Black Blade Blues [Paperback]

Plot Summary: Sarah Beauhall is a young woman making ends meet by working at two jobs that she loves. By day she is an apprentice blacksmith, and she's either shoeing a horse, or making a sword for the Renaissance fair set. By night she's the props manager for a low-budget fantasy movie, and in between her jobs there's her girlfriend Katie. Money may be tight, but her professional and personal life are going great until one night the idiot actor breaks her favorite sword in two. Sarah decides to test her skills and reforge the blade, and once it's whole again, everything in her world falls apart. Some huge guy claiming to be a dwarf talks to her about the sword's power, and he says she must slay a dragon, who just happens to be the guy financing the movie. Sarah can't seem to control her temper anymore, and when she holds the sword she feels something... but dragons, dwarves, and magical swords are just too much for anyone halfway sane to swallow.

I really wanted to read Black Blade Blues after I learned that it's about a female blacksmith who is also a lesbian, but I was dying to read it when I learned that the author, J. A. Pitts, is a man. I wanted to know, could he pull this off?

The answer is yes.

Furthermore, Mr. Pitts gave himself a considerable challenge because Sarah is not a strong, confident gay woman, like I assumed she'd be. Oh no. She's absolutely conflicted about her lifestyle, she's haunted by her strict religious upbringing, and she can barely stand to acknowledge her relationship with Katie. Sarah has practically barricaded herself in the closet, and watching her break out will be one of the things I look forward to most in this new series.

One of the great things about this story is that Mr. Pitts was not afraid to build a large ensemble cast, and then go beyond the cursory sketches and flesh each character out. There are so many strong female characters in this story! I have to get a little excited about this, because most urban fantasies shine the spotlight on one woman, and the other females are usually criminals, hookers, or victims. Sarah shares the stage with Katie, her girlfriend, Julie, her blacksmith mentor, Melanie, an E.R. doctor, and Jennifer, one of her bosses from the movie production. I could list a few more, but these were the ladies who stood out in my mind after I closed the book.

I wish it had been more of a page-turner. I read this one over a three day period, and while it was always a pleasure to come back to, I didn't feel that junkie craving that tells me I love it, need it, want it more than anything else. At times, the pace was too slow, but I'm almost loathe to make that criticism because the details were so lush. I liked seeing Sarah during some utterly mundane parts of the day, like when she went jogging, but it did slow the story down.

To grab my attention these days, an urban fantasy has to bring something fresh and new to the experience, and Black Blade Blues succeeds. Sarah's character is a work of art, but the folklore surrounding the sword and the dragons is going to dive into some good stuff down the road. I can just tell. The dragons have the world divvied up like a bunch of mafia bosses, and they pull the strings behind the scenes. Humans are nothing more than cattle in their eyes, and Sarah's bond with the black sword is the first real threat they've faced in eons.

The good news is that Mr. Pitts has a deal for two more Sarah Beauhall novels with Tor, and we can look for Honeyed Words in the Spring of 2011, and Hearth and Home in 2012.

I read the reviews here first before buying Black Blade Blues and tailored my expectations accordingly. I don't need wham-bam pacing at the start of a book and I don't mind inner turmoil or self-doubt, as long as it doesn't go on forever and ever. But even with that in mind, I still felt the book had some problems it should have overcome before being published.

I think overall that the book would have benefited from a stronger hand from the editor. There were some issues of vague locations, such as not being specific as to what towns the main characters lived in or where the blacksmith shop was located. At least, it was confusing to me since I live in Seattle and was startled to find the characters were actually in Kent (I think?), which is several miles and a few suburbs south. And while anyone can have a brain fart and type "Cascade Peninsula" instead of "Olympic Peninsula" into a rough draft, someone really should have caught the gaff before the book went to print. There were other issues with structure, especially in the first third of the book, that really needed a stronger editor to help tighten and focus.

I didn't mind that the book switched between first person point of view and third person. That's supposedly something that should never be done, but in this case the author was clear enough in the transitions that I was never confused and in principle it would have worked fine for me. However, the major strength of first person is being able to get deep into the protagonist's head. In this case the author didn't really take advantage of that. I felt as if there was still a barrier between me as a reader and Sarah as a character. I think the book would have been much better, and I wouldn't have felt that distance so much, if it had been written entirely in third person. Many times Sarah didn't seem to react much at all to things that would bring out strong emotions in most people. (And in a couple cases reacted strongly when it wasn't clear why.) I don't want to give any spoilers, but I'll just say there was a thing with runes on skin that certainly deserved a major freakout, but it was shrugged off.

I felt the book got stronger, more coherent, about 30% into it and I began enjoying it more, but I can't really say that it totally took off at any particular point. At least, not on a consistent basis. Black Blade Blues did have its good moments though.

The best thing about Black Blade Blues is that it brings new material to the urban fantasy genre. I love that Sarah is a blacksmith and involved in SCA. I wasn't sure that the Norse mythology elements would appeal to me, but they are worked fairly seamlessly into the story and they provide a rich background for this series. The dragons are fascinating and in this first book you know that only the surface has been scratched and there is much more to be revealed about them. The secondary characters are interesting and there's a lot of potential for growth with them. And of course, as a lesbian reader it's a treat to read a book in my favorite genre with a lesbian protagonist, even if she still has some internalized homophobia to work out.

If this had been a stand alone book I would probably have only rated it with 2.5 stars. But as the first book in a series I'm giving it a 3, because there is enough to build on and enough potential to make reading it worthwhile in the hopes that the next book succeeds in putting it all together better. I plan to read the next book also and decide whether to continue with the series or not based on it. After all this one is the first published novel by the author.

Kindle Note: The Kindle edition was well done with chapter marks showing on the progress bar.

Bottom line, the story is a lot of fun; Sarah is a strong and all-too-believable character, the supporting cast are flesh-and-blood real people, and her personal problems, including her ability to misread situations and put her foot into it, are all too convincing. The story has action, adventure, personal growth, and the good fight against the powers of exploitation and evil -- and also dwarfs -- with some wonderful surprises and more than one laugh-out-loud moment. J.A. Pitts is a storyteller in the tradition of John Myers Myers, whose sure touch and command of his craft makes the story a delight to read.