Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 To those of you that have already read The Rook, rejoice, for the sequel, Stiletto, is finally here. For those who haven't read The Rook, OMG, I'm so jealous, you get to read it for the first time, and unlike those of us who read The Rook in 2012, you get to read the sequel right away. 
 The Rook and Stiletto are fantasy novels that take place in modern Britain. They are not romances. However, if you love women characters who kick ass in a variety of ways (physical, supernatural, scientific, and otherwise), and you love strong fantasy world building, you'll eat these right up. I had actually forgotten a lot of what happened in The Rook by the time I read Stiletto, and I was able to keep up, so I suspect you could jump into Stiletto first. I don't recommend it though, because the first book is so amazeballs that you won't want to miss it and it does set up the whole storyline of Stiletto. 
 The series is violent and often tragic, but it's also ultimately uplifting, exciting, and optimistic - and very, very funny. Given the mix of supernatural characters and cultures and human nationalities and agendas and bizarre situations, being specific is incredibly (and hilariously) important. During a briefing about a man who was strangled "by his beard" Rook Thomas asks, "By, or with?" The line between mundane and supernatural is all in the details (and the answer is "by", which Rook Thomas believes "warrants some looking into"). 
 Stiletto has a slow pace with a lot of digressions for storytelling. It's clear that the author loves filling in all the corners of this world with the side stories of characters and bits of trivia about life in this version of Britain. This would be unbearably self-indulgent were it not so darn good: the writing is sublime. Despite the slow pace, the book has an unrelenting feeling of tension until the ending. While it doesn't end on a cliffhanger, it did leave me desperately craving a third book. I love everything about this series, but above all I love that in a world in which no one can trust anyone, women continue to bond, to make alliances, to help each other get dressed for parties, and to stand back-to-back (sometimes literally and sometimes metaphorically) in a fight. It's a fun, sometimes horrifying, sometimes heart-rending, sometimes funny, and always thrilling series. All my thumbs up. 
 - Carrie S.