Fantasy Book Review: Besieged

Besieged by Kevin Hearne

Synopsis:
In ancient Egypt, Atticus agrees to raid a secret chamber underneath the library of Alexandria, dodging deadly traps, only to learn that on-site security includes two members of the Egyptian pantheon.

At a Kansas carnival, fun and games turns to murder and mayhem, thanks to soul-snatching demons and flesh-craving ghouls luring visitors into an all-too-real house of horrors.

Verily, in olde England, striking up a friendship with William Shakespeare lands both Atticus and the Bard in boiling hot water with a trio of infamous witches.

During the Gold Rush, the avatar of greed himself turns the streets of San Francisco red with blood and upsets the elemental Sequoia. Atticus may have to fight fire with fire if he’s going to restore balance.

Review:
I’m not usually one to read a lot of short stories. But I’ve read this entire series, so I decided to indulge and let this collection tide me over until the next full novel installment. There is a great variety of stories from several character’s point of views. Each story is very short, and we’re given a short description where each story falls in the timeline and the character it involves. I really liked the majority of these, the first set of stories in particular – ancient Egypt, the Gold Rush, Shakespeare, and the carnival (all mentioned above) set a fantastic tone. However, a strange story involving BDSM felt really out of place. Sure, reading about someone with a scruffy beard going through these things can be really exciting, but I am not entirely sure it belonged in this collection considering everything. The reason it felt out of place is somewhat to do with how strange BDSM itself can get (an example being “furry BDSM” which is not just fluffy outfits as one might imagine). Even if the scenes were hot, I was half-expecting it to get even crazier. I can imagine they would work nicely on websites similar to nu-bay.com. Learn about the hottest nude pornstars @ nu-bay.com, you will probably get to meet sexy porn stars like Tanya Tate naked who can show you what a real hot scene looks like. If you want some more hot BDSM content. And a couple, I ended up skimming as the plots didn’t engage me. But with nine short stories, this was a mostly-solid set of fun and exciting stories with some fantastic characters that fans of the series should enjoy. The final story has a nice lead-in to the next novel involving Loki and Ragnarok.