This may seem a bit odd, but reading Angela Korra’ti’s Faerie Blood sharply reminded me that I have been remiss in my campaign to review all the Drollerie Press books I like, though I’ve been pretty successful in not-reviewing the ones I didn’t, which is probably to my credit.  Anyhow, the book-I-liked that I skipped was David Sklar’s Shadow of the Antlered Bird, and I bring it up now in part because I liked it for many of the same reasons I liked Faerie Blood.  Both FB and SAB (Yes, I shortened the titles for convenience’s sake) were utterly charming, and both dealt with Faerie in a way of which I strongly approve.  They also both displayed a refreshing and blended balance between the ancient magical beings and magical world and the modern environment with which they surely must come to cope.

Back to FB, though, I saw a lot of myself and the way I see the world in its pages.  It plays to my age-group and my social tastes as a twenty-something gamer geek and musician with a penchant for Faerie-lore, and I found myself relating to the characters as though they were fiction-world proxies for my buddies from college.

Also, I found the romantic element of the story delightful and heart-warningly innocent (another thing, incidentally, FB shares with SAB), and I found myself impressed by the intimacy Korra’ti achieves with her story’s sense of time and location.  It’s a very well crafted piece, and it made for a very fun afternoon in a beanbag chair with a cup of tea, which I needed to distract me for a bit from midterms and intensive Jingju (Beijing Opera) training, if only for a short while.  If you get a chance (and now would be a good time, because Drollerie’s running one heck of a sale in their bookshop), and if you like Faerie stories, by all means, get your hands on a copy of this book.  And yyyyyeah… when you’re finished with Faerie Blood, try Shadow of the Antlered Bird.  It’s shorter, but goes just as well with a cup of tea and a beanbag chair ^_^.  -EGD