YA #BookReview: The Watcher in the Shadows by Chris Moriarty

The Watcher in the Shadows by Chris Moriarty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love this alternative history world Chris Moriarty has created, a version of early 1900s New York City where magic is commonplace, but under the control of the police department's Inquisitor division. It's a world where tenement-dwellers clash with upper-crust families of ultrarich wizards, where Old World traditions collide with Industrial Age realities.

In this second installation, 13-year-old apprentice Sacha Kessler doesn't simply follow Inquisitor Max Wolf on the investigation of a mysterious death in full view of a packed theater. Sacha has some very adult decisions to make, including how much to trust Wolf and whether or not he wants to learn magic. Sacha's supernatural doppelganger is still on the loose, and the danger has never been greater.

Fans of The Invention of Hugo Cabret should appreciate this sophisticated magical tale.


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Disclosure: I received this book at no cost from Amazon Vine in exchange for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.



This book will be released on May 28, but you can pre-order it now. In the meantime, catch up by reading The Inquisitor's Apprentice, the first book in a planned 5-part series.

My Besties - Favorite Books of 2011, That Is

Looking over the books I read this year, I was surprised by how much YA I read and how little paranormal romance. In part, I blame Amazon Vine - I keep choosing YA books as my twice-monthly free items. My TBR pile going into 2012 has several PNR paperbacks, but I'm in no particular hurry to get to them. I do feel that if I give the genre a bit of a rest, I'll only appreciate it more when I do get back to it.

Not all of these were published in 2011, but this is the year I read them. Here they are in alphabetical order.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. The whole thing is a delicious send-up of pop culture and sexism. My favorite character is Adina, Miss New Hampshire, a journalist embedded in the pageant. She's a smart, Jewish feminist - sort of a teenage Emma Goldman. I also like lesbian, comic-book-loving Miss Michigan (Jennifer), the transgendered contestant (I won't give it away) and Indian-Californian Valley Girl DJ-wannabe Miss California (Shanti).

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris. This is the 11th Sookie Stackhouse book. (Only 2 more to go - .) Loved it! Whether or not Eric actually ends up mated to the vampire queen of Oklahoma, Sookie's turning away from him. Bill's vampire "sister" is out of the picture once again...dare I hope Bill and Sookie will get back together in the series' last two volumes? I'm glad Sandra Pelt is finally out of the way, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Alcide scene (though I'm not sure how Sookie was able to resist the temptation!). If I were Sookie, I think I'd use the cluviel dor to wish Bill hadn't been sent by Sophie Anne, or at least that he hadn't lied about it.

The next book is going to be called Deadlocked.

Dream Lover, edited by Kristina Wright. A collection of diverse, elegantly erotic tales of paranormal romance. Given my personal preference for wolf tales, it may come as no surprise my personal favorite in this collection is Alana Noel Voth's "Moongirl Meets the Wolf Man." Full review here.

Family by Michael Ostow. The young protagonist of this unusual novel-in-verse, Mel, is one of those tragic young adult characters, the likes of which inspired Meghan Cox Gurdon to write her controversial Wall Street Journal essay "Darkness Too Visible." Yet it ends on a hopeful note. Full review here.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. A charming and delightful story, a witches' love story appropriate for all ages. I saw the anime version first (yes, with Christian Bale as the voice of Howl). The plots aren't exactly the same, but they both involve a good deal of green slime, and both are utterly charming. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good fairy tale.

Isis by Douglas Clegg. The most beautiful part of this eerie tale is Clegg's description of what the Cornish call the Isle of Apples (Avalon), the land of the dead. But just as J.K. Rowling warned in "The Deathly Hallows" in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, those brought from the land of the dead do not belong in this world. Iris should have listened to the old legends.

Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay. O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou some guy named Dylan? It's because in this immensely imaginative novel, Stacey Jay manages to turn everything we think we know about the world's most famous pair of impulsive teenage lovers on its head. At the risk of sounding like a young adult instead of an adult reviewer reading a YA book, OMG, this novel is SO good! Come to think of it, it's both YA and PNR.

Steamlust: Steampunk Erotic Romance, edited by Kristina Wright. There's a good reason why I keep reviewing Cleis Press titles - the publisher consistently puts out high-quality anthologies. I believe the key to good steampunk is the same as the key to good erotic romance: the beauty is all in the details. Fortunately, Wright's editing instincts do not fail her, and Steamlust is full of glorious details. Full review here.

The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty. It's sort of like The Prestige mixed with Harry Potter mixed with the Disney musical Newsies, but with more Jewish characters. Its protagonist is 13-year-old Sacha Kessler, who lives in the tenements, circa 1900. Magic is technically illegal in America, but still widely practiced, and one day Sacha learns he can see magic. This rare talent leads to his new job as an inquisitor's apprentice.

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin. A Hu-Li is a werefox, but she's so much more than that. She's 2,000 years old, one of a sisterhood of werefoxes from ancient China. These foxes are a kind of energy vampires, using prostitution as a cover to feed off the sexual energy of men. Through a kind of hallucinogenic effect they produce with their fox-tails, A Hu-Li and her sisters never actually have to touch these men. A Hu-Li is, in fact, a 2,000-year-old virgin. For the first time in her extremely long life, A Hu-Li is faced with the prospect of falling in love.

What I'm reading going into 2012: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I read a few of these short stories in grade school, but not at all since then. I'm enjoying them.

The Hanukkah Hotness, Night 7: Adam Lambert

Robert Downey, Jr. is just a straight guy, and Adam Levine is a gay-friendly-but-straight cock tease, but Adam Lambert is an ACTUALLY GAY JEWISH GUY. He's the one who's not a designer; that's Nate Berkus, Michael Kors, and/or Marc Jacobs.

Adam Lambert is a rock star. He has legions of adoring fans, known as the Glamberts. This is my favorite Lambert tune:



His latest song is called "Better Than I Know Myself," but the album won't be out until March, and the official video doesn't seem to be out yet. You can listen to the audio, though.

In some alternative queer universe, as in my dreams, Adams Lambert and Levine are a married couple, I'm just sure of it. No doubt all their tattoos would match.

In this universe, Adam's boyfriend is a Finnish reality TV star named Sauli. They got in trouble the other night for a loud argument (according to some accounts, a physical fight) in a Finnish gay club called Don't Tell Mama. They were detained by police, though not booked or charged with anything.

But maybe it wasn't Adam who did those things. Maybe he has a dybbuk. I just finished reading Chris Moriarty's The Inquisitor's Apprentice, in which a young turn-of-the-19th-century New York Jewish man, Sacha, is bedeviled by a dybbuk set upon him by an alternate-history version of J.P. Morgan. One of the last scenes in the book takes place at the beginning of Hanukkah. Sacha's rabbi grandfather calls Hanukkah "not a real holiday," but it's still one of Sacha's favorites.

The Inquisitor's Apprentice is the first entry in what will be a five-part young adult series, but if you prefer books for grown-ups, you might like The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford, about a contemporary lesbian Jewish woman in London and her encounter with the supernatural. It was published in 1993, and I think it might be out of print now (and, for some reason, not yet published as an e-book), but you can still find copies floating around.

Image: TomDog

Join me HERE on December 28th for a special Hanukkah post and giveaway.