Shadow Blade by Seressia Glass
Kira Solomon has the ability to know everything about the past of anything she touches, and works for the Gilead Commission, an organization devoted to maintaining the balance between Light (good supernatural beings) and Shadow (bad supernatural beings). When her mentor is murdered, she’s left with a 4000-year-old dagger that multiple parties are hunting for, including its 4000-year-old owner and Anansi, who’s along for the kicks.
A lot of it is standard urban fantasy: Loner heroine (Who, we are hastily assured, is a tough girl, not a girly-girl. SIGH.) with a few token friends, an immortal love interest, a dead interest, and antagonistic relationship with her superior, a mysterious past, Special powers that no one else has, as destiny, etc.
But there’s nary a werewolf or vampire in sight (Ok, except for brief sightings in a bar.) or much euro-centric mythology at all. The heroine is black, the hot immortal love interest is a Nubian with an interesting, if not overly original, past, the mythology is primarily Egyptian (actually, I’m not incredibly familiar with Egyptian mythology, so I may be assuming a few things are Egyptian that aren’t), the superior is female (and, based on her name, Hispanic) and the antagonistic relationship is more respectful and willing to compromise than the setup usually is in UF, and the token friends are an ex-military couple, the lady of which forges weaponry.
Also, not only is the heroine visibly black on the cover, but she actually gets too keep half her head (Ever look a UF covers? Yeah.) and the requisite black leather comes vaguely close to looking sensible. All of which is borderline miraculous even with the author actually managing to have her picture included in the book. (Rule of thumb for author photos: if it’s a gender neutral name and there’s no photograph, it’s probably a woman. If you can’t peg the origins of the name or the description makes you curious as to the author’s ethnicity and there’s no photograph, the author probably isn’t white. If the author is a white man, his photograph is probably included.) If it weren’t for Marjorie Liu (and I’m not sure if her UF includes her photograph, or just her paranormal romances) I’d wonder if an act of God was involved.
Anyway, not the most original or amazing urban fantasy ever, but a good book and a refreshing take on the genre, especially if you’ve become rather jaded to it.
A lot of it is standard urban fantasy: Loner heroine (Who, we are hastily assured, is a tough girl, not a girly-girl. SIGH.) with a few token friends, an immortal love interest, a dead interest, and antagonistic relationship with her superior, a mysterious past, Special powers that no one else has, as destiny, etc.
But there’s nary a werewolf or vampire in sight (Ok, except for brief sightings in a bar.) or much euro-centric mythology at all. The heroine is black, the hot immortal love interest is a Nubian with an interesting, if not overly original, past, the mythology is primarily Egyptian (actually, I’m not incredibly familiar with Egyptian mythology, so I may be assuming a few things are Egyptian that aren’t), the superior is female (and, based on her name, Hispanic) and the antagonistic relationship is more respectful and willing to compromise than the setup usually is in UF, and the token friends are an ex-military couple, the lady of which forges weaponry.
Also, not only is the heroine visibly black on the cover, but she actually gets too keep half her head (Ever look a UF covers? Yeah.) and the requisite black leather comes vaguely close to looking sensible. All of which is borderline miraculous even with the author actually managing to have her picture included in the book. (Rule of thumb for author photos: if it’s a gender neutral name and there’s no photograph, it’s probably a woman. If you can’t peg the origins of the name or the description makes you curious as to the author’s ethnicity and there’s no photograph, the author probably isn’t white. If the author is a white man, his photograph is probably included.) If it weren’t for Marjorie Liu (and I’m not sure if her UF includes her photograph, or just her paranormal romances) I’d wonder if an act of God was involved.
Anyway, not the most original or amazing urban fantasy ever, but a good book and a refreshing take on the genre, especially if you’ve become rather jaded to it.