There is no shortage of single witches struggling to get by in the urban fantasy genre and I admit that I picked up the first book in this series because Barnes and Noble offered it for free. I went on to buy the other five books because they were better written than most and Galway put some real creativity into her magical world of witches and fae creatures. Alma Bellrose is about as disgraced as a witch from such an old and powerful family can get and thought moving to Silverpool, which is hidden from the mundane world and most witches because of the magical pool that attracts all types of fae creatures, would keep her under the radar as far as the Protectorate is concerned. That might have been more successful if she hadn't dated Silverpool's Protector, but considering that he dated almost every woman in town it wouldn't have been a problem if he didn't wind up dead on the bridge leading in and out of town. Alma tries to solve the murder just to get the Protectorate agents out of town before they realize that her father the infamous thief and the changeling she refused to kill when she her self was a Protectorate agent are both hanging around. Investigating the mystery will force Alma to quit hiding away and actually get acquainted with her town and it's residents. She finds oddities like the big box store that always has just what you're looking for no matter how unlikely and a nascent witch who has no idea what she is or that the magical world exists at all.

Dungeon Crawler Carl covered the exploits of Carl and Donut as they barely managed to survive the first two levels of the world dungeon that now inhabits Earth. It also revealed the rules by which the dungeon operates and how the crawlers themselves progress and grow within it. It was established that the dungeon crawlers would get to pick their race and class when they reached the third level of the dungeon and that is exactly where this book starts. Yes, that's right, the crawlers will get to pick a race, which means most crawlers will no longer be human after their choice. The choices available to each crawler will differ based on the stats and skills they progressed on levels 1 and 2, which means a lot of specialization will be occurring. Both Carl and Donut have a myriad of choices available to them, but Donut absolutely plans to remain a cat, so her race choice is a foregone conclusion. Because why would a cat ever want to be anything else?

Welcome to the Weary Dragon Inn with its problem solving innkeeper Bev (that's short for Beverage Wench) and the quirky people of Pigsend. Shortly after a brutal civil war, a woman wandered into Pigsend with no memories and was taken in by the former innkeeper. He trained her first as a beverage wench, hence the name, and a few years later she inherited the inn. Pigsend is a dull seeming village that hides more than a few secrets, and keeps running afoul of the new Queen's investigators. Everyone in the village knows that one of the butchers can easily carry an entire cow and that the baker's mother made magically delicious muffins. Sadly, the new Queen uses those of magical blood that she finds useful and executes the rest. When mysterious sinkholes start appearing all over the village, including under Bev's front door, Bev finds herself volunteered to investigate despite having several guests at the inn. It's obvious that Bev's guests are rarely who they say they are, and that successfully solving one problem only gets her stuck dealing with every mystery that comes along. Oh and of course, most of the residents are going to complain about how she goes about it.

It's two in the morning, and Carl quickly puts his leather jacket on, along with his girlfriend's pink crocs sandals, just before running outside wearing only his boxers. He has no idea why her damn cat, Princess Donut, chose that moment to run out into the cold, but it's a show cat and worth more than Carl makes in a year, so he better go get it. That's when the world as we know it, comes to an end. An alien race has arrived and instantly destroyed every structure on the planet, transforming the destroyed matter into a worldwide, eighteen level dungeon full of monsters for an intergalactic game show. Everyone that was in a structure is already dead, and everyone outside now had a choice to make. Find a dungeon entrance within an hour and take their chances in the dungeon, or try to survive outside in a world with no structures remaining. It was way too cold for Carl and Donut to remain outside, especially the way Carl was dressed, which meant they had no choice at all.

Exploring what it means to be human is an established sci-fi trope, especially in any book with sufficiently advanced androids; however, Human After All certainly takes a unique approach to this subject. The android population rose up against their oppressive masters (humans) decades ago, and they won the war easily. Now the androids rule the Earth and they have formed their own societal structures, but are they any better at stewarding the planet than their human predecessors? Not really. They seem to have learned a lot of our bad habits, and when a new "virus" starts to spread throughout the population, essentially turning them into android zombies, the new masters of the planet find their own existence in jeopardy. This is the backdrop that challenges the main character Freeman, the most advanced artificial life form ever created, to explore his existence and the nature of his humanity.

The Ambit is an older ship, and only well known because its captain is the AI named Eoan. Not many people are willing to take a chance on an AI captain, so there are only two crew members, Saint and Nash, who are basically outcasts themselves. They work for the Guild, that neutral entity that keeps the peace between the big corporations and their settlements on the Fringe of human space. Guild Rangers are known for their fierce loyalty to their missions, so Saint is willing to greet his old friend Jalsen with a bullet in the back when he is wanted for desertion. It isn't looking to be a pleasant ride back to the Core Spiral to turn Jalsen over to the Council of Captains when the AI captain, Eoan, picks up a distress beacon. It comes from a failed terraform planet and investigating it results in finding a whole lot of dead bodies before finding the dying programmer who sent the signal. Anke was here to gather information about the failed terraform because she suspects it was a viral code used to kill the colony by the corporation who owned it. If she's right, this is at least the third time the Deadworld Code has been used, and she begs the crew of the Ambit to help test the code fix she's working on. It really shouldn't take long and then they can take Jalsen in, but would there really be a whole book if everything went that smoothly?

After three books of setting up a complicated hairball of a situation, it is time to unravel the mess and get things sorted out. The generations old religious prophecy finally comes to pass, but not in the way anyone expected. The evil god Mikkik uses the prophecy itself to dupe the followers of his "good" rival into believing he is their god reborn. Why do the good guys always have to be the stupid ones? Of course, the battle between good and evil is no more complicated than the relationships that have formed between Gen, the Chalaine, and her mother, Mirelle. Who is going to marry who is ever changing, but at least the three of them are aligned on one thing. They are all able to see through Mikkik's deception and are united in their fight to expose him, although they are each destined to take their own path to a resolution. Each of these path's is a dangerous one, and the book's title implies that perhaps not all them will survive to sort out the relationship mess when the time comes.

Nell's life is going surprising well. She has gained legal custody of her younger sister Mindy who is thriving as a "townie" girl, her sister Esther is settling down with her newborn twins and bonding with the acre of land Nell gifted her, and she's going to marry Occam before the month is out. However, the story begins with her being summoned to visit the vampire Ming of Glass who is now officially Master of the City but something is very wrong with Ming. She was always slightly erratic but now she's completely insane and sends Torquemada and his minions after Nell as a distraction. Once in Knoxville, Torquemada discovers that most of the young men thrown out of the Church carry the devil dog bloodline and he starts kidnapping and torturing them to force them to shift shape. Since there still isn't enough going on, the military has finally caught on that the Church has spawned two unique paranormal bloodlines and is willing to resort to forcing them to "work" for the government. Somehow all of this is connected to Soul's disappearance and Unit 18 pulls together like never before to stay alive and find their boss.

From the start of the series, there have been flashbacks to unexplained visits from dark forces in Gen's childhood that have never been fully explained. These events have never appeared to have much impact on Gen, because after each visit an unknown individual always arrives to erase the memory. Gen has often been the only person capable of keeping the Chalaine safe from the dark forces trying to disrupt the holy prophecy, but now that she is pregnant with the Holy Child, Gen protects her no more. The significance of those visits in Gen's past have come into light, so now the Padra Athan and the church want him dead, and so does the Chalaine's new husband. However, the Chalaine's mother, Mirelle, still believes in Gen and she works to keep him from Athan's forces, convinced he is the only one who can protect her daughter. It's a mess of a situation, but one thing is clear - whichever side of the prophecy Gen's loyalties are on is likely to come out on top.

The first book of the series totally leaves you eager to find out what comes next, especially in the character relationship department. Gen finds himself promoted to the Chalaine's Protector because he was the only one with the moral fortitude to stand up for her when her future husband, the Ha'Ulrich, tried to treat her like a common harlot. Of course, this puts Gen in quite a predicament as the Ha'Ulrich and the Chalaine are prophesied to marry and conceive a child that will become the embodiment of a god. Because of the way Gen humiliated the Ha'Ulrich he knows that once the marriage is complete, the Ha'Ulrich will have the power to order his death. Still, that won't stop Gen from doing his duty, but the enemy army led by the evil god Mikkik just might.