Review: Frenchman Street by Suzanne Johnson + Giveaway

Review: Frenchman Street by Suzanne Johnson + GiveawayFrenchman Street (Sentinels of New Orleans #6) by Suzanne Johnson
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: urban fantasy
Series: Sentinels of New Orleans #6
Pages: 374
Published by Suzanne Johnson on July 24th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

The uneasy truce between the preternatural species of New Orleans has shattered, with wizards and elves, shifters and vampires—not to mention the historical undead—struggling for ultimate control of the city, including the humans who still think they’re atop the food chain.<

They aren’t, however—and the Summer Prince of Faerie wants them to know it.

Stuck in the middle? One unemployed wizard sentinel. For DJ Jaco, war makes for strange bedfellows as she finally embraces her wizard-elven heritage and strikes a deal with the devil so she and her ragtag band of allies can return to defend her hometown. After all, when the undead French pirate Jean Lafitte has been hired by the mayor as a consultant, things could go horribly wrong.

War is coming to New Orleans just in time for Mardi Gras, with the elves and wizards lined up on opposite sides, the shifters without a leader, the vampires promising loyalty to the highest bidder, and the soul of the Crescent City resting on the outcome of the civil war going on in Faerie between the rival princes of summer and winter.

Mardi Gras Day is approaching fast, the much-anticipated new Krewe of Enyo is not what it seems, and the line between friends and enemies grows thin as DJ tries to stave off open warfare between faeries on the St. Charles Avenue parade route.

Laissez les bons temps rouler…but be careful, or the good times might roll too close for comfort.

My Review:

When it comes to the life of DJ Jaco, the phrase “out of the frying pan and into the fire” doesn’t begin to cover the level of trouble DJ usually finds herself in. A better description might be out of the conflagration and into the inferno. Or something about jumping from one hot circle of hell into an even hotter one.

Royal Street by Suzanne JohnsonDJ hasn’t gotten a moment’s rest since Hurricane Katrina brought down the wards between New Orleans and the various realms of the Beyond – events that are detailed in the opening book in the Sentinels of New Orleans, Royal Street.

(BTW, if you are looking for urban fantasy that deals with Hurricane Katrina well and really describes the feel of the city both before and after, I highly recommend both Royal Street and The Map of Moments by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon. But I digress…)

Frenchman Street is the culmination of the series. All the chips are down, all the old alliances are in tatters, and all the old (and new) enemies have chosen New Orleans as their battleground.

DJ has been forced by circumstances as well as inclinations from what was originally a very junior position as a magical enforcer to the center of a substantial power nexus. She certainly did not start this fight, but she arrives in Frenchman Street determined to finish it, or die trying.

Not that death has necessarily stopped all of either DJ’s allies or her enemies. Ever since Katrina, the various preternatural factions have been lining up for a showdown. The only group firmly on DJ’s side are the Historical Undead led by the pirate Jean Lafitte. Jean will live as long as people remember him, and people in New Orleans will remember Lafitte for a long, long time. After their rocky beginning in Royal Street, Lafitte is the only powerful person on DJ’s side.

Elysian Fields by Suzanne JohnsonThe elves are mostly backing DJ, but out of a kind of twisted self-interest after the events in Elysian Fields.

The Wizards’ Congress has declared DJ an outlaw to be killed on sight. Not because she did anything wrong, but because she embarrassed their leader more than his tiny “ego” could tolerate.

Most of the shifter population has either lined up behind the wizards or stayed scrupulously neutral. Except for DJ’s best friend, the merman Rene Delachaise. Meanwhile, the fae courts of Winter and Summer have chosen to battle it out for the supremacy of both the fae and human worlds – with New Orleans in the midst of Mardi Gras.

If the above sounds confusing, that’s because this is the final round in a six-book series, and all of the tension has been building from the very beginning back in Royal Street. If you’ve been following the series, Frenchman Street is every bit as satisfying a conclusion as beignets at the Cafe du Monde at the end of a fantastic night.

Escape Rating A: The Sentinels of New Orleans has been an utterly marvelous urban fantasy series from its beginning in Royal Street to its ending here on Frenchman Street. If you love urban fantasy and have not started this series, pick up Royal Street and settle in for a fantastic binge read.

Obviously, this is not the place to start the series. Some series are loose enough to be picked up in the middle, but this isn’t one of them. Now that the story is over, it is easy to look back and see that it has been one continuous story from beginning to end.

Part of what makes this so good is the worldbuilding. There is no place else like New Orleans. There are plenty of cities that are older, but there are few if any that have both the history and the gumbo of cultures that make New Orleans what it is. And it’s that melange that makes it a great setting. Many urban fantasy series use both vampires and shapeshifters. There are some that include the elves and/or the fae, sometimes as separate creatures and sometimes as the same species. The Sookie Stackhouse series certainly used all of these species.

But the Historical Undead in the Sentinels of New Orleans are something special. And New Orleans is one place that has the kind of long, crazy, colorful history that makes the concept work. The addition of Jean Lafitte as DJ’s frenemy turned flirtatious ally is a delight from beginning to end.

The other thing that makes this series so good are the characters. Not just Lafitte, or not even especially him, because he is not the point of view character. The person we identify with, with all of her faults and virtues and flaws and weaknesses and strengths is DJ Jaco. She begins as someone pretty low on the magical pecking order, but is forced to step up and become something very major. She’s the eye of the storm. And sometimes she’s the storm itself.

I personally enjoyed the way that, while DJ has a love life that frequently sputters, this isn’t a romance, at all. She tries, she fails, she trusts the wrong people, and she loves unwisely and not too well into the bargain. And she never gives up her essential self, no matter who or what tries to take it from her.

DJ’s adventures have been a wild, crazy, hair-raising, teeth-gnashing ride.

I’m going to miss her.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

1 Grand Prize: $50 Amazon gift card

5 $10 Amazon gift cards

Open internationally. For international winners, equivalent order from Book Depository will be substituted if desired.

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Review: Belle Chasse by Suzanne Johnson + Giveaway

Review: Belle Chasse by Suzanne Johnson + GiveawayBelle Chasse (Sentinels of New Orleans #5) by Suzanne Johnson
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Series: Sentinels of New Orleans #5
Pages: 336
Published by Tor Books on November 8th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

With the wizard-elven treaty on the verge of collapse, the preternatural world stands on the brink of war. Unless former wizard sentinel DJ Jaco manages to keep the elven leader, Quince Randolph, focused on peace and not personal matters.
With no one on the throne, Faerie is in chaos, with rival princes battling for power. The still-undead pirate, Jean Lafitte, is building his own army of misfits, and DJ—stripped of her job and hiding in the Beyond to avoid the death sentence handed down by the wizard Council of Elders—can’t get anywhere near her beloved New Orleans or her significant something-or-other, Alex.
It's time to choose sides. Friends will become enemies, enemies will become allies, and not everyone will survive. DJ and her friends will learn a hard lesson: sometimes, even the ultimate sacrifice isn’t enough.

My Review:

I started this book during Worldcon in August, because someone at the Tor presentation said that Belle Chasse was the final book in the Sentinels of New Orleans series, and I just couldn’t wait to find out how it ended.

Royal Street by Suzanne JohnsonThis is not a spoiler alert, because it doesn’t end. Or I sure as hell hope not. The ending of this story feels much, much more like the eye of the storm. It’s taken five books and four years to go from the literal storm of Katrina that forms so much of the background of Royal Street to the place we are now. This book is not a conclusion to much of anything. Instead, it feels like a pause before a pivot. There absolutely HAS to be more story, but based on the way that Belle Chasse concludes, what comes next is going to be different from what came before.

What we have in Belle Chasse is DJ’s world finally falling completely apart. Things have been going to hell in that handcart since the very beginning in Royal Street. Now she’s finally arrived and the situation is even worse than she first imagined.

Except for one thing. From almost the beginning of this series, DJ has always been afraid that she would find herself retreating to Jean Lafitte’s home in the Beyond at Old Barataria, and that day has finally arrived. At the beginning of the series, Lafitte was at best a frenemy. Now, he’s one of very few people that DJ absolutely trusts to have her back. And he’s the only one who lives in a place where the power of the Wizards’ Council literally does not reach. Most of their magic doesn’t work in the Beyond, and if there is one thing that an insecure wizard hates, it’s being powerless.

Unfortunately for DJ, the current Elder of the Wizards’ Council, Willem Zrakovi, is a very, very insecure wizard. And he’s decided that DJ is the cause and source of all of his insecurities. He’ll do anything, no matter how devious or underhanded, to eliminate the person who makes him feel so damn small.

And he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world that he’s going to bring down the entire world, possibly several worlds, in his misguided need to cover up his extremely vindictive inferiority.

DJ, who has an unfortunate tendency to leap before she looks, stays one step ahead at every turn, sometimes by the skin of her teeth. But when Zrakovi trumps up charges against Alex Warin, he knows that DJ will do anything to free her lover. And Zrakovi is certain, as he has been so many times before, that his power and his allies can trump any half-baked plan that DJ comes up with.

And he’s always been wrong. But never quite as wrong as he is this time. And too many people (and fae, and shapeshifters and even historical undead) are going to pay the price.

Escape Rating A: This story is non-stop action from beginning to end. It’s a very complicated story, because there are wheels within wheels. And many of those wheels were set in motion all the way back in the beginning, in Royal Street.

One of the significant things in this story is that as the world gets bigger, it also gets smaller. In the beginning, DJ is charged with keeping the preternatural community out of New Orleans. But they are already here. And once the floodgates officially open, there is more beauty and wonder introduced into the world – along with more danger and deceit. And everything affects everything else. The civil war among the fae brings freak weather to both New Orleans and Old Orleans. Each world influences all of the others, both for good and for bad.

The world gets bigger, but DJ’s circle of trust gets smaller. At the beginning, she was a Green Congress Wizard with a position as Assistant Sentinel, and later Sentinel, of New Orleans. She believed that she was part of the Wizards’ Council, and that they had her back. She had a home, and a family of choice. By the time of Belle Chasse, everything she once knew is gone. And while she still misses what she had, she keeps moving on. And she builds a new family.

One member of which is uncertain from beginning to end. Alex Warin began the series as her overbearing co-Sentinel. Their romance has been on-again, off-again throughout the series, because Alex is practically a paladin of order, and DJ is a chaos magnet. When Alex stays on the inside of the Council while DJ is in exile, there are plenty of moments where we’re not sure which side he’s really on.

As a reader, I keep getting the feeling that as much as Alex and DJ may love each other, they don’t belong together. One of them will have to change too much to make a relationship work. But I could be proven wrong. And I hope there are plenty of later books to work this out. Or not work this out, as the case may be.

The relationship between DJ and Alex does not occupy center stage in this book or in any of the series. This is urban fantasy, and DJ’s love life mostly goes to hell in that handcart along with everything else.

Instead, this is a story about the world falling apart, mostly because of a whole lot of selfish, childish and sometimes downright stupid decisions on the part of a whole lot of beings who should be taking better care of things, but are having too much fun scoring off against each other. The inter-group politics in this one are complicated and deadly.

DJ is going to be the one left picking up the pieces. And occasionally setting the pieces on fire in order to force them back into place. And it’s going to be awesome. I hope we get to read all about it in the not too distant future.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

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The giveaway for this tour is a doozy. Suzanne is giving away 1 $50 Amazon gift card and 5 $10 Amazon gift cards to lucky entrants.

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Review: Pirateship Down by Suzanne Johnson

Review: Pirateship Down by Suzanne JohnsonPirateship Down (Sentinels of New Orleans #4.5) by Suzanne Johnson
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Sentinels of New Orleans #4.5
Pages: 225
on November 9th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

From award-winning author Suzanne Johnson comes the first story collection set in the Sentinels of New Orleans world, including the all-new novella, Pirateship Down.
French pirate Jean Lafitte is tall, cobalt-eyed, broad-shouldered and immortal. What’s not to love? But New Orleans’ most esteemed member of the historical undead is headed for trouble: He’s determined to reclaim Le Diligent, his gold-laden schooner lost at sea in 1814 and recently found at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico near Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. The U.S. Coast Guard might beg to differ.
New Orleans’ wizard sentinel DJ Jaco and her merman friend Rene Delachaise can either lock Lafitte up or save him from himself, joining him on a road trip to Cajun country. Terrebonne Parish—not to mention its jail—might never be the same after the events of the all-new novella Pirateship Down.
Wizards and Cajun mermen, sexy shifters and undead French pirates. Welcome to the world of the Sentinels of New Orleans in this first collection of new and revised stories, along with a little Louisiana lagniappe.

My Review:

This one is for the fans. Of which I most definitely number myself. The stories, snippets and background pieces in this collection all center around Suzanne Johnson’s fabulous Sentinels of New Orleans series. The series takes place in New Orleans beginning just after Katrina, and features the wizard DJ Jaco, newly responsible for maintaining the balance between the New Orleans we know and the Beyond, where vampires, elves and especially the historical undead hold sway.

The historical undead are creatures of history mixed with the author’s imagination. They were all real personages, but, as long as they are remembered, they can sometimes (or often) cross from Old Orleans in the Beyond to the present-day city. Because the pirate Jean Lafitte is very well, if somewhat inaccurately, remembered, since Katrina messed up the wards he can pretty much cross any time he wants. And he’s every bit as intelligent, cagey, and handsome as he ever was. Possibly more.

In the series, Drusilla Jaco, usually called DJ, is in charge of keeping the sometimes tenuous peace in the supernatural community. Lafitte is sometimes an ally, and often a thorn in her side, but always honest – even if, or especially when, DJ is not going to like what he has to say. They are friends, and possibly more. If only DJ’s on-again/off-again romance with her fellow Sentinel (and werewolf!) Alex Warin doesn’t get in the way.

Royal Street by Suzanne JohnsonThe series starts with Royal Street, reviewed here, which is still one of my favorite books, and one of the most affecting stories of post-Katrina New Orleans I have read, along with The Map of Moments by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon. Read both for a chilling portrait of the city post-apocalypse, even if you are not an urban fantasy fan. Both are awesome.

But in Pirateship Down, we get glimpses of stories that come before Royal Street, and snippets of things that happen in between the books, along with a look at some of the author’s voluminous research into NOLA and it’s colorful history.

For fans, Pirateship Down is both a treasure trove and a little lagniappe to tide us over until the next book in the series makes its much-awaited appearance.

Pirateship Down itself is a novella that takes place between the third book in the series, Elysian Fields (reviewed here) and Pirate’s Alley (here). In Elysian Fields Jean Lafitte let himself be killed in order to save DJ’s life. While his death is only temporary, it is still damn painful. In the midst of his recovery in Old Orleans, he hears news of the discovery of one of his pirate ships, mostly intact and quite likely with his treasure still on board. Jean enlists the aid of his 21st century “business” partner and his and DJ’s mutual friend, merman Rene Dellechaise in order to locate and loot his ship before the authorities remove all his gold. DJ, feels obligated to help, in the vain hopes of keeping Jean and Rene out of too much trouble. Her failure and their eventual success showcases her friendship with both the merman and the undead pirate, and provides some unfortunately hilarious insights into law, order and piracy in the 21st century Gulf of Mexico.

Escape Rating B+: For a fan, this is gold. And the novella Pirateship Down is a glorious hoot. Anyone who is not already familiar with the world of the Sentinels of New Orleans should start with Royal Street. If you love original urban fantasy with a surprising historic twist, you’ll be glad you did.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!