Reddit mentions of The Rook: A Novel (The Rook Files Book 1)

Check out The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. I just finished it. A great book. No sappy romance at all.

Have you read Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series yet? If not, I'd definitely recommend it. It's a lot better than his first series and strikes a very similar tone to Lies of Locke Lamora. The main character is really likable and provides a lot of comic relief. There's a decent amount of humor in general, but also some pretty dark themes and events.

That's probably not a super out of the way suggestion, though. One of my favorite recent books is one that doesn't get recommended a lot: Rook, by Daniel O'Malley.

It's a bit of a shift in genre as it's closer to Urban Fantasy, but I was really surprised by this one. Another very likable main character, probably my favorite female protagonist in that genre. The book centers around an organization that protects the world from supernatural threats and is mostly staffed by people with various supernatural abilities. Not a super original-sounding premise, but it's done really well. The main character is a fairly high-ranking bureaucrat in that organization who has just had her memory erased at the start of the book. She left herself copious notes about the organization and about her own life, but a lot of the humor comes from the main character stumbling around trying not to let on that she has no idea what's going on. There's a really fun dynamic between the current main character and her relationship with her former self via the not left behind. There's also zilch in the way of romance, which is a plus for me. I find it difficult to find urban fantasy without too much romance, especially when the protagonist is female.

Ok books. I do books. I r gud reader (no really)

So some of my favorites:

The Dresden Files Series: While Harry Dresden annoys me on occasion, this is a fantastic series of books all about a wizard who advertises himself in the phone book. No, really. Its pretty damn entertaining. Start with Storm Front, the first novel. While the books are each self contained issues they all connect to each other to form a large mega narritive. Urban Fantasy!

The Percy Jackson Series: Starting with the Lightning Thief, this series of books by Rick Riordan are some of my favorites. I am a huge mythology nut, and the idea of a YA series where the kids are demigods is awesome. There are 2 primary series (one starts with The Lightning Thief and follows Percy, the second series starts with The Lost Hero) and tackle both Greek and Roman myth. He has started a new series called Magnus Chase which tackles Norse and its pretty damn good too. And there is the Kane Chronciles which deal with Egyptian...and all 3 groups take place in the same universe! Good stuff. YA Fantasy

The Rook: by Daniel O'Malley, the Rook starts with the main character waking up with no memories of her life, who she is, in a park surrounded by dead bodies wearing gloves. It gets more insane from there. I love this book, and the second in the series was pretty damn awesome as well. Long read though. Urban Fantasy at its finest.

ANYTHING By Brandon Sanderson: No. Really. Pick a book. Read it. Its good. Mistborn series, Alloy of Law series, The Rithmatist, the Reckoners, ect. Everything this man writers is gold. Just pick something and go. I admit I havent read SnapShot yet, but its on my list.

The Cape High Series: Ok so this is an indie author writing YA Superhero fiction. And its actually really good. I have read every book in the series and eagerly await the next one. It follows a group of high school super heroes, and their trials with entering the super hero world, where it turns out that Villains and Heroes for the most part are basically actors with super powers. They do deal with REAL supervillains though.

If you want more, I can give ya more.

I loved this book. Here's the description

"The body you are wearing used to be mine." So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.

She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.

In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, THE ROOK is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer.

I really enjoyed Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia. There's some odd sci-fi stuff thrown into her sexuality, but the main character pursues a relationship with another woman. There's definitely a healthy dose of romance, but it's not the main focus.

I'm a lesbian, and I tend to prefer female protagonists but I also don't enjoy when romance is the focus of the story. I didn't feel that was the case with this book, it's genre is some combination of sci-fi, superhero, and sport story.

The sequel takes a quick turn for the worse, however. It's like Carey saved all of the romance stuff for the sequel, and it's almost plotless fluff. I didn't like it all. That said, the first one is very self-contained and didn't need a sequel to begin with.

On a side note, one of my favorite books with a female protagonist is the Rook. The main character probably isn't gay, but there's pretty much no romantic elements to the story, which I love. She has a lot bigger things on her mind, and I don't think the topic even comes up more than once.

You might like The Rook. It's a spy/crime/fantasy novel set in the Modern UK.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QX07EG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1