SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: Deadline by Stephanie Ahn

Deadline is a novella that serves as the first book in a new Urban Fantasy series by Stephanie Ahn.  It's only available as an ebook currently on Amazon, though you can read it with Kindle Unlimited if you're a subscriber.  And if you are, I would definitely recommend it, as it's a really fun start to a new series in the genre, featuring a lesbian (disgraced) blood witch in New York City dealing with demons, monsters, and other more....interesting beings.

*Deadline is marketed as "Book 1" of this new series, raising questions of whether it should be considered a novella or novel.  Due to its brief length (under 190 pages), I'm counting it as a novella, although it's on the border, and I'd be unsurprised if sequels reach a length more typical of a novel series - like one of the other urban fantasy series I read, Annie Bellet's 20 Sided Sorceress.

Note: As this book makes clear in its author's note at the start, this book is definitely meant for adults and contains a significant scene containing consensual BDSM play.  If you have a problem with that, stay away.

Quick Plot Summary: Blood Witch Harrietta "Harry" Lee is living life in New York City the hard way.  Disgraced and excommunicated from the magical community for a past act which corrupted her own magic, with no friends but her sister, Harry scraps by the rent from month to month by doing odd finding jobs for people in the community, searching for weak magics and the like.  But when an apprentice from the Merestis, a powerful family of magic users to which Harry has old ties, offers her $30,000 up front to find a powerful artifact key to the family's power if she'll do so without ratting him out to her contacts in the family, Harry can't resist the windfall.  But this mission will soon throw Harry right back into the dangers of the magical community, and force her to relearn about her friends, her family....and of course her own self.  And then there's the demon blatantly stalking her, the one with the beautiful female body that Harry can't help noticing.....

Thoughts:  I really liked Deadline.  Harry Lee is a fun character of a type I've both read before - the urban fantasy heroine disgraced and self-exiled from the community before being roped back in is a classic (see October Daye, 20-Sided Sorceress) - and haven't read before either - Harry isn't just angsty, incredibly impulsive and brash, though pretty smart, but well she's a self described masochist and a good bit of her magic is based upon self-harm.  How this is done is really clever, and I look forward to seeing more of it in the future.  And Harry is the excellent version of this protagonist who can take some really dumb actions in her impulsiveness and yet do so in a way that feels incredibly natural and not suspension-of-disbelief breaking.

The plot of this book isn't particularly special, but well Deadline is relatively short and is clearly meant more for worldbuilding - which it does fairly well, introducing the type of creatures and mages who exist in this world and some of the hierarchies (while leaving much else vague), and some of the key characters (Harry, her sister Luce, her ex-friend Miriam, and others).  And while the plot is unspectacular and conventional (outside maybe the BDSM scene, which I thought was done well, but may be a deal-breaker for some readers), it's still executed very well.  Oh and each chapter title is kind of witty and clever (Chapter 5 is : "A Dame with a Mean Backhand" while Chapter 6 is "A Dame with a Meaner Backhand", for example), which is a nice touch.

If you like Urban fantasy, and the BDSM scene isn't a deal breaker (and it's a real full such scene, not just a mention for mention's sake), I'd recommend checking out Deadline.  It's well worth your time, even if it doesn't take up that much of it.  Looking forward to the second story, coming out next year.