Thank you to the publisher, Berkeley Publishing Group / DAW, for providing me with an advanced e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Hopefully, a second listen-through can redeem it, but there is no way that should be a thing for an urban fantasy. My favorite part of this one, though, was a little more development of Foxglove and a lot more of Beverley. Whether he’s being snarky or just describing the quirks of investigative work, his wry sense of humor comes through. Once I realised this (which took far longer than it ought to have done) it became much easier to follow.Who could fail to love Nightingale (Peter’s long-lived, powerful, and elegant sometime boss), Molly and Foxglove (eerie, mute faeries who live in the nineteenth-century police building known as the Folly), the competent Detective Constable Sahra Guleed, the irascible Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Seawoll and the steady Detective Sergeant Miriam Stephanopoulos? This swirling inconsistency and feeling of time being stretched, squished, and manipulated, suited the theme very nicely once I stopped feeling like I was grappling with an Infinite Improbability Drive! The New York Public Library System has a group of magic users, similar to the Folly, but they have no connections to law enforcement. Book 8 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch. It might get cleared up in the future, but Peter's FBI friend is seriously out of the loop, which is something that sort of seemed likely when he kept positioning her as the One Woman Magic Squad.

There were three or four lines that really stood out; otherwise I’d say it felt rather humorless, and much more like October Man, the recent novella with Tobias of the German police. As a series wends on, satisfying the readerly demand of "each one different from all the others" grows almost as hard to satisfy as "each one better than all the others. I did enjoy book 7, but it did read as if I’d missed a book or two – I don’t know if this makes sense, but it felt that that the series was no longer a standalone series – that Aaronovitch was pulling material from the graphic novels into the books so that, for a text only reader, a character will suddenly have a whole history with Peter that is never really explained. Since the SCC originated from the US, Peter asks Reynolds to look into its background and the head of the company (Terrence Skinner). Ben Aaronovitch's career started with a bang writing for Doctor Who, subsided in the middle and then, as is traditional, a third act resurgence with the bestselling Rivers of London series.

They are often portrayed as generous and charming yet powerful and unpredictable enough to pose a danger in the right circumstances. Didn't think I would enjoy reading about their relationship through a domestic lens, and the "pregnancy in the epilogue" reveal from the last book made me audibly ugh. Aaronovitch showcases a superlative blend of whimsy and grit in the eighth Rivers of London urban fantasy…. So far, Peter is working undercover security at a tech firm whose quirky founder has referenced Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in all his organizational roles and policies. A low-income housing tower gone awry, an old enemy with a bone to pick…and a shocker of an ending— Broken Homes is a delight.