swan_tower | more review happy dance omg wow YAY

Now THIS is how to start your Monday morning: with news of a starred review in PW:

As in 2009's brilliant Midnight Never Come, anthropologist Brennan strikes a resonant balance between history and fantasy in this new tale of the faerie domain beneath 1750s London. Halley's Comet, which houses the exiled Dragon Spirit of Fire who nearly consumed the city in the Great Fire of 1666, is on its way back to Earth. Human lord Galen is in love with faerie queen Lune, bedding the charming sprite Irrith, and engaged to bluestocking Delphia Northwood; as he attempts to untangle these entanglements, he must also enlist members of the new Royal Society, England's illustrious scientists, and all the multifarious faery talent he can find to fight the Dragon with humanity's reason, magical faery instinct, and the power of sacrifice and devotion. Enchanting, fearsome faerie vistas and pinpoint character delineations make Galen's absorbing quest one to savor and remember.

The "pinpoint character delineations" bit makes me exceptionally happy, because character is one of the things I specifically focused on in writing Star. Based on the reactions so far, it looks like it worked. Eeee! <bouncebouncebounceSTARREDREVIEWbounce>

In review news from this weekend past, Jim Hines also enjoyed the book:

This is my favorite of the series so far. The plotting is sharper, the characters are great, and Brennan continues to blend history and magic so smoothly it’s hard to tell where one ends and the next begins.

(He also says later that "Authors are, at their best, simultaneously cruel and beautiful." Hee.)

My Monday: pretty fabulous, so far. How's yours been?