Tessa Gratton.
Groupblog: The Merry Sisters of Fate.
Titles I've written about:
Blood Magic (2011):
Although the storyline might sound pretty run-of-the-mill contemporary paranormal, it's not. For one, there's no love triangle. ZOMG! NO LOVE TRIANGLE! YAAAAAY! But also, it feels more Gothic than paranormal. Lots of creepy imagery and blood and cemeteries and some nasty violation in the form of unwelcome possession. (As opposed to possession-with-prior-permission, which is also a thing.) As the magic requires sacrifice on the part of the magic user, there's a lot to think about in terms of ends vs. means, and some of the characters make choices that have irrevocable consequences. This is not a sitcom version of magic in which everything reboots at the end of the story. Not at all.
The Blood Keeper (2012):
In the acknowledgements of The Blood Keeper, Tessa Gratton’s follow-up to Blood Magic, Gratton thanks Robin McKinley, for writing about roses and beasts and transformations. Pieces of this book have been in my head since I was ten years old.
I feel that’s worth mentioning as I know that many readers, myself included, are likely to pick a book up based on that knowledge alone. And this book deserves to be picked up. Not because it’s a McKinley clone—far from it, actually, though it shares some of the same sensibilities—but because it’s a flat-out super book.