ELEMENTAL

A superpowered private detective is drawn into a murky power struggle in Hill’s debut urban fantasy novel.

Twenty-five-year-old Arden Finch is a PI in Durham, North Carolina. She’s also a sylph—an elemental spirit with the innate ability to control air. Although she was raised by a supernatural overlord and two djinn, Arden has been kept away from a group of factions called Otherside, which is made up of elves, vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural beings who rule the world behind the scenes and who cooperate with one another to keep their existence a secret from humans. The elves have put a bounty on elementals, so Arden can’t use her powers without risking exposure and death. But when a “high-blood” elf hires her to investigate the disappearance of his grandmother, Arden is forced to wade into the depths and deceptions of Otherside. It’s a dangerous path for her to tread but solving the case might gain her the leverage she needs to strike out on her own and lift the bounty. Can Arden stay ahead of the forces that seek to manipulate her? Hill provides narrator Arden with a no-nonsense independence that may remind readers of novelist Seanan McGuire’s urban fantasy adventurer October Daye. The prose style is a familiar one for the action-detective genre, but the author takes the time to evoke a clear sense of place, and the intricacies of Otherside are well served by its connection to North Carolina. The fantasy element, though complex, has a pleasingly lived-in feel, and that comfortable familiarity extends to the characters. Arden is a winning protagonist, pushing against PI stereotypes in small but telling ways, and the denizens of Otherside—particularly the vampires and djinn—have well-developed personalities. Hill also has a fine ear for dialogue and a good sense of timing, and the story builds steadily and believably, resulting in a genuine page-turner. Readers are left with a sense of closure, but a sequel would be more than welcome.

Hard-boiled adventure and snappy worldbuilding in the shadowy margins of the everyday.