What a great read! This novel pushed all of the right buttons for me and urban fantasy. Quickly paced, complicated heroine, great dialogue. Plus I loved the alternate version of Louisville (my brother lives there).

One thing that really made the book stand out was the inclusion of the history, newspaper bits, and quotes at the beginning of each chapter. It gave a good peek into this story's alternate timeline. The police procedural bits reminded me of earlier examples of paranormal / urban fantasy (early Anita Blake, for example) and this definitely was a plus for me. I loved it and look forward to reading more from this writer.

Loved Tessa as a main character, interesting, fun and completely relatable. Plot was really interesting, subplots cropping up and loved the final twist because I was not expecting that at all after what had happened. The world-building was something I really enjoyed, although it could turn into an info-dump at times (Tessa and Qyll at the very start of the novel where Tessa explains about the rift to Qyll was a pretty obvious example). Qyll was also a fairly bland character, who was delayed to crucial plot points in order to give Tessa time to shine. I never really got a sense of him as a character at all.
Did enjoy the book and would be interested in a sequel, mostly for the interesting world-buidling.

MUDDY WATERS is set in a world where the boundaries between world have been taken down or thinned and an influx of supernaturals have come creating new rules, prejudices, and realities that humans and "Others" have to live with. A lot is going on in this story as it seems this new reality is pretty new as people are still working out the kinks of how to live with people who have magic powers and which law enforcement agency has jurisdiction over what and who. The focus of the story is on a murder mystery that crosses worlds; ours and faerie or as the book calls it, Otherwhere.

Tessa Reddick is a pretty standard smart, underdog sort of urban fantasy heroine with a compelling backstory, just coming out of jail for a crime she didn't commit. Her partner Qyll is kind of interesting and I'd like to know more about his life as an elf in the Otherwhere. Along with Tessa and Qyll, most of the characters were not really fleshed out enough for me to get a true sense of who they are. Perhaps the fleshing out will occur in later books because I'd really like to get to know them better.

I was confused about the timeline of the story. There seemed to be random time jumps that had me going back pages to see if I missed something. Tessa gets out of jail, sets up her business, and then there is a very unclear idea of just how long she has been out until she starts working with the FBI. Has it been a week for her to get settled? Was she working for a few months on small jobs for the FBI before the central murder mystery starts? I don't know. I had the same issue with following the murders. There is one Tessa is doing on her own and one with the FBI. They sort of relate but it was hard to follow and I kept getting confused who was a part of which murder.

Basically, I enjoyed MUDDY WATERS enough to want to see where it goes in future books, but had issues with timing/pacing and fleshing out the characters.

What a fun urban fantasy! The protagonist Tess is released by the FBI from a mental institution after being there for five years for being accused of murdering her entire family. But she was framed. So she works supernatural cases for the FBI while trying to find who killer her family and framed her. There were a few things I didn't understand, like how religion works after the Rift (or that the author poked fun at certain religious groups), but otherwise it was an enjoyable read. I especially liked the Otherwhere scenes. And of course, the dark elf Qull. Would've loved to see more of him. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Posted on Goodreads and Amazon.

To put it bluntly: Muddy Waters is this fantasy-drenched murder mystery that's heavy on murder but light on the mystery.
A lot of people have said that the novel takes a unique world and fills it with forgettable one-dimensional characters, which I highly disagree with. Sure, the characters are flat and their motivations are about as deep as a puddle. But where is that "unique world" that got so much praise?
The book is set in a universe where a rift between the magic world of Otherwhere (gah) and the normal Earth has caused a severe shake-up in everyone's lifestyle. Federal agencies now have to govern (and employ!) werewolves, witches and elfs; magic exists and is used regularly; cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. This is nothing new, just an inspired patchwork of other famous fantasy world. The concept of two wildly different world converging is still appealing, but it's tough to seriously say that it's original or unique.

Now, the characters, the poor little heroes. Tessa is snarky, her Elf partner is sexy (I could also add that he's a prince, but that has no bearing on the plot whatsoever and is just a bizzare similarity to some Disney films where everyone is royalty and animals are magic), the Red Queen is evil, the religious fanatics are religious. This is not an attempt to describe the characters as concise as possible, this is literally all I can say about them. The only one who could get a pass is the Elf agent, because his characterization is reminiscent of the unfortunate female characters in noir novels: mysterious, sexy, dark (literally in his name!), and utterly pointless arm candy. One would think that we are not living in a world where characters like that are still used. One would be wrong.

After all this negativity it may seem surprising, but I did enjoy this somewhat, mostly when I accepted that this is just a "cozy mystery" novel with a bit more violence and an elf coat of paint. Every single twist is predictable, every plotline climax is anti-climactic, every joke is obvious but still fun. This book is as middle-of-the-road as they get with some good and a lot of bad.

My biggest gripe though is the mystery of "Who killed Tessa's family?". Now, that's a good plot, a serviceable, age-old, time-tested story. It could be an epic chase across several books to see who was behind it. To get revenge, to clear her name etc. Instead, it's anticlimactically revealed at the end of the book and then dealt with in about 20 pages. "Disappointing" doesn't even begin to cover it. This plotline was butchered, by god, it was a bloodbath.

Overall, treat it like a middling "cozy mystery" book and it's okay. Try to read it as a serious fantasy thriller and end up disappointed. The choice is yours.

A rollicking fun read! Thompson has created an intriguing world where magic, humans, and paranormal entities all co-exist on Earth and also on "Otherwhere" - an alternate dimension from which all supernatural powers originate.

Main character Tessa Riddick (a witch wrongly accused of killing her entire family) teams up with Dark Elf Qyll Toutant of the FBI's Supernormal Investigations Department to solve a string of murders targeting "supernormals." Romantic tension crackles between the two. During their investigation, they run into plenty of obstacles - not the least of whom is the Holly King (basically a super-sexy Santa figure brimming with magical powers. HELLO, Santa!).

Thompson's cast of characters is unique and fascinating, and I'm happy to know that I'll learn more about them in the sequel. Muddy Waters has a very satisfying ending but is also a great introduction to a series. Looking forward to the next Otherwhere novel!

Muddy Waters (Otherwhere 1), Book ONE of the Otherwhere, Sara O. Thompson

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  General Fiction (adult), Sci-fi and Fantasy

I was really intrigued by the description, i do like these "crossover world " reads, where our world and the supernatural exist together but in a kind of parallel spacing. And Magic, I love that!
Its kind of a muddled read though :-( some things I liked, but sadly a lot that was just plain confusing and had me backtracking trying to work it out. 
 
When we first meet Tessa she's been incarcerated in a tough prison for five years, much of that doped up and then - wham- the FBI flexes its muscle and she's out. No detox issues given she's gone from one extreme to nothing and no support! 
Somehow given she's still assumed to be guilty of killing her family, and also a very dangerous witch I thought she'd be under more supervision.
I like her and of course we know she didn't do it, but others in the book will still see the conviction and think she's guilty.

The whole FBI thing seems like a device used to get her - and other characters at different times - in a certain place in the story. There's little that connects to real policing, no training, no office meetings and direction, no reports to make. She's more or less left alone to run her shop, except for this one thing they need her for right now. 
 
Her FBI partner Qyll is a Dark Elf. Other than being told he's hot, and picking up that he's a man who uses few words, and has a sort of old fashioned speech style we don't really know much about him.
They don't really spend a great deal of time together, don't act as partners, and I found that hard to believe in. Tessa is just a short while away from maximum imprisonment, regarded as dangerous to a deadly extent, drugged up to a comatose state for much of that, and now she's let loose on the world to track down a murderer, or murderers, without any real guidance, training, directions or input from the FBI and Qyll.
He was a potentially great opportunity that seems wasted. His character has the potential to be so much more. Maybe, hopefully, as the series continues.... 

Of course the murders stack up, everyone except Qyll seems to have a down on Tessa, and despite having no real experience she's more or less left alone to track down the perpetrator(s).
There's lots of action and drama, but it got very confusing at times, and I found one of my pet hates being used too much, where the lead character gets new/unexplained powers just when they're needed most, and when the reader thinks there's no way out for them.
I needed to know more about Tessa, more about what she could do, before I could believe she escaped almost injury free from the multiple conflicts she gets caught up in. 
There's so many characters too that I had to keep backtracking to find out who they were, how they connected, and where they belonged in the story. 
The timing is sometimes a bit strange. There'll be an action packed, drama filled few hours, and then next paragraph we're days or weeks later, without any indication of what had happened in the interval.
Its sounds as if all I have are criticisms and that's not true, these are real issues for me, but the potential for things to work out into a great series is there IMO.
It just needs tidying a bit, better pacing and use of characters and constructs ( the FBI for example).
Set secondary characters in plots that fix them in the readers minds, instead of leaving them wondering "who was that again? Where do they fit it?" when they suddenly crop up.

Its not only a debut story, but a first in series and that's always tough to get right.
I do feel though that there's some unique ideas in this story, a series with a good future here.
I like Tessa's spells, the way they're explained, the way she uses ones developed in childhood - that kind of things works well for me, and I feel then that as they are so ingrained its believable when she pulls them out just when she needs them without barely thinking about them. Kind of how they've become second nature.
More of that kind of thinking for other events would help IMO. 

 Its not billed as Romance, but I get the impression that possibly in the future Qyll and Tessa will get closer to that. and a s a romance lover of course that appeals to me too!   

Stars:Three, a story that for me has a great future but which I feel needs some series tidying and attention to get there. 

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

I really enjoyed this book, the main character Tessa is very easy to like and connect with straight away.I loved her sense of fun and her love of bourbon,good brand by the way! and her cat and her way of looking at the world,and what a world , this writer isn't short of imagination.I loved all the different types of people human and most definitely not human,like the old vampire not at all as vamps are portrayed on film.The pace of the book and the story was really good as well.All in all a cracking read , fun and enjoyable, not just for the intended YA group either, I am far from that and didn't feel the book was too young for me, I look forward to reading more by this author .Thanks to Netgalley and The Publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

The premise of this book was very promising ............ unfortunately the story follows the title 'Muddy Waters'.
The world the story is set in is very different from the one twenty years earlier - a 'rift 'occurred which allowed creatures from the Otherworld to cross over into the realm of mankind and visa versa.

The story starts with our heroine , Tessa Reddick , being released from a high security mental institution by the FBI .
She had been sent there for the murder of her family and coven five years earlier and kept heavily sedated , a crime for which she is innocent .
WHY has she been been released ? we are not told !
A series of murders have taken place - 'para-normals' are being killed in gruesome ways - how can the FBI use Tessa to catch those responsible ?
Tessa is paired with a FBI dark elf, Qyll, to look into the murders using her unique 'witch' talents , whilst at the same time trying to find who killed her family .

The problem however is that the book jumps from place to place and timeline to timeline .
The characters are less believable because no real reason is ever given as to why Tessa was released and how she manages to go from a sedated mental patient to running her own business and running hither and thither into the Otherworld and back .

The potential for a series is good if the author can flesh out the characters, to allow them to grow and build a more believable 'World'.
I was given an Arc of this book by the Publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review .