This series is absolutely brilliant, but this instalment didn't work as well for me as the first book. I found it a bit confused at times. Or maybe it was me, I was a bit distracted. I guess I found some of the politics confusing. But it has some characters, lovely family dynamics and I love the strong female representation. ( )

Great fun to watch Charlotte Charlie Gale go her own way away from the aunties, Allie and Graham. The music is great fun too (though it helps to have some knowledge of Gaelic/Celtic folk tunes). We also see Jack, the young Dragon Prince, find his place in the Gale family dynamic, chase off Boggarts, deal with two of his murderous uncles and finally eat an elder god as it awakens in the North Atlantic.

Favorite quotes:
Charlie uses music to stop a bunch of Boggarts on a rampage

Mouths open, eyes wide--or if not mouths and eyes then facial features in approximately the same position--the Boggarts shrieked like middle aged women at a Adam Lambert concert, and ran for it.

After Charlie manages to time travel to save two characters trapped in a cave with Goblins:

"Holy sh--, I traveled in time. I'm like freakin' Dr. Who, and the cute redheaded companion should turn up right about ... now." A quick look around. "Or not." Apparently time travel was fine, but a cute redheaded companion was too much to ask of the universe.

( )

"The Wild Ways", the second book in the Gale Women, series was a fast, fun read that had me grinning most of the time.

The experience reminded me of reading a really good Terry Pratchett book: on the surface there is a constant stream of humour, based on word play and the bizarre juxtaposition of the normal with the incredible, flowing around interesting characters with complex relationships to one another that develop over time; beneath the surface, a serious moral undertow grabs at your attention and asks you to consider how you use power to do what needs to be done without power using you.

Not that Tanya Huff is a Pratchett wannabe. She shares his lightness of touch and his feeling for what makes us truly human but she brings a style all of her own. Setting the Gale Women books in contemporary Canada gives an opportunity for lots of local colour about celtic festivals and fiddle players as well as amusing pop culture references (especially the ones that Jack is too young to get).

The story focuses on Charlie, a wild power amongst the Gale family and therefore restless and unpredictable. Charlie has a love for life and the some of the women and men it. Her frustration at meeting a beautiful but irredeemably straight supernatural woman is presented with self-deprecating humour that is quite charming. Her progress to realising her potential as a wild power is disturbing. Her love of playing music (and using it as a magical weapon when needed) is engaging.

The plot is slight and easy to predict but that's part of the fun. It's the ride, not the destination, that is most important here.

I'm hooked on this series now, so I'm not waiting, I'm moving straight on to book three in the series "The Future Falls". ( )

Charlie is moving from her job working with a Country and Western band and joining a Celtic Rock band on the Summer Festival Circuit. She ends up in the middle of an incident between a Silkie family and an oil company where things get complicated and she has to deal with a lot of complications. There's also the Dragon Prince cousin and unrequited love to add to the complications.

It was a fun read that I ran through. Honestly I enjoyed it more than the first book in the series. ( )

This series is absolutely brilliant, but this instalment didn't work as well for me as the first book. I found it a bit confused at times. Or maybe it was me, I was a bit distracted. I guess I found some of the politics confusing. But it has some characters, lovely family dynamics and I love the strong female representation. ( )