Blood Magic by Matthew Cook

I got a couple of recent releases from Juno last week and finished Blood Magic by Matthew Cook last night.

I've been complaining for awhile now that there isn't enough gritty type fantasy, especially with the strong female protag that I like to read, but this is the second of two from Juno that I read cover to cover. (The first was Wind Follower by Carole McDonnell)

Kirin, and that isn't even her name, it's her dead twin sister that lives in her head's name, is the kind of anti-heroine that you're not sure, exactly, why you love her, but you can't help but hope she continues to overcome. She's made bad decisions and done bad stuff, and basically justified most of it one way or another, and the tough part of it is that you can understand why she's doing what she is, even if you don't like it. - and yet she still manages to do good on both the smaller scale and the larger - and YET the good and evil seem inexorably mixed. -- and these are the deeper themes that draw me so deeply into a world.

Kudos to Matthew Cook for writing this and also to Juno for publishing it.