Smoke and Shadows

The Barnes & Noble Review
Smoke and Shadows, the first novel in an exciting trilogy by Tanya Huff, features the main characters from the author's wildly popular Blood quintet (Blood Price, Blood Trail, etc.): Tony Foster, a gay reformed street punk, and Henry Fitzroy, a 450-year-old vampire prince.
Henry and Tony have relocated from Toronto to Vancouver to start a new life. Tony, now 24 years old, has landed a job working as a production assistant for a company that produces a popular syndicated television series about a vampire detective. But trouble seems to follow Tony wherever he goes, and he soon starts seeing strange shadows on the set -- shadows that appear where normal shadows shouldn't be and act as if they're sentient. When an actress mysteriously dies in her dressing room, Tony and his vampiric friend investigate. The trail leads them to Arra Pelindrake, the enigmatic head of special effects for the production company. But when Arra finally discloses who she really is -- a wizard from another realm who escaped annihilation through a rift in space -- Tony and Henry soon find out that the shadows are the least of their worries!


Fans of other popular genre-blending supernatural sagas, like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series and Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire novels, will undoubtedly enjoy Smoke and Shadows. An appealing mix of fantasy, horror, romance, and mystery, Huff's story succeeds because it doesn't take itself too seriously and even revels in poking fun at contemporary supernatural icons as well as mainstream science fiction and fantasy. Huff's biting (no pun intended) sense of humor makes this a highly entertaining page-turner.
Paul Goat Allen