#123 The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko

Set in a future where parents pay to have their kids genetically modified to make them better at certain jobs our hero is an out of work ship captain. Just released from a hospital after spending months recovering from a horrible accident he gets a dream job offer. Along the way he helps out a young girl about to metamorph into her adult form, something every spesh [ modified human] does before they are considered an adult. It turns out she is on the run and isn’t a typical fighter spesh as first thought.  Alex picks an entirely fresh crew per his job contract and finds himself ferrying aliens on a pleasure cruise among several planets.  The story quickly moves from a SF story to more of a locked room murder mystery with the possibility of war happening if things don’t get solved quickly.

Good world building and I would read more books set in this universe.  The identity of the killer is a bit of a cop out but the overall fun read of the book more than makes up for that.

Digital copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

#124 Owl and the Japanese Circus by Kristi Charish

This is the second book I've read this year with a former archaeology student getting involved with the the paranormal. Alix is a grad student that stumbles onto the supernatural world during a dig and the information is promptly covered up and she quickly finds herself bounced out of her program and all her research work stolen by the university and given to someone else. To make ends meet she starts stealing artifacts for the black market and after a year she gets sucked back into the supernatural archaeological world. Being on the run for almost a year after accidentally killing a vampire during a dig she gets an offer she can’t refuse. Retrieve an object for a dragon and all her problems with the vampires will go away.

The story does use quite a bit of different mythologies and doesn't stick to the usual vampire and werewolf only that you see in so many urban fantasies.   I’ll pick up the next one since the teaser for book 2 was at the end and it certainly caught my attention.

Digital copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley