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Light in the Darkness

I have something I'd like to write about, and something I'd like to write down.

I'll go with About first.

Two years ago, my mom's friend Debbie introduced her to a devotional called Jesus Calling.  My mom has always been an openly religious person.  She enjoys taking her Bible and her coffee outside to the swing under the carport and reading/praying.  I am more of a private person in terms of expressing my love for God.  I pray when no one can hear me and I don't drag out the Bible in front of others, either.  I see it almost like religious PDA, and I'm not big on romantic PDA, either.  You know, a few hugs and kisses (in this case, maybe a Christian T-shirt or bumper sticker) is fine.  But making out (having an alter call) is outrageous to me.  My faith is no less than those who choose to be more public in their practices, but I just like to keep my one-on-one time with God down to just the two people it concerns.

Anyway, for Christmas 2011, my mom gave Justin and me Jesus Calling.  She said that it changed her life and that she hoped it would do the same for us.  Being the overly private Christian that I am, I didn't immediately jump on the devotional wagon.  After all, we all know how I am with daily activities!  2012 came and went without the devotional being used.  After doing some heavy-duty tidying near the end of the year, I came across the devotional in our bedroom.  I decided to go outside my comfort zone a little bit and give it a try.

I've officially been doing the devotional thing for a month now, and some days are better than others.  There have been two days in particular when the devotional's entry really touched my heart.  The second time that happened was January 26.  Here is the entry from that day:

I'm sorry it's a little blurry.

The part that took breath from my lungs for a second was, "My Light shines most brightly through believers who trust Me in the dark."  For each entry, the author puts verses at the bottom that she thinks either remind her of the entry, or were the inspiration for the entry.  I looked up John 16:33, and here is what my Bible said:

It turned out that the passage in question was part of a piece called, "I Have Overcome the World." As you can see, the piece talks about how we will always have problems, but that we should lean on God, since He has already overcome everything.  He knows what to do to get through things, and to solve problems, because He is all-knowing.  I truly believe that.  I love finding new verses to express my feelings.  It's so comforting.

I'll be honest since I'm apparently baring my religious soul today; I don't really accept the Bible as the absolute Word of God.  I think of the Bible as a really long game of telephone.  God/Jesus didn't write anything in here, everything in this book was written by someone who was either inspired by Jesus' teachings, or just the writer just simply jotted down their thoughts on things.  It's like a blog.  I'm a former journalism major, and sourcing means a great deal to me.  I'm willing to believe that some things in the Bible are absolutely true.  It makes every bit of sense to me that God/Jesus would have said/done those things.  But then there are things that clash so much with the general message of the Bible, it couldn't possibly have come from the same person.

I suppose this is becoming a topic for another day.  My main point for the above paragraph was to say that even though the Bible is essentially a very inspirational book to me, I still take a lot of its writing whole-heartedly, and this passage was one of those writings.  It made my heart happy.

Yesterday, one of my worst fears came alive when a group of tornadoes was headed for Durham.  I spent most of the day praying that no harm would befall my family or loved ones, and thankfully nothing came of it.  The weather report here had been clear about the order of patterns for the day, though: first we were supposed to get morning showers.  Then it would be very cloudy all day.  Then there would be around a one-hour period where the skies would clear.  Then all hell would break loose.  When we finally reached the clear hour, I snapped this photo:

For me, this was the light in the darkness.  If you stare at this picture long enough, you almost see the clouds moving.  God was telling me that we were going to be okay.  Among all the clouds and oncoming storms, there was this ball of light silhouetting all the trees.  It was exactly when I needed.

Deus Providet.  My new thing.

And now for the Down part.

After considering and wondering and more considering, I've made almost the full decision to move this blog to Wordpress.  I've been debating this move for the last several months, and I have some key reasons for doing it.

1. I found out sometime back in October that apparently my "photo storage limit" had been reached on Blogger.  I had no idea there was such a thing, and it seems like a complicated process to remove old pictures from the album they have apparently all been stored in.
2. I have been working with Wordpress since February 2011.  I began working at that time for an Internet solutions company that helps mostly self-run businesses advertise better.  This included setting up Web sites for them, and we used Wordpress for that (such an easy process, omg!).  In addition to helping set up the sites, I then maintained them, so I quickly learned most of the ins-and-outs of WP.  I guess I just like how to "do" things over there better than Blogger.
3. Blogger got picked up by Google not too long ago and therefore became linked to the email I used to open the account.  I use two different emails on a daily basis, and if I am not logged into the one associated with this blog, I can't access it.  Then I have to log out just to login to the other email for the sole purpose of accessing the blog.  I wised up and finally linked my other email, which is also a Gmail account, to this blog so that the login-to-logout thing wouldn't become as issue.  It's still annoying, though.
4. As you may be able to tell, I write book reviews.  I am currently in a phase where I am writing them more frequently than usual.  For the last several reviews that all deal with the same series, I have simply copied a prior post and pasted it, then substituted new stuff.  Every single time, I've had to go through the entire post and fix all sorts of random mishaps, like weird fonts or picture sizes.  WP offers an option to copy a post.  This will come in very handy for things like book reviews or other such posts that follow the same layout.

So, there you have it.  I am setting up shop today over on WP and will be good to go there tomorrow.  I think it's fitting that I would start in a new place in a new month.  I will miss being able to contort some of the HTML so freely on Blogger, but I think over time I can learn to deal with that.  And if for some reason WP doesn't work out, I can always come back.  I'm not going to delete this blog, just give everyone who visits a heads up to head on over to WP instead.

See ya on the flip side!

Book Review: Blood Rites

Blood Rites, by Jim Butcher

Blood Rites is the sixth novel of The Dresden Files by author Jim Butcher. The story revolves around Harry Dresden, a wizard living in present day Chicago.  Dresden is asked by Thomas, the vampire we first meet at Bianca's shindig in book 3, to help solve a couple of really weird murders that are happening around a friend of his, Arturo Genosa.  Genosa, a skin flick director, is experiencing odd and deadly attacks on all the women in his life, and wants to know why.  Harry agrees since Thomas has saved him so many times in the past.  While on the set acting as another stagehand, Harry comes across several clues - with Murphy's help, of course - that give him a better understanding of Genosa's history.  Meanwhile, Harry realizes the Black Court is in town and enlists the aid of Kincaid, Ivy's helper, to take them down.  Evenutally, the White Court comes in and doesn't make things any easier, either.  Also, Murphy wears a dress AND pink underwear with white bows on them.  Also, puppies.

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Warning: Spoilers follow here.

Dresden saves puppies and ends up keeping one by accident, the newest addition to the Dresden clan: Mouse.  After agreeing to Thomas's favor, Harry find out that Genosa had three ex-wives.  Murphy tells him that each of the ex-wives are entitled to a large sum of money indefinitely through Genosa's will.  The operator of the money was supposed to be Genosa's mother, but she is deceased at this point.  If Genosa marries again, that woman will then become the operator.  That gives all three ex-wives a motive for murder, but the murders are being done by really powerful magic, which none of the three seem to possess.  After some more searching, Harry finds out that Lord Raith, the King of the White Court of vampires, is out for Genosa because Genosa once worked under him, but has now decided to go do his own thing.  And to boot, if Genosa's latest movies do well, he'll be in better and higher power in the field that Raith.  So Raith has motive, too.  Turns out, Raith was the one giving the motive to the three exes.  None of them knew about the clause in the will.  So the four of them worked together to conjure up a massive ritual spell to take out any and all women around Genosa, hoping to finally land on the right one since no one knew who #4 was going to be.  That would leave Genosa vulnerable, and more able to be controlled once again.  Harry originally agreed to help out Genosa only if Thomas would tell him why he's saved him so many times.  At Raith House, Thomas takes Harry down to the bottom floor, to a painting gallery.  Thomas explains that Lord Raith took it upon himself to have a painting made of each woman who bore him a child.  After Harry looks at the paintings for a few minutes, he notices the one second to last looks familiar.  He reads the name underneath, Margaret Gwendolyn LeFay, his mom.  Thomas yanks a pentacle out from under his shirt and reveals that Margaret is his mother, too.  Harry and Thomas are brothers.  Kincaid comes around, as does Ebenezar, and along with Harry and Murphy as a foursome, they storm the homeless shelter to bring down the Black Court.  Mavra is leading them, but after a long battle of quick thinking and charred limbs, Harry takes her down with a paintball gun full of holy water and garlic.  The four heroes escape with the hostages in tow, a bunch of children, and take the kids to Father Forthill.  Afterward, Harry and Murphy make arrangements to meet back up in an hour to storm Raith House and save Thomas, who is being used as the sacrifice with which the huge ritual spell will use to kill Harry, to get him out of the way of letting all the baddies be exposed.  During that hour, Ebenezar tells Harry a lot of stuff.  Like, how he and Kincaid know each other.  They know each other because they were both formerly assassins during the same time.  Eb tells Harry that Kincaid is only half-human but doesn't tell him what the other half is.  Then Eb tells Harry that he knew Margaret, his mother.  Turns out Margaret was Eb's apprentice and that Eb was really hard on her, so she ran away to be defiant.  She took up wrong crowds just to be rebellious, but after a while she couldn't stop or turn back.  Eventually this led her to Raith, where she had Thomas, and then to Harry's dad.  Raith killed Margaret the night Harry was born, using an entropy spell.  Margaret cast her death curse on him, which now means he can't feed until both lines of her blood, Thomas and Harry, are killed.  Killing them will douse the bloodline and release Raith of the curse.  When Harry and Murphy show up at Raith house to defeat Raith once and for all, Raith ambushes them and takes them down to the cave where Thomas is being held and the ritual is getting ready to take place.  Ex-wife #1 begins the ritual on Thomas.  After being called away to a fake accident, Raith returns and is jumped by Murphy and Harry.  All the lights go off in the cave and Harry and Murphy are left in the dark trying to find Raith and defeat him before the ritual can be completed.  The ex-wife calls upon He Who Walks Behind, the demon Justin sent after Harry.  Harry saves Thomas, but he and Murphy can't defeat Raith by themselves since he's protected.  Lara, his daughter, comes in and starts seducing him, telling everyone else to get out.  Everyone lives.  For once.  Harry offers to house Thomas until he can find a place for himself, since Lara thought it would be better for him to go away from Raith House, and the book ends with Harry naming his new furry friend and accepting Thomas as his brother.

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Holy crap.  The stuff in this book.  Margaret was kind of a slut.  I want to know what his dad's name was.  If we've already been told, I've forgotten.  I also want his dad's story.  I want Harry to forgive Eb and they be cool again.  I love that Thomas is his brother.  There was a lot sexual tension between Murphy and Dresden in this book.  Not sure if I like that or not.  Murphy's sister is a bitch.  I started yelling when I thought Thomas was dead.  I'm really glad he's not.  We still don't know who Morgan's special someone was at Archangel.  I want the war to be over.  I don't give 5 stars lightly.  I really enjoyed this book, it is now my favorite.  So far.  5/5.

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For Next Time:
Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher

When a killer vampire threatens to destroy head of Special Investigations Karrin Murphy's reputation unless Harry delivers the powerful Word of Kemmler to her, he has no choice. Now Harry is in a race against time to find the Word before Chicago experiences a Halloween night to wake the dead.
-barnesandnoble.com

Book Review: Death Masks

Death Masks, by Jim Butcher

Death Masks is the fifth novel of The Dresden Files by author Jim Butcher. The story revolves around Harry Dresden, a wizard living in present day Chicago.  Dresden is hired by a priest from the Vatican to find the missing Shroud of Turin, the cloth Jesus was wrapped in after the Crucifixion.  Meanwhile, Ortega, Duke of the Red Court vampires, has challenged Harry to a duel.  If Harry wins, Chicago will henceforth be deemed neutral territory, where nothing bad can happen while the war between vampires and wizards is still going on.  But if he loses, Ortega kills him and therefore brings the war to an abrupt halt since Harry's death is what the vampires want out of the war.  Harry already has a lot on his plate when Susan suddenly shows up out of nowhere to give one last goodbye.  Harry meets new villains in this book: Ortega, Nicodemus, Deirdre, and Snakeboy.  We are also introduced to Ivy, the Archive, aka: the one who holds every bit of information in the known universe.  She's 7.  We meet the other two Knights of the Cross as well, Shiro and Sanya.

 
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Warning: Spoilers follow here.

The book opens up with a man who has been murdered, by what seems like several diseases at once, and cut up grisly along his chest.  Harry accompanies Murphy to the morgue where we are introduced to Butters, the medical examiner.  After determining the cause of death to be the Plague and noticing a faded tattoo on the dead man's arm that might help later, Harry heads out down a dark alley.  He gets attacked in the alley by a bear-demon and is rescued by the three Knights of the Cross.  After the bear-demon is beheaded, a coin falls to the ground.  When Harry goes to pick it up, Michael stops him and explains that these coins hold Fallen angels, evil angels, that possess people and turn them into terrifying demons and make them do bad things, aka: the Denarians.  If you touch a coin, the process for possession begins for whoever is touching it.  Michael pockets the coin by use of a cloth and everyone heads over to the church of Father Forthill.  Susan shows up with a man named Martin, whom she's totally not involved with thank God, and tells Harry that she's been down in Peru for a while and is going to end up staying in Central South America to help the people.  This is of course hard for Harry to accept, but he does because he knows that Susan is doing what she feels in her heart is right.  After failing in his attempt to not screw up all the machinery on a local TV show, Harry agrees to the duel with Ortega.  He is required to choose a second, and originally wants Michael but Shiro ends up enlisting on his own when Michael is out of town and Harry is out of time.  Before Harry and Shiro can make it to the duel, however, Nicodemus - the leader of the Denarians - scoops Harry up and trys to Darth Vader him into the dark side.  Harry refuses, and just as Nicodemus is preparing to take him out for good, Shiro shows up and takes his place.  Harry escapes with Susan in tow and heads to the duel.  Susan acts as his second, and the duel is set in motion: Ortega and Harry stand on either side of an anything-devouring orb.  The first man to push the orb into the other man, using only will extended through their right hand, wins the duel, since the other man is eaten.  Things go wrong, and Ortega had originally intended all along to cheat and kill Harry.  Ortega pulls a gun, but is shot down instead by an unseen gunman.  After Harry makes some quick attempts to finish Ortega off, several other Reds emerge from the outskirts and try to overtake everyone.  Susan is flung into the stands of the stadium where the duel is taking place and Thomas, who was acting as Ortega's second, rushes over to help her.  Kincaid, Ivy's assistant, and Ivy duck for cover and start taking out Reds with fire guns.  Once Harry, Kincaid, and Ivy have succeeded in taking out the Reds, Harry rushes over to Susan, who is unconscious but alive.  Martin tells Harry that he had intended to come and take Ortega out from the very beginning, using Susan as an ulterior motive.  Martin assures Harry that he will take care of Susan and implies they are leaving immediately.  After noticing a familiar tattoo on Father Forthill and realizing that Father Vincent, the client who hired Harry to find the Shroud, is actually Snakeboy masquerading as Father Vincent, Harry beats information out of him regarding where Nicodemus is taking the Shroud.  Afterward, Harry hurries over to meet Michael and Sanya in the parking lot at O'Hare airport, where Nicodemus is bringing the Shroud to act as a vessel through which he can make the Plague virus airborne, infecting the entire world since O'Hare is one of the most famous international airports there is.  They arrive at the chapel, where Shiro's body is found on a sacrificial table, his blood having been used as paint to write insignia on the walls of the chapel.  His body is also sliced like the body in the morgue.  He is not completely dead, however, and tells the three where Nicodemus planned to take the Shroud.  Marcone shows up and uses a helicopter to lift Harry, Sanya, and Michael over the train where Nicodemus is holding the Shroud.  After a long battle with Nicodemus and some lackies, Sanya is dealing with a hurt leg, Michael is down with four bulletholes in his chest, and both swords have been kicked off the train.  It doens't look good.  But when Marcone and Harry decided to rush Nicodemus by themselves, Marcone grabs a knife and cuts the Shroud free, taking it with him to the water below as the train crosses a bridge.  Harry grabs Michael and jumps off, too.  Murphy comes to the scene not too long afterward, and Harry eventually wakes up in the Carpenter's guest room.  Michael is saved by his Kevlar vest, and gives Harry an envelope and Shiro's sword.  Inside the envelope is a letter from Shiro and a medical report, stating that Shiro was already suffering from terminal cancer.  That's why he so willingly took Harry's place with Nicodemus.  Harry is given his sword to keep until he knows who to give it to.  At the end, Harry is over at Michael's and playing with Little Harry, Michael's son, in the front yard.  A silver coin is flicked into the grass in front of the baby and Harry beats him to it to find out it is a Denarian coin.  He looks up to see Nicodemus in a car in the street, saying he'll see Harry again.  Harry buries the coin inside a circle, covered by concrete in his lab.  He hears from Susan one more time on the phone, and starts to accept that they can't be together. 

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I had this storyline already formed in my head.  When Harry and Susan are at the duel and Harry takes Ortega down, Susan is overcome with blood lust and drinks Ortega's blood.  Then we are supposed to find out that drinking the blood of another Red reverses the condition if you haven't given in and fed yet.  Then she was going to be saved and she and Harry could get married.  But NO.  We have to put up with yet another ending where they don't get together and it's sad.  BOO.  Other than that, I liked this one.  I really enjoyed the arc of religion throughout the book, and the new characters that were introduced.  I didn't go into a lot of detail above, but this book made me love Marcone even more.  He was already my favorite character, and now I love him all the more.  I can't wait to see what else he does in the series.  Ivy is awesome.  My future daughter will be Ivy.  As usual, the fight scenes were well-orchestrated and lasted appropriately long.  I'm a fan.  Sad Harry and Susan arc, though?  I give it 4/5. 

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For Next Time:
Blood Rites, by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, takes on a case as a favor to his friend Thomas-a vampire of dubious integrity-only to become the prime suspect in a series of ghastly murders. -barnesandnoble.com

Book Review: Summer Knight

Summer Knight, by Jim Butcher

Summer Knight is the fourth novel of The Dresden Files by author Jim Butcher. The story revolves around Harry Dresden, a wizard living in present day Chicago.  Dresden works with Karrin Murphy, a police officer with the Chicago PD, to help solve cases that seem to have happened by supernatural forces.  Usually.  This time, Dresden is enlisted by Mab, Queen of the Winter Court, to solve a murder and clear her name - all while stopping an apocalyptic battle between the Summer and Winter Courts. 

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Warning: Spoilers follow here.

In Summer Knight, Harry is a total wreck trying to procure a cure for Susan, who is still dealing with the vampire toxin.  For nearly a year, Harry has been down in his lab running experiment after experiment to no avail.  One day, Billy the Werewolf from Fool Moon calls Dresden and tells him that something wonky is happening in the park.  The Alphas have been patrolling areas of Chicago since the events of Fool Moon, and there's been a sudden "rain" of toads.  After a juvenile attempt at an assassination on Harry, supposedly due to the vampire war that is now raging since the end of the last book, and after deducing that the toads are real, Harry begins to wonder what else is going on.  Meanwhile, Billy has taken it upon himself to try and wrangle Harry's life back in order and set up an interview with a client at his office.  Harry meets up with his client, who turns out to be Mab, the Winter Queen.  Turns out the Summer Knight has been killed, and the obvious answer of suspect is Mab.  She says she didn't do it, and wants Harry to help clear her name.  In addition, Mab has purchased Harry's debt from Lea, his godmother, and now "owns" Harry.  Harry and Mab come to an agreement: after performing three tasks for Mab, Harry's debt will finally be released.  The first task is clearing Mab's name of the murder.  That same evening, the White Council meets to discuss what to do in light of the vampire war.  It is brought to light that Mab has offered safe passage through the Nevernever for the wizards, only after an unknown task is completed - Harry's case.  It is because of this that the Council can't abolish Harry, they have to keep him on the council in order to have a getaway plan for the vampire war.  So they adjourn the meeting and Harry goes to talk to Bob.  Bob tells Harry that there are six people of higher order in either Court: Winter and Summer Mother, the highest; Winter and Summer Queen, in the middle; and Winter and Summer Lady, the lowest power.  Under each Lady is a Knight who fights on that Court's behalf.  The Summer Knight is now dead, and Harry has to figure out who killed him, how, and why in order to clear Mab.  One night, Harry returns to his apartment to find it open.  He prepares a spell since he could be facing anyone inside, and opens the door to find Elaine, his first love who was thought to have burned in the fire alongside Justin, Harry's teacher.  We know Harry's side of the story: Justin tried to bring Harry over the dark side, while Elaine tried to hold him down, and Harry ran.  Lea, technically an advocate of the Winter Court, offered Harry power with which to defeat Justin and now Harry is still paying off that debt.  But there's another side.  When Harry returned with this new power to defeat Justin, Elaine ran out of fear.  She was offered protection from Aurora, the Summer Lady.  Unknowingly, both Harry and Elaine were offered some sort of protection from, and now owe a debt to, both Courts.  As such, both are put up against each other to see which side wins out.  After a lot backstabbing, and a lot of trickery, Harry, the Alphas, and two Changelings who were loyal to the Summer Knight, walk the stairs to Faerie and prepare to take down Aurora, the Summer Lady, who killed the Summer Knight.  Turns out Aurora is trying to wreak complete havoc, even though she somehow thinks she's doing the right thing 'cause she crazy, and Harry and the Gang are trying to stop her.  After lots of cool battling, they do, and Harry is returned home, his first task to Mab paid off.  Elaine tells him to stop feeling sorry for himself before skipping town, and he goes over to the Alpha's place for pizza.
 

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Whew!  This book has a lot to offer.  There's a lot of story and a lot of back story as well, which I appreciated.  I really want Harry to find a cure for Susan, or to find something that can help her.  I want her to come back in the next book and there be a way to fix her.  All the battle scenes were so well written.  The story, to be honest, was a little convoluted.  There was never a real answer as to why Aurora was doing everything, trying to ruin the Courts.  I'm sure the answer of, "She effing crazy" makes perfect sense, it just doesn't seem Butcher's style.  I like that Harry's debt now lies with Mab, because I like Mab.  We'll see if that changes.  I'm liking the return of characters with the Alphas.  I hope more characters make returns.  Simply because the story made my head hurt a little, I'm giving the book a 4/5.  But so far, it is my favorite.

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For Next Time:
Death Masks, by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, is hired by a mysterious priest to find the stolen shroud of Turin. -barnesandnoble.com

Sometimes, Finally = Frickin' A.

I found out this morning that my blog has reached over 2,000 hits!

After happily investigating that, I come to find out that I am now officially a pin!

Here's where my happy bubble got popped.

The post that has been pinned is my 31 Days Challenge.  You remember the one, where I posted something like 8 pictures and then couldn't keep up with it?  Yeah.  The one that is incomplete, with what some would call a misleading title, it's the one that got pinned.  And of course, it was re-pinned, so now multiple people are going to be coming to my blog and finding the one thing I failed at last year.

Ugh.

So, people coming to my blog under false pretenses that I can actually blog daily, I apologize.  I'm sorry that you were brought here and that you will be sorely disappointed.  Hopefully, I can get something else pinned and that will be a link to a complete and worthwhile experience for any new blog readers out there.

Sorry again, folks.

This sucks.

Book Review: Grave Peril

Grave Peril, by Jim Butcher

Grave Peril is the third novel of The Dresden Files by author Jim Butcher. The story revolves around Harry Dresden, a wizard living in present day Chicago.  Dresden works with Karrin Murphy, a police officer with the Chicago PD, to help solve cases that seem to have happened by supernatural forces.  In the third book, Dresden is put up against ghosts stirring up from the Nevernever, the world of the supernatural just past our world.  The wall that separates our two worlds is experiencing some major turbulence, and Dresden needs to find out who is causing it.
 

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Warning: Spoilers follow here.

In this book, we are introduced to Michael Carpenter, a friend of Dresden's who is a Knight and carries a sword containing one of the Crucifixion nails melted into the blade.  Michael believes in God and is a very religious man, which makes for great banter between him and Dresden, who is not so religious.  Dresden remembers that he, along with Michael, Murphy, Malone (a fellow police officer), and others from the SI unit, caught a sorcerer by the name of Kravos who had unleashed a demon into the world.  Kravos was successfully apprehended and put in jail, and the demon was stopped.  After Dresden and Michael actually venture into the Nevernever to fight off a vengeful ghost named Agatha who escaped through some of the aforementioned wall turbulence, they realize she has a length of barbed wire attached to her, poking into her skin and torturing her.  Not too long after that, Dresden is called to investigate some scary goingson at the Malone house.  Officer Malone has been handcuffed to his bed by other police already on the scene, and looks to be possessed.  Dresden enables his Sight, and sees that Malone is also being tortured by the barbed wire serpent poking into his skin.  Dresden manages to unwrap the serpent from Malone, and incinerates it with his Fuego spell.  After that, Malone is back to normal, but Dresden still needs to figure out why/how mortals are being targeted from something in the Nevernever.  Eventually, Dresden realizes that everyone who was present for Kravos's capture is being targeted.  He hurries to Michael's house to warn him, only to learn that Charity, Michale's wife, has stepped out to the store.  They hurry but are too late, and see Kravos's ghost carrying Charity into a graveyard.  After a long and hurtful battle, Dresden's godmother Lea comes to help.  Lea is a deceitful faery who is constantly trying to claim Dresden as her own.  She offers to help a badly-wounded, concussion-suffering Dresden in exchange for ownership of him, and he accepts.  After the ghost is defeated in the cemetery, Dresden takes Michael's sword and attempts to off Lea right there.  Michael warns Harry, too late, that since that's not the sword's intended purpose, there will be bad consequences.  The sword falls from Harry's hands and Lea is able to pick it up since it was used for a bad purpose, and takes it with her.  Michael is now without his weapon, and his wife is going into labor in the graveyard.  Charity delivers the baby, but the baby isn't doing so well.  Dresden and Michael, still without his sword for protection, crash a vampire ball, only to realize that they were duped into coming in the first place.  Lea makes an appearance at the ball and does her deceitful business by conning Susan, who also crashed the ball to get a story, into giving up a year of her memory to save Dresden.  Lea takes a year's worth of memories that only hold Dresden in them, so Susan has no idea who he is.  After going up against the vampires, and trying to reclaim Michael's sword that showed up at the ball thanks to Lea, Michael, Dresden, and Lydia, a victim of the vampires and former customer of Dresden's, flee the scene but are forced to leave Susan behind.  After battling Kravos's ghost again at his apartment, Dresden heads into the Nevernever with Bob the Skull, Michael, and Thomas, a helpful vampire.  The wander through, intending to use the Nevernever as a secret passage and slip into the vampire castle unnoticed.  Lea catches up to them but this time they are able to trick her into leaving Dresden alone (at least for one year) and Dresden heads to the door that leads to Susan and the vampires.  He is ambushed by vampires and beaten, then left for dead in a laundry room with another victim, Thomas's love interest, Justine.  After a long time in the laundry room, Dresden hears noises coming from a corner and finds out it is Susan, and that she is okay.  But she has been bitten by a Red Court vampire.  If she doesn't feed, she won't turn completely, but she is very thirsty for blood.  She tries to bite Dresden, but he tell her he loves her, and in doing so breaks Lea's memory spell, and brings Susan back to the surface.  She is still in vampire limbo, but she can seemingly turn it off when she needs to.  Dresden and Susan work out a plan for Dresden to fall asleep and meet Kravos in his dream, then defeat him.  This plan works, and in killing Kravos in the dream, Dresden gains his power.  He rounds up everyone in the laundry room and busts down some doors, takes out a few vampires, conjures up some spells, releases a whole mess of ghosts to help him out, reclaims Susan from the vampires, and escapes.  In the end, Dresden doesn't hear from Susan for a long time since she's still dealing with her vampire urges.  He uses a spell to find her, and proposes to her, but she declines because she doesn't feel like she could control herself around him.  She tells him to stay away, and that she will be the one to stay in touch with him.  She doesn't call or visit anymore at the end of the book, but sends Dresden a card on his birthday (Halloween) with "I love you" written in it.  Michael's baby, who he and his wife name Harry, survives, as do all of the other victims of the vengeful Kravos, who is finally put to rest.
 

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Wow, there's a lot in this book.  For my first critique, which I will admit has nothing to do with the story, the publisher of this particular book apparently didn't want to pay money for an editor.  The typos in this book drove me crazy.  Now for the story.  At the end, I had a lot of questions, but I feel like a lot of this story is continued in the next book, so I'm holding out hope for that.  Some questions I have: Is Stallings actually a bad guy?  Totally got that vibe from him.  Same with Thomas.  Will Harry find a cure for Susan?  There was a brief mention at the very end that Harry was working on one, but to no avail.  Definitely want more details there!  I want (read: NEED) Harry and Susan to get married.  Something tells me that they don't, and that's really sad.  What tugged on Harry's duster in the Nevernever as he was storming the vampire castle?  Seemed like a deliberate setup that wasn't resolved.  Is Bianca still alive?  Why was Agatha chosen to torture?  Was she just that big and bad of a ghost that Kravos knew that provoking her would set her off?  Seems like such a random decision.  What was the deal with the barbed wire, and who was doing it?  If Bianca or Marva were the ones doing the barbed wire (I think I remember Harry saying he felt like Marva was the guy, but Marva was teaching Bianca some dark magic, so it could have been either one), that would explain how it was being done in the real world, since a ghost wasn't actually doing it as originally thought.  Why doesn't Bob just tell Harry stuff?  It feels like Bob treats Harry like a little kid and keeps giving him clues so he can find out the answer "by himself," rather than just tell him something and save valuable time.  Lastly, what's the this spirit radio in Dresden's office?  There was never mention of it before, and I feel like it should be used more frequently.  The end of the book really hooked me, and I was dealing with a pacing heart and an overdue bedtime trying to finish it last night.  I'm enjoying all the new characters, but I really hate the evil ones.  I know, you're supposed to hate them.  I love Michael and the perspective he gives Dresden on religion sometimes.  I am, however, unsatisfied with the neat little bow Butcher has put at the end of the book.  I felt like it was a really weak and half-assed attempt to wrap up everything and I need to know more.  Until I read the next one, which hopefully wraps everything up nicer, this one get a 4/5.

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For Next Time:
Summer Knight, by Jim Butcher

Private detective/wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is suckered into tangling in the affairs of Faerie, where the fate of the entire world-and his soul-are at stake. -barnesandnoble.com