“Good, now listen…. The Warden couldn’t have the myth-creatures from the old world wandering around and breaking all of his rules, so he made prisons for them. Cities and caves and deserts and stretches of ocean—most of them inhospitable chunks of the planet no one in their right mind would go to…. The point is, St. Ives is one of those places.”
    – Babu Cherion, former Bostonian and paranormal investigator who really, really regrets relocating

Ghost Ocean: a title that understates what all is going on in S. M. Peters’ newest novel. In a way, Ghost Ocean (Roc) is a new take on the urban paranormal; but in other ways, you could consider it a rebirth of an older style of city fantasy.

The small town of St. Ives reminds me of a darker Charles de Lint setting: there are gods and creatures of imagination around every street corner, sometimes literally, often taking on the guise of your kindly next-door neighbor. But in Peters’ St. Ives, the supernaturals’ motivations are twisted by the fact that not only are they out of place in a modern world that doesn’t understand them, but that where they live, even what they are now, is a result of being bound to St. Ives. Not all prisons are cages.

[Read more…]