Necromancing The Stone

Series: Necromancer (#2)
Genre: Adventure
Author: Lish McBride
Publisher: Macmillan

Second novels are a tricky business. As the saying goes, you have all your life to write your first and only a few months to write your second. The sophomore jinx is very much a reality -- it even has its' own TVTropes page. On the other hand, though, first novels tend to be where the young author makes all their worst mistakes. Writing, like chess, is learned by continuously and embarrassingly screwing up. So while the author may go into their second book with less enthusiasm, they compensate with more experience, a more assured hand, and an understanding of common pitfalls. So you also get books like Necromancing the Stone, the followup to 2010's Hold Me Closer, Necromancer which manages to exceed it's predecessor.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

Series: Stand-Alone
Genre: Adventure
Author: Lish McBride
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

How can you not love that title? Seriously, how can you? It gives you tone (tongue-in-cheek humor) and content (necromancers, or more broadly, wizardry in a modern setting), plus it rolls right off the tongue. Who cares if it's paraphrased from an old Elton John song? It's awesome. So I had some expectations of quality when I cracked this book open. And they were mostly met. Mostly. Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is a good read start to finish, but it's a somewhat better read at the start than it is at the finish. Somewhere along the way, it runs out of steam.