and guards as he found them. Anita and the police meet John Burke, who was in the hospital hunting Rupert, and continue the hunt together. Rupert surprises them and is able to kill one of the police officers before Anita disables him. After confirming that Rupert is dead, Anita leaves to make sure that Larry Kirkland is able to cover her scheduled animations for the night.

Anita catches up to Larry on his third animation of the night. Although Larry is powerful, he is young and inexperienced, and begins to lose control of the zombie. Anita steps in, feeding the zombie her blood and asserting control over it. After the zombie, Andrew Dougal, signs a will, his family leaves and Anita is forced to explain that he is dead and return him to his grave. She and Larry prepare to leave for her next appointment. Larry, a twenty-year old college senior hired at Animators, Inc. for a job co-op, does not accept that his overreaching put him in danger. Anita considers him to be very innocent and young, although he is only a few months younger than when she started at the same job site. She wishes she could keep him innocent and tries to talk him out of his new job, but he refuses.

On their way to their cars, Anita and Larry are attacked by members of Humans First in an attempt to force Anita to reveal Jean-Claude’s name and resting place. Anita and Larry escape, but hit a child while driving away. They check on the child, and find that it is actually a child vampire, older than Jean-Claude and very powerful. The child vampire attacks them, together with two powerful female vampires and Alejandro, the master of the group. Using their necklace crosses and Anita’s cross charm bracelet, Anita and Larry fight off the vampires for a while, and even attempt to drive away a second time, but ultimately, Alejandro captures Larry and threatens to kill him unless Anita surrenders.

Alejandro also demands that Anita tell him the name and resting place of the Master of the City, but Anita refuses. Alejandro rolls Anita’s mind and she passes out. When she wakes up, the vampires are gone, apparently driven off by an attack from the members of Humans Against Vampires, who came to Anita’s aid under an “enemy of my enemy” principle. Larry drives Anita home and tells her that he wants to be both an animator and a vampire executioner. Anita reluctantly decides to be Larry’s mentor, resolving that if she cannot persuade him to forego hunting monsters, she will at least do her best to teach him the skills needed to stay alive. At home, Anita finds Edward, who threatens to torture her if she does not reveal the name of the Master of St. Louis. Anita tells him that Alejandro is the Master, and goes to sleep.

The next morning, Karl Inger calls and tells Anita that he has a plan to kill the Master of the City, and Anita agrees to meet with him. Karl takes Anita to a rural home, where she meets Mr Oliver, a vampire so old that he is a member of the homo erectus species, and Melanie, a lamia under Mr Oliver’s control. Mr Oliver explains that he wishes to become Master of the City, and demands that Anita reveal the master’s identity and location.

Anita evades the question and returns to St. Louis, where she learns from Ronnie that the two murder victims were both members of Humans Against Vampires and had dying wills requiring that they be staked after death. Both victims had the same lawyer, and Ronnie suspects that someone from the lawyer’s office leaked their identity to the murderers. Anita gives the lead to Dolph, who agrees to investigate.

That evening, Anita and Larry are interrupted in their animation duties by Jean-Claude, who demands that they meet him at the Circus of the Damned. Without revealing to Larry that Jean-Claude is Master of the City, Anita meets with him and learns that she has somehow received the first mark as Alejandro’s human servant as well as Jean-Claude’s, something that Jean-Claude had believed impossible.

The next morning, Anita arrives at home to find Melanie and three men waiting for her. They take her into a rural cave for what she believes is a meeting with Mister Oliver, then turn out the lights. Alejandro appears and demands that Anita become his human servant, but she attempts to escape. In the course of escaping, she kills the three men accompanying Melanie, as well as Melanie’s mate, a man named Raju who Melanie has converted into a half-snake form. Before dying, Raju bites Anita, injecting her with venom. Anita ultimately swims through a submerged tunnel to a lake and escapes in time to be picked up by Edward, who had followed her to the cave.

Edward takes Anita home, where they meet Richard. Anita is dying of lamia venom, and cannot be treated because lamias are believed to be extinct, so there is no anti-venom available. Richard suggests that they infect Anita with lycanthropy to save her life, but Anita says that she would rather die than become a lycanthrope. Richard refuses to let Anita die, and brings her to Jean-Claude, who marks Anita with the third mark as his human servant, drinking blood from her wrist and rendering her immune to poison. Anita is outraged that Jean-Claude has given her another mark, and threatens to kill him, notwithstanding that the mark saved her life.

In order to free herself from Jean-Claude, Anita calls Mr Oliver and reveals Jean-Claude’s name and location. Oliver promises to kill Jean-Claude that night, on Halloween. Shortly later, Dolph calls Anita and reveals the results of his investigation. A paralegal turned the names of the two murder victims over to the vampires, and, under questioning, reveals that there is a plot to force every vampire in St. Louis to begin a killing spree. Anita realizes that if Mr Oliver becomes Master of the City, he will be able to command every vampire in the city to begin a murder spree, and calls Jean-Claude to warn him. Jean-Claude is amazed that Anita is actually willing to kill him, but thanks her for the warning. Anita brings Edward to the Circus of the Damned and prepares for the battle.

Jean-Claude explains that he and Mr Oliver have agreed to a battle for control of the city. In front of a circus audience, their minions will fight physically, while Jean-Claude and Mr Oliver engage in a conflict of raw vampiric power. Edward, Anita, Rashida, Yasmeen, Marguerite, Richard and Stephen will fight for Jean-Claude, while Mr Oliver, Karl Inger, Alejandro, Melanie, and Alejandro’s pack of vampires will fight for Mr Oliver.

Edward kills most or all of Alejandro’s pack, while Alejandro kills Yasmeen. Marguerite, torn with grief, gouges out her eyes and is out of the fight. Alejandro marks Anita with the third and fourth mark, drinking Anita’s blood and forcing her to drink his, making Anita fully his human servant. Through their link, Anita learns that Oliver believes that the legalization of vampires is threatening to society, and that Oliver plans to force the city’s vampires into a killing spree in order to end America’s experiment with vampire legalization.

Ultimately, Oliver wins the battle and restrains Jean-Claude. Oliver demands that Anita stake Jean-Claude, reasoning that if Jean-Claude’s own supposed human servant kills him, he will be fully discredited. However, the combination of Anita’s own power as a necromancer and the power received as Alejandro’s human servant prevents either Oliver or Alejandro from controlling her directly. Richard, armed with a pistol, attempts to fight Oliver, but Oliver rips out his throat. Oliver attempts to intimidate Anita into killing Jean-Claude, but at the last minute, Anita carries out Alejandro’s plan, staking Oliver instead, then decapitating him. At that point, Alejandro attempts to kill Jean-Claude and usurp both Jean-Claude’s and Oliver’s positions, but Anita tears his heart out of his chest, then strangles him as she herself also dies from the strain of her “master’s” death.

Later, Anita comes to in the hospital and learns that Edward and paramedics revived her with CPR, that Jean-Claude is still alive, and that Richard also lived because, unknown to her, he was a werewolf, and a sufficiently powerful one to mask his identity. Richard explains that his pack leader had ordered him to attend Jean-Claude, but that he will no longer do so. Anita also learns that Alejandro’s marking of her as his human servant and subsequent death has removed Jean-Claude’s marks and that she is theoretically free of him. Anita decides to continue dating Richard, but isn’t sure if she can adjust to his lycanthropy, or why she was so sad when she had thought that Jean-Claude would be killed. Meanwhile, Melanie the lamia has begun work for Jean-Claude, as one of the attractions at the Circus of the Damned.

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening. The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before or while listening to the podcast. If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done. Enjoy!

This entry is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Living Dead in Dallas.

This book opens with Sookie Stackhouse finding the dead body of Lafayette in the backseat of Andy Bellefleur’s car, which had been left at Merlotte’s the night before. Sookie learns that her friend had recently attended a local sex party. She thinks the members of that group might know something about her friend’s murder so she starts “listening” to people’s thoughts by using her special mind reading talent while working at the local bar.

In the meantime, Bill Compton, Sookie’s vampire boyfriend, informs her that they have been summoned by Eric. On their way to Fangtasia, a vampire bar where Eric’s office is located, Sookie is attacked by a maenad as a way to get Eric’s attention. The maenad, also known as Callisto, attacks Sookie and her wounds are poisoned. Sookie is healed by a combination of Dr. Ludwig’s special healings and blood drainings by Eric, Pam, Chow and Bill. Sookie is later given a fresh transfusion of human blood.[2] Eric informs Bill and Sookie that they need to go to Dallas to help the local vampire leader, Stan Davis, to find his missing brother, Farrell, who has not returned to Davis’ nest for five days.

The Dallas vampires, Sookie and Bill learn that The Fellowship of the Sun (FotS) might be behind the disappearance. Sookie decides to go to the FotS’ church with Hugo, Stan’s human lawyer, in an undercover mission. Sookie’s cover is quickly exposed when they meet Steve and Sarah Newlin, and is badly hurt while trying to run out. She also discovers that Hugo is a traitor. Sookie escapes from the church with the help of Luna, a shapeshifter and Godfrey, a vampire. Eventually, Bill and the Dallas vampires rescue Farrell. The welcome home party for Farrell is interrupted by the FotS attacking Stan’s mansion. Sookie, unable to locate Bill, helps Eric remove a bullet which he received protecting her from the fire, unable to find a knife she sucks the bullet ingesting a few drops of his blood in the process. Bill returns soon after, he had immediately chased down members of FotS along with some other vamps at the party. Sookie is upset that he killed someone and didn’t wait to see if she was okay. Sookie leaves the house and immediately flys back to Bon Temps.

Back in Bon Temps, Sookie avoids Bill for several weeks during which Bill “dates” Portia Bellefleur who is trying to find out more about the sex club. After seeing Sookie at a football game with Tara, Eggs and JB du Rone, Bill follows Sookie home and they passionately reconcile.

The next day, Sookie is invited to a secret sex party organized by Mike Spencer. Afraid to go alone, Sookie asks Eric to accompany her as Bill is out of town. At the sex party, Sookie is surprised to see her friend Tara and her fiancé, Eggs, and learns that Mike and Tom Hardaway murdered Lafayette. The party is interrupted when Bill, Andy Bellefleur, Sam (collie form) and the maenad gather in front of the house. The maenad enjoys the drunkenness and lust of the party participants and eventually kills them all, except for Tara. Bill and Eric burn the house, and Eric glamors Tara so that she will be unable to remember what happened at the sex party.

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening. The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before or while listening to the podcast. If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done. Enjoy!

This entry is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Stolen.

The story begins with Elena travelling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to follow up a lead the Pack have come across on believe.com which purports to be able to prove the existence of werewolves. However, when she meets her contact, a young witch named Paige Winterbourne, she has information that Elena finds extremely disturbing. Not only does she claim to know about werewolves, but more specifically about her. It is clear that the posting on the website was a lure designed to bring Elena to Pittsburgh because of problems other supernaturals have been having with a group headed by Ty Winsloe. Elena is skeptical, having given no credence up to this point that other supernatural beings such as witches and vampires could exist. The claims of Paige and her mother, Ruth, sound like conspiracy theories that Elena finds hard to believe.

Unable to sleep, she goes out that night for a run, but is followed by a stalker with military training. Elena evades him only to discover that he has colleagues and that they are trying to capture not only herself, but also the Winterbournes. In the fight, Elena kills one of the men, Mark, and the three women find themselves confronting a half-demon able to teleport whom Elena nicknames ‘Houdini’, who works for Tyrone Winsloe. Ruth casts a spell which traps him temporarily and the three women make their escape.

Elena calls Jeremy and, the next morning, the two of them attend a meeting of the Inter-racial Council. There they are told about a shaman who had been kidnapped and taken away from his home in Virginia to a compound run by Tyrone Winsloe and Lawrence Matasumi. With his abilities of Astral projection, the shaman is able to not only determine that he is not the only captive, but also to contact the shaman on the Inter-racial Council, Kenneth.

Following the discussion about how to handle matters, Jeremy declines to return to the meeting after dinner. His priority is first and foremost to the Pack and its safety. Whilst he is prepared to join forces with the Council if necessary, it is only a temporary measure as the Pack has always fought its own battles.

That night Clay arrives. The three werewolves are attacked by men working for Winsloe, but they are all killed. The Pack are suspicious because the only people who knew they were in the area where the members of the Council. So, the following day, when they arrive at the meeting, they do so with the head of one of the men in a bag. They decline any offer to align themselves with the Council and leave.

On the way back, Elena is kidnapped and taken to the compound. There she becomes involved with many of the other residents, being ‘befriended’ by Leah and Sondra, as well as helping Doctor Carmichael in the infirmary. She discovers Ruth has also been kidnapped. The witch is particularly interested in another prisoner, Savannah Levine. However, ‘poltergeist activity’, that many of those in the compound associate with Savannah, plays a role in the death of Ruth.

Sondra Bauer becomes obsessed with turning herself into a werewolf and injects herself with some of Elena’s saliva. Her body reacts as if she has been bitten, and she is taken to the infirmary. While there, Bauer kills Carmichael and Elena is forced to sedate her. Bauer is transferred to the cell beside Elena’s.

Tyrone Winsloe takes an interest in Elena, wanting her to wear skimpy clothing as well as watch, and participate in, his ‘hunts’. Prisoners such as Patrick Lake and Armen Haig are killed during these and it becomes clear that Elena is next. Winsloe brings her photographs that he claims are of Clay and that Clay is now dead.

An apparent system malfunction provides the opportunity for Elena, Sondra, Leah and Savannah to attempt escape. Bauer loses control and is killed by the guards. Leah and Savannah get left behind when an elevator door closes on Elena. She makes a run for it, Changing into a wolf, and is chased by dogs. Clay finds her and takes her back to Jeremy and the others who are in New Brunswick, Canada.

After telling her story, the group devise a plan to free the others from the compound and to put a stop to Ty Winsloe and his associates. Clay, Paige, Adam and Elena enter the compound first. They kill the dogs and disable the vehicles before entering the building itself. Tucker and the guards are killed or disabled before they enter the cell block. There they find Savannah. Curtis Zaid is revealed to be Isaac Katzen when he attacks Paige and the others. Katzen is killed. Leah is shown to be the one really responsible for the poltergeist activity. She attempts to snatch Savannah, but is prevented and escapes. Clay and Elena track Winsloe and kill him.

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening. The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before or while listening to the podcast. If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done. Enjoy!

This entry is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on the Laughing Corpse.

The Laughing Corpse takes place in August, a month after Guilty Pleasures and begins with Anita and her manager, Bert Vaughn, visiting local millionaire Harold Gaynor to discuss a potential job. Harold explains that he wishes to animate and question a 300 year old corpse, and that he will pay millions of dollars for this job, as well as supplying the “white goat” necessary to accomplish the task. Although Bert hates the idea of giving up so lucrative a job, when Anita explains that the “white goat” is a euphemism for the human sacrifice necessary to animate a corpse that old, Bert refuses the offer.

While trying on bridesmaid’s outfits for her friend Catherine’s wedding, Anita receives a call from Dolph, the head of the area’s supernatural crimes unit. She visits the murder scene, and sees the remnants of a family, which she deduces was torn apart by an undead creature of some sort, possibly a flesh-eating zombie. One of the children is missing and possibly alive. In Anita’s opinion, there are only two local people powerful enough to raise and command a flesh-eating zombie – herself and vaundun priestess Dominga Salvador. A third candidate, Peter Burke, recently died. Anita agrees to set up a meeting with Salvador to sound her out on the crime.

Anita’s mentor, Manny Rodriguez, sets up a meeting with Salvador. Salvador is a very evil and powerful vaundun priestess, and reveals that Manny was once a vaundun priest and Salvador’s lover, and that Manny has committed human sacrifices. In return for Salvador’s promise to investigate who is behind the murders, Anita agrees to view a demonstration of Salvador’s technique for capturing the souls of the dead and installing them in zombies, preventing the zombies from degrading and allowing further punishment of the dead. Salvador proposes that Anita become her partner, and that they create ensouled zombies for profit. Anita refuses and they exchange threats, after which Anita is effectively chased out of Salvador’s home by an unseen creature.

After refusing an offer from one of Gaynor’s bodyguards to perform the animation on her own, Anita attends Peter Burke’s funeral. At the funeral, she meet’s Peter’s brother, John Burke. John is a well known vaundun priest and vampire executioner from New Orleans, and Anita considers him as a possible suspect in the zombie murders.

Later that day, Anita meets one of her sources, newspaper reporter and werewolf Irving Griswold, at “Dead Dave’s.” Griswold gives her information on Gaynor, including the name of one of Gaynor’s former girlfriends, Wheelchair Wanda. Griswold tries to get Anita to reveal either her information about Gaynor or the identity of the new Master of the City, but she refuses. Jean-Claude arrives, and attempts to convince Anita to accept her position as his human servant. She refuses, but agrees to meet him the next night at the “Laughing Corpse,” a vampire-themed comedy club. Irving figures out that Jean-Claude is Master of the City, and Jean-Claude agrees to an interview.

That evening, Anita visits the cemetery where the corpse of the last member of the murdered family was found. Using her powers, she scans the graves, and finds one empty and recently disturbed grave. Although the gravestone has been smashed, Anita finds a charm bracelet and a piece of the stone, and takes them to an associate, Evans.

Evans, a touch clairvoyant, initially refuses to read the items. Ultimately, Anita convinces him, and he tells her that a woman wearing the charm bracelet was sacrificed to raise a zombie, then throws her out of his trailer.

That night, Anita wakes to find two zombies in her apartment, apparently sent by Dominga Salvador. She is able to fight off the zombies, but she and her apartment are both damaged. The next day, the threats on her life continue, as two thugs attempt to kidnap Anita and her friend, investigator Ronnie Sims. They question the thugs and deduce that they are working for Gaynor.

Later that evening, Anita visits the Laughing Corpse, and speaks to its new manager, former small-time hood and now small-time vampire Willie McCoy. After watching the show, she meets with Jean-Claude, who explains that he needs her to appear as a willing servant in order to maintain his image and control over the city’s vampires. She refuses again, but asks Jean-Claude to accompany her to Saint Louis’s red light district as her bodyguard, so that she can find and interview Wheelchair Wanda. Jean-Claude agrees, and ends up accidentally seducing one of the prostitutes. He explains that being near Anita boosts his powers more than he expected.

Wanda initially refuses to talk, but Jean-Claude intimidates her into telling them that Gaynor, wheelchair-bound himself, prefers dating handicapped women. Wanda dated Gaynor until he met Cicely, a beautiful but sadistic deaf woman. Wanda is also able to tell Anita that Gaynor is obsessed with the idea of finding a historic “family treasure” and thus revenging himself on a family that he believes has abandoned him.

The next morning, Dolph summons Anita to another zombie murder scene, where Anita engages in a game of one-ups-manship with another police officer, Merlioni, that ends with them playing catch with portions of the body to see who has a stronger stomach. Because the crime took all night and because zombies prefer to avoid daylight, Anita believes that the zombie is likely to be hiding in the neighborhood. Dolph begins a search of the neighborhood.

Dolph also authorizes Anita to show John Burke his brother Peter’s effects, in an effort to question Burke further about his possible involvement in the murders. Burke and Anita find a magical gris-gris in Peter’s possessions, as well as a charm from the charm bracelet Anita found at the mystery gravesite. Burke explains that the gris-gris was made by a powerful vaundun practitioner, that it involved a human sacrifice, and that it contained a portion of the maker’s own power and would increase the power of any animator who possessed it.

Anita, John Burke, and the police confront Dominga Salvador with the gris-gris, which crawls towards her of its own power. Salvador refuses to admit that the charm is hers until Burke points out that if she does not, it will become his property because it was found in his brother’s effects, and that he can use it to take a portion of her power for himself. At that point, she admits that the charm is hers, but absorbs it bodily without warning or ritual, which frightens Burke, who did not believe that it was possible. Salvador’s grandson, Antonio, then confesses his role to the police, apparently because he was supposed to have taken the charm from Burke after his death and fears Salvador’s revenge for failing in his mission. On the strength of the confession and a videotape of the events relating to the charm, the police arrest Salvador.

Anita returns to the neighborhood of the last killing, where the police have been unable to find the zombie. As darkness begins to fall, Anita realizes that the zombie, which will not grow sore or tired, might be hiding on one of the various garbage cans out on the street. She and the police begin opening cans, and the zombie escapes, wounding some of the police and confronting Anita after she gives chase. The zombie explains that it was an animator in life, and that it did not recover its memories until eating human flesh. It asks Anita to put it back in its grave, but Anita and the police destroy it instead.

After medical treatment, Anita returns home, where she is kidnapped by Gaynor’s bodyguards. When she wakes up, she and Wanda are both prisoners at Gaynor’s home, guarded by Gaynor’s bodyguards Bruno and Tommy, Salvador’s bodyguard herself, and a zombie chimera created by Salvador. Gaynor and Salvador (who has been granted bail by a judge under her influence) tell Anita that they intend to force her to raise another relative of Gaynor’s, and that Wanda will be the sacrifice. When Anita refuses to assist willingly, Salvador leaves her zombie chimera to guard Anita and Wanda and begins a spell to compel Anita to obey her orders.

Anita is able to kill Tommy and Cecily and to use her powers over the dead to order the chimera to retreat. She and Wanda attempt to escape, but on their way out, the compulsion spell begins, and Anita is forced to return to the cemetery near Gaynor’s home. Anita figures out that the spell doesn’t force her to do anything other than follow Salvador’s specific commands, and therefore leaves Wanda, depriving Salvador of their intended sacrifice. Salvador sends her bodyguard Enzo to get Wanda, and forces Anita to begin the ritual that will raise Gaynor’s ancestor.

Anita tells Gaynor and Salvador what she has deduced – that Gaynor wished to raise one of his ancestors to find the treasure, but that Salvador, unwilling to perform a human sacrifice in front of witnesses, instead created a gris-gris that allowed Peter Burke to raise Gaynor’s ancestor. However, because Gaynor’s ancestor was an animator, he rose as an uncontrollable flesh-eating zombie. Burke was killed to keep the secret, but Antonio forgot to retrieve the gris-gris, providing the clue Anita needed to solve the mystery.

Although Salvador is angry that Gaynor didn’t tell her that his ancestor was an animator, she continues with the plan. With Enzo and Bruno holding Wanda ready for the sacrifice, Salvador then commands Anita to “raise the dead.” Anita follows that command literally, taking the offered machete and killing Enzo and Bruno instead of Wanda. The power released by two human deaths, combined with Anita’s own power, allows Anita to raise and control every corpse in the cemetery. She orders the zombies to kill both Salvador and Gaynor, then lays the zombies to rest. Jean-Claude arrives, and explains that, as the undead himself, he felt Anita’s power, but remained at a distance until she interred the zombies, apparently out of prudence in case Anita decided to use the zombies to kill him and free herself of her status as his human servant.

In the epilogue, Anita explains that the “disappearances” of Salvador and Gaynor have never been solved, that she continues to refuse Jean-Claude, has attended Catherine’s wedding, and is considering the extent and implications of the power she now realizes she has.

If it’s been a while since you’ve read the book, check out the recap.

Our next book will be book 2 in the Anita Blake series, the Laughing Corpse, by Laurel K. Hamilton.

Our target podcast record date for the Laughing Corpse is May 23, 2009.  Get reading!  Send us your thoughts to urbanfantasyclub@gmail.com

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening.  The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before  or while listening to the podcast.  If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done.  Enjoy!

This recap is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Dead Until Dark

Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress at Merlotte’s, a bar in a small town in Lousiana. She has been waiting for any vampire to enter the bar, as they have come out to the public (called “mainstreaming”) since the Japanese released a synthetic blood that curbs their urges, although it has none of the flavor of real blood.

The waitress reveals herself as telepathic, able to “hear” thoughts of other people. A vampire enters the bar, and she listens in on some thoughts of a couple, the Ratrays, that joins him, discovering they plan to drain him, as vampire blood is considered the best drug on the market.

Sookie intervenes and the Rattrays escape, promising revenge. The vampire reveals he is Bill Compton. She realizes she can’t read his mind, a new thing for her. The next day, the Rattrays return, badly wound Sookie, and Bill kills them. He feeds Sookie some of his blood and finds out about her “affliction”. Meanwhile, the body of a local woman is found dead.

She resumes her life, living in her grandmother’s house, and occassionally spending time with her estranged brother, Jason. Jason stays in their family home. Both siblings were orphaned when a flash flood killed their parents. Sookie covers work for a co-worker who doesn’t come in, and the next day, her boss Sam asks her to go to the worker’s house.

There, she discovers the co-worker has been killed, and she asks her brother’s associate, Rene, who is also the boyfriend of another co-worker, Arlene. She returns to work, where she is intrigued by her inability to see into Sam’s head. Sookie’s grandmother asks Bill to speak at a meeting where descendants of the Civil War talk. After the meeting Sookie, on a date with Sam, returns home to find her grandmother slaughtered.

Sookie inherits her grandparent’s home, and a frustrated Jason hits her. He leaves enraged, but she realizes he’ll get over it. Sookie sleeps with Bill, her first, but she is creeped out by his vampire friends, who aren’t as happy with Bill’s decision to go mainstream. She asks Bill if he’ll take her to Fangtasia, a vampire bar run by the former viking Eric Northman, in the hopes of finding out about the murdered women. Bill takes her, but only after giving her some of his blood, so that she can better navigate the dangerous waters of a vampiric population in the bar. Her pet cat is murdered, in a message to her.

Eric realizes Sookie has special powers, and she is desirable to him, as she’s been fed vampire blood twice. She discovers the victims were known at the bar, and returns home. Sookie sends Bill away after being shaken by the events at the bar. He tells Sookie to go to Sam if she’s in trouble, because of her inability to read his mind clearly.

Eric later asks Bill to bring Sookie to investigate a large sum of money that is missing from his bar. She comes and uses her powers on humans, discovering the bartender Long Shadow is the culprit. The Native American bartender attacks her, but Eric stakes him and kills him. His blood flows into Sookie’s mouth, further altering her. She asks to go home. Bill decides to go away for awhile in order to secure their protection from Eric.

Sookie babysits for Arlene, when she returns to get her kids, Bill has brought dumb vampire Elvis Presley, now called Bubba and possessing none of his former knowledge, to guard her house. Rene and Bill talk for a little, and Arlene, Rene, and Sookie learn Bubba doesn’t like human blood, but animals’ (especially cats’).

Sookie tries to track down her brother to tell him she’s not learned much reading minds of the patrons after he becomes the number one suspect by way of bondage sex tapes with two of the victims. She finds out that he is at Merlotte’s, and goes to pick him up, but the bartender tells him nothing’s happened there. She takes a stray dog home because her cat had been killed a few days before.

At home, she finds out overnight that the stray dog is Sam, who is a shifter and able to change his form to other beings, preferring a collie, a friendly dog that most people will easily associate with. Mad that he came out with this now that she is involved with Bill, she takes him home when Andy Bellefleur, the local detective, comes by to ask some questions. She makes him sleep in her spare room overnight, then a final victim is killed and Jason is arrested.

With Bill gone, Sookie finds Bubba drugged, having ingested the blood of a drugged cat. She realizes the killer is nearby, and it’s Rene. She fights Rene off and knocks him out. In the hospital, Bill returns and says he’s now an Area Investigator, meaning Eric can’t come between the couple. She tells him not to kill Rene, who also murdered his own sister and then had sex with the body, and Bill lets him live.

Click on the link in our blog RSS feed (upper-right hand corner). You can also subscribe on iTunes.

In this podcast, we discuss the first book in the Women of the Otherworld  series, Bitten by Kelley Armstrong.

If it’s been a while since you read this book, check out our recap.

Our next book will be Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris, Book 1 in the Sookie Stackhouse/Souther Vampire series.  Target podcast record date is April 18, 2009.   Happy reading!
]]> http://urbanfantasybc.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/urban-fantasy-book-club-episode-2-bitten/feed/ 0 urbfantasylily http://urbanfantasybc.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/some-cool-blog-articles-about-urban-fantasy/ http://urbanfantasybc.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/some-cool-blog-articles-about-urban-fantasy/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:48:15 +0000 urbfantasylily http://urbanfantasybc.wordpress.com/?p=37 ]]> Author Stacia Kane takes on the question, “Has all Urban Fantasy become the same?”

Author Carrie Vaughn Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part I and Part II