a short quickee on FM and a superior work on Stardust in the same day. Thankx.

I read it straight through. Difficult to put it down. Portia

...is a great novel, as good as anything Julie O. has done. And while I love her magical stories, it's a nice change of pace to read one of hers set in the good old empirical world. More like Shawshank Redemption than The Shining or whatever. I'd love to see this story serialized here at BCTS in 8 or 12 parts. It makes a good introduction to Julie's works, since enjoying it doesn't rely on the reader having any knowledge of the intricacies and existing characters of the Julieverse; and I say serialized because we do love our series-es here, and even an excellent novel will often be skipped over as too much of an investment of time. It would be a bit of work figuring out where the breaks would be, without the little mini-creshendos and cliffhangers our authors here work into serials, but it could be done, and I think readers here would love it...

But until that happens, if ever, probably not, oh well ........ anyone who does have the time and attention span for a compelling longer work about a terrible crime covered over by a horrendous conspiracy of silence and a smart, level-headed, determined t.s. girl's campaign to bring the perpetrators to justice, to prevent anyone else from suffering at the hands of these evil degenerates and clean up a lot of incidental corruption in her former hometown in the process should really check this one out...
~~~hugs, Laika