SF/F Review: Lustlocked (Sin Du Jour #2) by Matt Wallace https://t.co/bI2zYl6JG3 Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/4)— garik16 (@garik16) October 1, 2017
Short Review (cont): The 2nd Sin Du Jour short novel features the crew catering to a wedding for Goblin Royalty.....(2/4)— garik16 (@garik16) October 1, 2017
Short Review (cont): which turns manic when one cook tries to spice things up. Good crazy fun, like the first book. (3/4)— garik16 (@garik16) October 1, 2017
Lustlocked is the second book in the Sin Du Jour Novella/Short Novel series by Matt Wallace. For those new to the series, Sin Du Jour follows a catering company employed by the government to cook food/cater events for the Supernatural. The first book (Reviewed Here) featured new chefs Darren and Lena being hired by the company as temps just in time to see the crew be requested to cook an Angel for a party of Demons. It was a pretty fun romp with a lot of humor and some fun if silly characters.
Lustlocked unsurprisingly follows in its predecessor's footsteps, featuring another adventure of the Sin Du Jour crew - this time tasked with catering the wedding of a Goblin Prince and his human fiance - partially through the eyes of newcomers Darren and Lena (although we spend less time seeing through their eyes this time, as we don't need their introductions). Again, it's a pretty enjoyable fun romp, if short, and well worth your time if you want a lighthearted series that doesn't require too much investment. You can in theory start the series with this book as it's a stand alone, but really, there's little point to starting here instead of with the first book as both books are equally solid and the first book will provide background for this one.
More after the jump:
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Sin Du Jour has just come through the chaos caused by their barely successful dinner for a group of Demons (where they had to come up with a substitute for Angel meat to assuage their consciences), partially thanks to the influence of a little divine intervention. But there's no rest for the weary - they're now tasked with catering for a wedding between a Goblin Prince and his Human Fiance. These goblins of course aren't like the ones in books - Goblins are incredibly well looking beings who masquerade often as actors in Hollywood - so the Goblin Prince and Human fiance....well, are actual human celebrities! Oh and the Goblins eat valuable metals instead of normal food.
But when the Human Fiance reveals her fears about not being accepted, one of the Sin Du Jour crew will attempt to try to change things with their cooking....but the side effects will throw not only the party, but the catering team themselves, into Chaos!
So....just another day in the life of Sin Du Jour. Assuming they all live through the experience.
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Again, like its predecessor, Sin Du Jour is a lot of fun. Seemingly anything can happen in this world - you know from the start that SOMETHING is going to go wrong with the catering assignment, but exactly how the catering is going to go wrong is not something that I could've predicted. And it's pretty damn funny and it works really well, while also providing stakes for the book to deal with. We meet basically 2 new characters in this book, but they work well enough and are minor enough not to change much.
There really isn't anything bad about this book, other than it not being particularly special and it being short. It's a fun book that knows what it is, and what it is is an enjoyable urban fantasy romp without much violence in a less than usual setting.
Recommended if you want some zany lighthearted fantasy fun.
You should probably mention that the novelette, "Small Wars," (Tor.com; January 19, 2016) logically takes place between "Envy of Angels" and "Lustlocked" and it clarifies a couple of things in the latter.
ReplyDeleteMy own review of "Lustlocked" was fairly negative, but that's largely because I read it before reading "Envy of Angels." These stories really do need to be read in order. There's little pretense of them being stand-alone stories.
Hmmm, well for what it's worth, "Small Wars" was included in the ebook (obtained through my library) that I read this book as, so naturally I read it as well. That said, I'm not sure it's really necessary to Lustlocked as a whole, so I didn't mention it (also because I wasn't sure if every version of Lustlocked contained the novelette).
DeletePoint taken about it not working for you as a stand alone. It's difficult sometimes when one has read the prior work to envision how something will work if one hadn't read the prior.