“Flashback Friday is a weekly tradition started over at Bookshelf Fantasies, focusing on showing some love for the older books in our lives and on our shelves. If you’d like to join in, just pick a book published at least five years ago, post your Flashback Friday pick on your blog, and let us all know about that special book from your reading past and why it matters to you. Don’t forget to link up!“
What a fun idea! And I don’t know about you but I love to talk about my favorite books, no matter how old or new they are.
This week I’ll be featuring one of my favorite writers, Jim Butcher!
Storm Front is the first in Butcher’s Dresden Files series and I read it more than a decade ago, when I was in the 8th grade. Wow. Even typing that is crazy.
Storm Front, and The Dresden Files, follows Harry Dresden, Professional Wizard and PI, as he takes magical cases, finds lost objects, and fights the bad guys who would harm the people of Chicago. (He doesn’t do parties though, don’t ask.)
This gritty, urban fantasy was one of the first books I remember reading and loving that was written in a masterful first-person voice. Harry’s sarcastic wit, humor, and belief in his ideals color every line of dialogue and description and he is one of my favorite characters through which to look at the world. And he makes me laugh. In fact, I have laughed, cried, screamed, and thrown things in response to these books. We’ve been through a lot together.
The Dresden Files is 15 books long now, along with an additional novella and two collections of short stories, each one from a different characters POV. Butcher has grown so much since he wrote Storm Front, his debut novel, that his later books are impossible to put down. He is a master of suspense, twists, tricks, and pulling the wool over the readers’ eyes just enough so that they’re on the edge of their seat.
The most recent book in the series is called Skin Game and I highly recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a deep, complex urban fantasy series with characters you will never forget.
What old favorites have you been thinking about lately?
To join in the Flashback Friday fun:
- Grab the Flashback Friday button
- Post your own Flashback Friday entry on your blog (and mention Bookshelf Fantasies as the host of the meme, if you please!)
- Leave your link in the comments below
- Check out other FF posts… and discover some terrific hidden gems to add to your TBR piles!
Story-eyed Reviews 