Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, with a degree of apparent effortlessness that is astonishing, have pulled off not one but several very difficult things in A Companion to Wolves
The first, and by no means the least, is the sometimes vexed collaboration issue. I have read co-authored books in which I could have chopped out and parceled into neat little piles the bits that belonged to the various authors because the voices simply never gelled enough to produce perfect seamlessness. Here, it just doesn’t even matter. It flows. The two authors work as one; it’s not so much cooperation as a symbiosis. A job very well done.
The second is the worldbuilding….The storyline is gripping… the writing is exquisite, and the book is destined to be a classic of its kind.
“Michael Egan comes to Ireland to investigate recent thefts and murders connected to a mythic Celtic jewelry collection. The woman who owned most of this cursed set is murdered, and her family accuses Irish jewelry designer Flanna McKenna of being involved in the theft and murder. Even though he doesn’t believe her claims that she’s psychic, Michael thinks she’s the best bet for finding the perpetrator. Patricia Rosemoor’s soothing pace fits in well with her lyrical Irish dialogue and fascinating myth-making. In Name Only? (4.5) is a first-rate, old-fashioned paranormal mystery with gothic overtones.”
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) by Jim Butcher (ROC/Penguin, 2007)
today.