Well-written but the protagonist is wimpy enough to annoy me at several spots - agonizing (again) over whether she can or should trust this one or that one...and her answer, every time, is "No, but I will keep working with them". Every time. Sigh. Mildly interesting world, and I do want to read the next book - it's not quite a cliffhanger ending, but it does leave a lot of things unresolved. ( )

First website designer Jan's boyfriend disappears, and then a couple freaks crowd her on the bus and tell her she's in grave danger. Naturally she's in no mood for their games, but then a gnome eats through the bus, which is pretty convincing.

Jan and the fairies go on the run and try to track down the elves (they're called preternaturals, shortened to the even worse "preters," in this book) who are stealing humans away to their magical land. This sounds great, but in practice it's just Jan and a kelpie having sexual tension and puttering around for 400 pages. Lots of exciting things happen, but they're interspersed by long, loooong sections wherein Jan worries about not having clean underwear, pondering the different ways each of the supernaturals take their coffee, checks her email...Despite spending so much time in her head with these mundanities, by the end of the book I still didn't feel like I had a good grasp on her character, her values, or which, if any, of her love interests she was interested in. The relationship between Jan and Tyler is a huge plot point, but they only dated for three months (and didn't live together or even see each other most days, AND he was dating other people during that time) before he was taken by the elves, so how do they have a connection and shared set of memories that is so super special and powerful and deeply felt that it lets Tyler (alone of all the dozens or hundreds of stolen humans) remember Jan? And there's a weird lack of focus or drive to this book--random characters get a single POV chapter, introduce some big problem, and then it's all forgotten or unimportant. For instance, a werewolf gets a POV chapter in which he and the rest of Jan's allies are under siege from gnomes. Just as they're about to all be killed, the book cuts back to **. Then the next time we see the werewolf and the allies, they're all fine and there's no explanation for what happened to the gnomes. wtf?

I found it frustrating to read. The majority of it is so mediocre that I'd have stopped reading, but the parts of the book set in the elvenland actually do a great job of mixing creeping horror and wonder. The book could have cut about 200 pages of Jan and her supernatural friends doing nothing at all in our world, and I'd have liked this book a great deal more. ( )

This book was bad and I do not want to read the rest of the series. Too much repetition and no convlusion at the end of the novel. It leadd you into the next book. I don't like series books where you must read the next one or you have no resolution. ( )

I love Laura Anne Gilman's novels, so when I saw this one at Netgalley, I requested it on the spot. After reading it, I am glad I did. Mostly. I had one big issue with it.
This is the first book in the Portals duology, which isn't set in the Cosa Nostradamus world. No, this is a world filled with tension between the non-native Preternaturals and the native Supernaturals. I really liked that the Preters and the Supers behaved very differently. The Preters were cold, and only acted for the benefit of Preters. The Supernaturals on the other hand, were motivated with a drive to save the world.
The characters were intresting. I liked how Jan struggled with the fact that Supers and Preters existed. I also liked the fact the Supers didn't try to hide that the situation was dangerous, and that she shouldn't really trust them.
Jan's, Martin's and to some degree AJ's, search for Tyler was well plotted. I liked how it took Jan from an ordinary life, to a life filled with danger. What I especially liked was Jan's stubbornness. She was scared, but she searched for Tyler anyway. And I really admired her when she faced the Preters.
Despite all the things I liked with this book, I didn't feel the urge to pick it up to continue reading when I put it down. But I still plan to get the second book. ( )

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy.
allthingsuf.com

Calling this story a retelling of Tam Lin doesn’t do it justice. Gilman has taken the bones of that fairy tale and reassembled it entirely, restrung with strength and ferocity and drive outside that pale relationship between a woman and her lost lover. Jan’s journey starts to find Tyler, but ultimately she finds so much more. Another world, a war, and a strength and bravery she never realized existed.

Much like Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crime series, HEART OF BRIAR uses past fairy tales as a touchstone, not a template. Jan experiences some aspects of the Tam Lin myth, but it’s not a note for note reenactment, more one ingredient flavoring her own, unique experience. Be prepared to see old elements transmuted into something new. What is familiar is how Gilman explores the collision of technology and magic. Very reminiscent of her Cosa Nostradamus and P.U.P.I.’s, Gilman’s preter- and super-natural characters are charming but lethal, relatable yet inhuman.

And it is just those charms and enticements that make HEART OF BRIAR satisfying as a standalone but seductive as the start of the series. Jan has peeled back the veil and her world will never be the same, I look forward to exploring by her side. Though some initial slowness brought my rating from 5 bats down to 4, I finished this book revved up and ready for more.

Sexual Content: References to sex, non-graphic sex scenes. ( )