Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale

With wit that never quite hits its mark and insufficient fantasy glitter, Warren’s 12th novel of the Others (after May 2011’s Black Magic Woman) is in fact a very ordinary Fae-meets-girl story. Reporter Corinne D’Allesandro and Luc Macinaw, head of Queen Mab’s Guard, collaborate on a haphazard search around Manhattan for the queen’s nephew. Luc is shocked that Fate has chosen him a human heartmate, but Corinne’s happy to have the sexy attention and willing to suffer the teasing of her already Other-mated friends, even if Luc never stops being vaguely insufferable. Luc’s only supernatural characteristics are pointy ears and a tendency to glow after the clumsily described sex (“like soul A and soul B matched on some sort of elemental plane”), and the plot is painfully obvious and unengaging. Only longtime fans will be interested in this installment. (Nov.)