Mythmaker

by Marianne de Pierres

(Angry Robot Books, 2015)

**I was provided with a ARC copy of this in exchange for an honest review**
 
 
 
I loved Peacemaker so much that I immediately began Mythmaker upon finishing it and I wasn’t disappointed with this, the second book in de Pierres series set in a future Australia.
 
Mythmaker follows on almost immediately from where Peacemaker ended.  Virgin Jackson and Nate Sixkiller are still a team, in fact Virgin has been coerced into working for CJIC by her mother.   (At the end of Peacemaker Virgin’s mother, whom she had thought dead, turned out to be the head of this clandestine organisation.)  
 
Life has become decidedly more complicated for Virgin: Mythos sightings have been increasing and her investigations reveal her brother’s involvement in the human faction working to bring the Mythos into Virgin and Nate’s world for, as Virgin describes it an “other worldly coup.”  In addition a dogged police officer is determined to charge Virgin with murder.
 
So, Virgin has a web of tangled emotional dilemmas to deal with – her antagonism with her mother whom she sees as abandoning her, her troubled brother, her best friend’s illness and several potential love interests.  (What I like here is that these “love interests” are deftly woven throughout the plot, but are not the driving force  and Virgin is not head over heels for anyone.  What will happen with them though is anyone’s guess.)
 
In Mythmaker, de Pierres, once again immerses us in her writing with terrific world building and a cracking pace.  The genre blending of western, crime, sci-fi and fantasy still held all its appeal as it did in the first book and the characters just get even better.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed Mythmaker and couldn’t put it down until I finished it.  Bring on the next book in the series!
 
Four Stars.