How sweet the sorrow

 I actually finished Music to My Sorrow by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill a few days ago, but...

Anyway, here ends the story of Eric the Bard, unless he's going to show up in the new reboot that he hasn't in 2 books. 

This one basically finishes connecting the lines between Jaycie, Magnus, and Ace, as all of their parents get involved in a really complex revenge plan that winds up with just about everyone suffering eternally and deserving it. 

In the process, we find out the Elf Jaycie's dad is working with Ace's Dad, a White Nationalist preacher, who's side ministry for rebellious youth sucks in Eric and Magnus's parents. 

It's very convoluted, but eventually resolves itself quite nicely.

Coming back around

 Finished my reread of Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill's Mad Maudlin, in which Bedlam's Bard, Eric Banyon finds out about his younger brother. 

Of the series, this is probably the one I remember the best, mainly because one of the plot threads overlapped with some digging I was doing when I read it. 

So, as we open, Eric has been seeing a psychologist who treats folks with magical ability, and dealing with trauma related to having parents who thought of him as a commodity more than a child. As such, he resolves to go see his parents in Boston. Which has the side effect of him learning of his younger brother Magnus, who evidently also has a degree of Bardic Gift. Magnus ran away from home for much the same reason Eric left Julliard at 18 to get the heck away. 

Magnus, in the meantime, is living on the streets of NYC with two close friends: Ace, aka Heavenly Grace, who is on the run from her father who was using her Talent to get more cash; and Jaycie, who's on the run from something else entirely.

Hosea, the banjo Bard/Guardian has his hands full with the Secret Stories going around the children in the homeless shelter he volunteers in (Bloody Mary, who lead the demons to heaven and took over) and his romantic interest, who's managed to get sucked into a cult based around Master Fafnir, who wants to supplant the Guardians with himself. 

As the book progresses, all the plots converge, as Ace's father's helper (an unseeleigh Magus Major) manages to target Eric with a spell, Fafnir manages to summon up Bloody Mary, and Jaycie and Bloody Mary's true identities are revealed

A few things struck me both last time and this time. The Bloody Mary thing being the first. There was a whole thing very similar to this that I found out about after reading involving children in Miami, if I recall correctly. One can't ignore the power of folklore among the youth. The other was the whol False Guardians plot with Master Fafnir, which seems to be echoing back on real life crap that happened long before I read any of her work. (There was a whole thing that you can google and decide for yourself on involving people making a myth cycle out of her Diana Tregard Investigations. Search for The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back.)

By far, this is probably the best of the series that these two collaborated on.

Flute and Banjo Duets

 Running behind on updates again due to personal issues.

Spirits White as Lightning continues Eric the Bard's story in NYC, as his relationship with Ria expands, Kory and Beth try to find a way to conceive a baby of their own (Maeve is technically Eric's daughter), and Aerune tries to get his hands on the drug that awakens latent powers. In the process, we meet the Appalachian Bard, Josiah, who plays banjo and becomes both Guardian and pupil to Eric. 

While this continues and finishes off the story from Beyond World's End, it leaves the door open for the next two books, as the Healer Kayla winds up living in Guardian House by the end as well. 

Really, it's a fun read, even as we have to adjust to some rather big adjustments in the makeup of the characters, although we also get to see Tannim and Chinthliss again, as the Dragon will give access to his library if Kory and Beth can build a computer that will work underhill. When I originally read this, I thought the plot was padding out the story, now I see where it's building a story that will expand in the next volume, as the Green Government people show up at one point. 

It's a fun and soapy read.

Threefer

 I'm a lot behind on catching up on these, so I'm reviewing an omnibus and a single volume as one big review. 

We'll start with Bedlam's Bard by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon, which is an Omnibus of Knight of Ghosts and Shadows and Summoned to Tourney. We meet Renaissance Fair actor and flutist, Eric, who is having a loud breakup with his girlfriend at the outset. In his depression and drunkenness, Eric composes a song on his flute that winds up waking up Korendil, an elf trapped in The Dreaming by the exiled elf Perenor. 

Eric, Kory, and Eric's friend Beth wind up working together to stop Perenor from destroying the Nexus that is in Los Angeles by moving it by the Observatory, which manages to annoy both Perenor AND his daughter Ria. 

The second part picks up with Eric, Kory, and Beth living in San Francisco as a Throuple. In this one, a shadowy government agency is kidnapping psychics and using them for nebulous purposes. Eric breaks a few of the kidnapped psychics out using Nightflyers, which in turn lets the Nightflyers try to set off THE BIG ONE using equipment designed to prevent earthquakes. 

Then we come into Beyond World's End, in which Eric has become a full Bard, moves to New York, and restarts like at Julliard. Beth, being pregnant and more in a couple with Kory than Eric, stays in Underhill. There's a certain amount of humor in here, since Eric now lives in Diane Tregarde's apartment complex, and has a talking gargoyle dropping by for conversation. 

In this, Eric gets dragged into a mystery that also involves the Guardians, in which an Unseeleigh Lord is trying to find a Bard, but runs afoul of a shadowy group trying to awaken people's psychic gifts with drugs. 

While I still find myself loving the series, I found the transition to Eric going from nominally bisexual to hopelessly straight a bit jarring. In the transition, Eric's fluidity gets erased for the most part. Plus the redemption arc of Ria Llewellen is a bit rushed, since she was a secondary antagonist in the first book, now suddenly trying to make amends with Eric. 

I mean, it remains good reading, even as we again get dragged into the streets with the characters, a theme that tends to happen in any of Mercedes Lackey's Urban Fantasy series.

Part of your world

I'll start this with the irritation I had when seeing Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill's The Waters and the Wild is listed as being a new entry in Bedlam's Bard. It makes sense, given they wrote several volumes in the series, however, it would have been more honest to refer to it as a SERRAted Edge novel, given NONE of the Bedlam characters show up in this. (I mean, it's a shared world, but still... no flute or banjo playing bard?)

With that said, this is actually a fairly solid entry in fairie filled world, even if given the number of fae related books in the Urban Fantasy market means shifting around a few definitions and mythos related to the central concepts. (The few land courts we hear about make it know Oberon and the Queens are still around, among other things, although here Mab/Maeve is referred to as the Morrigan.)

We're centered rather firmly on Olivia, who just turned 18 in Sacramento, who's on summer vacation with her boyfriend, Blake. Blake is in the running to become an Olympic swimmer, and is generally not much liked by the folks at the Lake Endor resort in New York's Adirondacks. (His family is fairly well off, so the can't say much, but the father loves to try to get his way in everything.) Blake has 2 younger brothers, and a drunken mother. Oh, and he has a girlfriend at the Lake from Boston, Audrey. And Olivia spends much of the book playing mother to the family, since Blake's mother is either usually drunk or asleep.

And then we meet Dylan, itinerant watercraft repairman and lifeguard, who also turns into a seal and is the champion of one faction of the seafolk, who's bound to fight Tiamat in a Duel to the Death under the sea someplace. He's rightfully in hiding above hill, wearing an amber necklace that prevents most magic from working on him or by him. Most. Given he's a selkie, he can't prevent their bane, which Olivia sets off on accident after hearing Audrey and Blake discussing what to do with Olivia; she goes and cries into the lake, which makes Dylan fall in love with her. Which he can't really explain to Olivia, but he does court her as best he can.

Anyway, he makes his true self known about the time Audrey tips a canoe over in the middle of the lake while the two girls are supposed to be timing Blake's swim times. Mind you, after she does this, Audrey is revealed to also be a Lamia...

Much happens, as Olivia tries running away, gets caught, and even with Dylan's magical protection, can't help herself against physical threats of a non magical variety. Which is fine, since Dylan's removal of the necklace also reveals his location, so we get a visit from a rather irate sea monster in the middle of a finger lake.

There are a few undeveloped characters floating around in here, like Mandy and her gran, who run a diner in the closest town to the resort. One gets the impression Gran knows more than she lets on, but what she actually does know is never really discussed. We also find out later on Olivia's Mom knows more than what we were lead to believe, even if it is vaguely foreshadowed in the opening chapter.

There's also a shot fired at a certain movie, as Audrey talks about eating an insipid mermaid who surrounded herself with manmade treasures.

I will give Olivia and the authors credit though, since the do a fairly good job showing us Olivia's clinical depression, although the adventures she goes through do seem to lighten it up a little, which isn't particularly realistic.

All in all, it's a good, if quick read; I just wish they'd have given it a different series title.