C.E. Murphy - Walking Dead (The Walker Papers, Book 4)

The Negotiator

Hands of Flame

Fast-paced action and a twisty-turny plot make for a good readFans of the series will be sad to leave Margrits world behind, at least for the time being.

Romantic Times BOOKreviews

House of Cards

Violent confrontations add action on top of tense intrigue in this involving, even thrilling, middle book in a divertingly different contemporary fantasy romance series.

Locus

The second title in Murphys Negotiator series is every bit as interesting and fun as the first. Margrit is a fascinatingly complex heroine who doesnt shy away from making difficult choices.

Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Heart of Stone

[An] exciting series openerMargrit makes for a deeply compelling heroine as she struggles to sort out the sudden upheaval in her professional and romantic lives.

Publishers Weekly

A fascinating new seriesas usual, Murphy delivers interesting worldbuilding and magical systems, believable and sympathetic characters and a compelling story told at a breakneck pace.

Romantic Times BOOKreviews

The Walker Papers

Coyote Dreams

Tightly written and paced, [Coyote Dreams] has a compelling, interesting protagonist, whose struggles and successes will captivate new and old readers alike.

Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Thunderbird Falls

Thoroughly entertaining from start to finish.

Award-winning author Charles de Lint

The breakneck pace keeps things movinghelping make this one of the most involving and entertaining new supernatural mystery series in an increasingly crowded field.

Locus

Fans of Jim Butchers Dresden Files novels and the works of urban fantasists Charles de Lint and Tanya Huff should enjoy this fantasy/mysterys cosmic elements. A good choice.

Library Journal

Urban Shaman

A swift pace, a good mystery, a likable protagonist, magic, danger Urban Shaman has them in spades.

Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files series

C.E. Murphy has written a spellbinding and enthralling urban fantasy in the tradition of Tanya Huff and Mercedes Lackey.

The Best Reviews

Tightly plotted and nicely paced, Murphys latest has a world in which ancient and modern magic fuse almost seamlesslyFans of urban fantasy are sure to enjoy this first book in what looks to be an exciting new series.

Romantic Times BOOKreviews
[nominee for Reviewers Choice Best Modern Fantasy]

In the future when Ive got a bad feeling, it would behoove me to remember that, having been granted phenomenal cosmic powers, its okay to trust myself when something seems off. I froze, in the sense of icicles down the backbone and prickles on the skin, but otherwise not as literally as Id have liked. Almost before the shrieks became more than passionately indrawn breaths, I was turning, not wanting to see what was going on behind me but even less able to ignore it.

The cauldron dancers were rigid, all the grace and beauty flown out of their bodies. The part of me that didnt know anything at all about medical diagnoses immediately decided it was a petit mal seizure, with their eyes rolled to white and their teeth bared by lips stretched thin and bloodless. Their hands were clawed and every muscle trembled with strain. Cords stood out in their throats as they screamed, and even those sounds were shadows of what they should have been, given the effort their bodies were expending.

The part of me that knew better than to try to diagnose medical conditions with a degree in English and a few too many television dramas tore away the real world and gave me the lowdown on what I could do to help. At least, thats what it was supposed to do. The first part worked, anyway.

Their auras gave me nothing. They were spiky with distress, the reds and oranges of earlier delight now bleeding dark and terrified: sickly shades with the enormous strength of fear behind them.

Thin gray film rose out of the cauldron, sucking itself skintight against the dancers contours beneath their clothes. I had the impression Id been granted X-ray visionor maybe M-ray vision, Magic-Rayas the Sight ignored what they were wearing and honed in on the stuff racing over them, providing me with a totally non-titillating examination of their bodies.

It was even money on whether the spasms were from being cling-wrapped tightly enough to send them into some kind of hind-brain attempt to throw it off, or if the murk was actually invading their bodies. It had already crawled to their chests and throats and sluiced toward their gaping mouths, and I had no freaking clue what it might be.

A smart doctormaybe a smart shamanwould diagnose the damn problem first, but apparently the whole warrior-princess costume obliterated any kind of rational thought I mightve indulged in. I vaulted onto the cauldron with a yell and slapped my hands over their mouths just before the gray stuff slipped over their lips and down their throats.

About six things happened at once.

First off, somewhere way in the distance, I heard Billy Holliday bellowing, Joanne Walker, what in holy living hell!? As far as I was concerned, that pretty much made up the soundtrack for everything else that happened. Time stretched, extending into slow moments that crystallized everything around me into clarity and allowed me to discard that which was unimportant. On reflection, that included music, calls to 911, some shouting and the start of a stampede, but right then, those seven words made up the walls of the world for a brief and horribly long eternity.

The good news was that the gray film leaped off the dancers, who collapsed out from under my hands. The bad news was, it leaped from them to me, and I had a sudden intimate understanding of just what theyd been enduring.

Enduring. Theres a funny choice of words. Its not one Id think would apply to a scenario that couldnt have lasted longer than five seconds, but under the films tenterhooks it was the only one that seemed appropriate.

It was trying to get in, trying to invade. I felt my muscles seize and bunch and rattle in just the way the dancers had, a million pinpricks of ice jabbing under my skin and trying to work their way beneath. Id never been flayed and wasnt eager to try it, but I thought it might feel like this: burning pain that did its best to defy words and to turn me into nothing more than a scream.

A scream. Screaming was bad. Not because I didnt deserve to, because anybody being flayed probably deserves to scream, but because the stuff had a purpose, and thwarting flaying gray film was a worthy goal. I snapped my mouth shut and rolled my lips in, biting their insides to keep myself from indulging in the scream that would let the stuff in. Then I wondered if my nose was enough of an access point to let it in, and how I was going to breathe if I needed to pinch my nostrils shut, too.

Then again, if the hurting didnt stop soon, I wasnt going to care much about breathing. More or less reassured by the thought, I stopped worrying about it. Look, logic in the face of excruciating pain isnt one of my strong points. It worked for me, which was all that mattered. Meantime, my stomach, eager to add its opinion on agony, violently rejected the fizzy pink drink Id indulged in earlier.

It was significantly worse coming up than itd been going down, and it hadnt been good to begin with. Human nature trumped scary crawling gray stuff and I doubled over, expelling bright pink spew. The film retreated, apparently as disgusted by Technicolor vomit as I was. The lack of pain left me astonishingly clear-headed.

Clear-headed enough to see that more of the gray fog was bubbling up from the cauldron and flowing over its edges, hurrying toward the partygoers.