House of the Rising Sun: Crescent City, Book 1

Too-perfect playboy fae Augustine, from Painter’s House of Comarré series, is horrified when his mother figure, movie star Olivia Goodwin, is murdered by vampires in 2068 New Orleans. In a future too much like our present—televisions are now holovisions and cell phones are “Life Management Devices”—New Orleans is a bustling Haven city for the morally questionable witches and the righteous fae. Augustine becomes New Orleans’s guardian, tasked with ridding the city of its uninvited vampire guests and eager to use his position to avenge Olivia. Further complicating matters is the appearance of Harlow, Goodwin’s estranged daughter and Augustine’s love interest, and later Harlow’s dangerous father, whom Goodwin kept secret. This page-turner features characters with interesting, innovative powers solving a complex conspiracy, and is a promising beginning to what looks to be an easily digestible series. (May)