cover image Two Wizard Roulette: Modern Knights, Book 2

Two Wizard Roulette: Modern Knights, Book 2

Joshua Bader. City Owl, $3.99 e-book (232p) ISBN 978-1-944728-17-5

Building on the story begun in Frostbite, Bader delivers another urban fantasy home run. Colin Fisher is now the personal wizard to Lucien Valente, a wealthy businessman of somewhat dubious morals. Even though Colin’s cushy new life is far preferable to his previous destitute homelessness, he still struggles to reconcile what he does for his boss with his innate sense of goodness. His life is further complicated by his assassin girlfriend, Veruca; Andrea Devereaux, the FBI agent with the face of Colin’s dead fiancée; and Yog Soggoth, an eldritch horror who lives in his head and provides snarky running commentary. The whole gang sets out to track down a rogue wizard, Jacob, who’s been manipulating security footage in Vegas casinos and cleaning Valente Enterprises out of millions of dollars—and is also now the Hand of Eris, an agent of chaos. However, the deeper the investigation goes, the more it’s revealed that Jacob’s work is merely a symptom of a much grander plot engendered by unseen forces. The book boasts both sharp wit and beautifully crafted emotional depth, and it’s extremely easy to fall headlong into the story. (July)