Instead, it should have been run, hide, and (at some point in downtime) brainstorm some ideas on how to deal with the Virtii for the long term.

While our heroes had more immediate concerns once they got trapped in Texas, it didn’t excuse them from making the Virtii one of their priorities. That said, I was disappointed how the conflict with the Virtii was completely sidelined. However, the Virtii, inviolable elemental spirits of judgement, were still on Jessie’s ass. Huzzah! Finally, a government leader who knows what’s what and has an ethical backbone. I was also very glad that the conflict with the local Governing Circle resolved peacefully and unexpectedly neatly. So, I was very glad to see things were improving for Cooper’s family. One satanic affair is one too many, and I hate it when kids are embroiled. It would have broken my heart if Cooper’s kid brothers had to go through another tragedy.

And they deserved to have some of their issues resolved. I liked that it took a while before book 2’s shitstorm erupted because our heroes deserved their rest. You can learn more about her at and you can follow her on Twitter at 2 picked up where book 1 ended, with our heroes recovering from book 1’s shitstorm. Lucy lives in Columbus, Ohio and is a mentor in Seton Hill University's MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. In her day job, she edits online college courses for universities worldwide and occasionally helps write educational games. She writes a column for Horror World and has written materials for the D6xD6 role-playing game system. Her writing has been translated into French, Italian, Russian, Czech and Japanese editions and has appeared in publications such as Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, Steampunk World, In the Court of the Yellow King, Shadows Over Main Street, Qualia Nous, Seize The Night, Scary Out There, and Best Horror of the Year, Vol. She also wrote the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, and Switchblade Goddess, the nonfiction book Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer's Survival Guide, the poetry collections Exposed Nerves and Chimeric Machines and the story collections Halloween Season, Garden of Eldritch Delights, While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, Orchid Carousals, Sparks and Shadows, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning writer and the author of the forthcoming Tor Nightfire novel Sister, Maiden, Monster.

Shotgun Sorceress by Lucy A. Snyder