Okay, I think we've officially entered the extremely strange realm where a book outstrips its author. I can't count the number of times there was this cool visual image (gargoyle correcting his size by plinking out ice cubes) or interesting emotional moment (Rachel having a flashback) and I nearly missed it because of a clumsy phrase or an anvil to the head. And this book lost major points with me for ham-handed exploitation of terminally ill children for emotional juice that it didn't even need.

And yet . . .

And yet it's still on all dimensions better than any other paranormal-urban-romance-fantasy I've tried -- plotting, sexual politics, supporting cast. And yet I'd read the Rachel and Trent show until the cows come home. And yet there are clearly even more interesting things to come, and not every last one has been semaphored fifty pages ahead of time. And yet, the pixies!