Sue Archer

In this blog series, I’m writing about books I’ve enjoyed and learned from both as a reader and as a writer, with a focus on Canadian and indie fiction authors.

First up is The Flaws of Gravity by Stephanie Caye, the first book in her fae urban fantasy series Gravity’s Daughter. I grabbed this one after being on a panel with Stephanie as part of Canada Fiction Fest. Urban fantasy is right up my alley, so I was excited about this one, and it did not disappoint! I’ve already picked up the next one in the series.

Synopsis 

The existence of tequila is at stake. Oh, and humanity too.

Jude Waldron’s playing both sides of a supernatural cold war. While collecting a paycheck from a secret human organization fighting against the Faerie Court, she’s also helping her friend and mentor Aubrie search for illicit magic. But when Aubrie’s true scheme pits her violently against her human colleagues on his behalf, the half-Faerie renegade finds herself taking the fall—literally.

Now Jude’s ready to cut and run, destination: “The Hell Away from This Mess.” Bonus points if there’s a warm beach nearby. Before she can pack a bag, a shady group of Faeries traps her, demanding she steal a spellbook for them—the same book Aubrie wants. She’ll have to face off with catty pixies, vicious sirens, a calculating dragon and a pissed off ex-boyfriend in pursuit of a prize that could merge the human and Faerie worlds into a chaotic nightmare. If she pulls it off, Jude will win her freedom along with safe, anonymous passage to her chosen sandy paradise. And, right, save two worlds.

Reader Review

A gripping urban fantasy! Could not put it down. Stephanie deftly handles a cast of characters with different powers, perspectives, and motivations, and Jude as the main character is very relatable in both her flaws and charms. Plus the story features several Canadian cities (Montreal, Toronto, Niagara Falls, and much more – nice to see a shout out to St. Catharines!) The various settings and character storyline strands are woven together into a fast-paced plot with meaningful stakes and a satisfying payoff that still leaves room for more.

About the only thing I would have loved to see more of is additional sexual tension between Jude and her ex-boyfriend, but that’s a personal bias and it doesn’t detract from the story. Their mutual challenge in navigating their history while trying to work together was nuanced and believable, which can be very difficult to pull off!

Writer Review

What I loved about reading this story is seeing the way in which Stephanie manages the POVs of her various characters. Jude is telling her story in first person, but several other characters have their own third-person POVs. Bouncing from one character to another so frequently can potentially be disruptive and result in unnecessary info-dumping from minor characters if you’re not careful, but here all the character handoffs served both to flesh out perspectives in meaningful ways and reveal different angles of the plot in a seamless fashion that matched the spy-like aspect of the narrative. I did not get lost or disrupted, and I left the book with a vivid sense of all the characters in ways that intrigue me about where they are going next. I definitely need to go back and study the scene structure of this story for the benefit of my own writing!

You can buy Stephanie’s book through several retailers (the series is currently 50% off at Smashwords), and you can also watch her Fiction Fest panel replay until July 18th.

On to the next book in my toppling TBR!

Sue