Miriam Aster was once a cop - and also dead, but she doesn't remember much of it - and is looking for her next month's rent, which comes in the form of a mate at the morgue with an unusual corpse.

You'll never look at the fey or unicorns the same ever again. Ball uses a more traditional fey for this brilliant novella, dark manipulators that pull on the puppet strings of humanity. Of the unicorn and its appearances within, there is no like in any other story. Forget Peter S Beagle's classic tale, forget the legends of the purity and innocence of the magical horned beast. This is Horn.

Miriam is a brilliant and realistic character. For all urban fantasy that I've read, this is the only one to have a lesbian as the main character. Unlike other authors, Ball doesn't make Miriam's sexual orientation appear to be an aberration. It's just a fact. Simple and honest without bias.

The story itself is quite twisted, if not downright disturbing to some readers. Ball doesn't shy away from the obscene, gross or offensive and to a lot of readers this brutal honesty and clear sight will be like a breath of fresh air, away from euphemisms and frailness of words and with no apology for that.

If there were wishes for this book, there would be two: that it was longer and/or that there's a sequel! As a generality, urban fantasy seems to have a lot of faux grit to it. This is real.