One of the most important questions a second book in an urban fantasy series has to answer is: does the world feel bigger and more dangerous than it did in book one? Chapter 1 of The Paramedic’s Angel answers that question immediately, and the answer is yes — someone deliberately set a witch on fire. Dean Flynn is no longer the stunned rookie who had to be talked down in a parking lot after his first werewolf call. He is behind the wheel of the ambulance, driving with lights and sirens to the burn unit at Elk City Medical Center, while his partner and mentor Brynne manages a critically burned patient in the back — a witch with seventy percent second and third-degree burns, her airway intubated, her survival uncertain. This is not an accidental house fire. Someone attacked her. Read more…

What separates urban fantasy series that last from those that don’t is usually this: the rules of the world have emotional stakes, not just logistical ones. Chapter 4 of Extreme Medical Services is where Jamie Davis moves the world-building from clever to genuinely moving — because it is a chapter about why Unusuals are afraid of hospitals, what that fear costs them medically, and what it means for the EMS-U paramedics who are trying to close that gap. Dean notices, across his second and third shifts, that none of his Unusual patients want to be transported to the hospital. Even a Rakshasi — a magical creature from Indian mythology — presenting with chest pain refuses transport, despite the clinical concern that would normally warrant an ER visit. Dean asks Brynne why. The secret history of what hospitals have done to Read more…

If you love urban fantasy books where the supernatural world collides with everyday professions, Extreme Medical Services by Jamie Davis opens with exactly the kind of scene that hooks readers for the long haul: a paramedic wrestling a shifting werewolf to administer a glucagon injection. The book’s prologue does not ease you in. Dean Flynn, a freshly minted paramedic on his very first shift, finds himself in a suburban bedroom helping his veteran partner Brynne Garvey pin down a snarling, half-shifted lycanthrope named Bob — who, once stabilized, turns out to be a CPA and a member of the Chamber of Commerce with a poorly managed diabetic condition. Why readers who love the “hidden world” trope are obsessed with this opening The hidden world trope — where a protagonist discovers that monsters, magic, or supernatural beings exist alongside ordinary humans Read more…