Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge

July 4, 2016
Krueger's enjoyable light contemporary fantasy novel will satisfy fans of bars and bartenders. Bailey Chen is fresh out of business school, but she has no plan, so she's living with her parents in Chicago and working at a bar where her lifelong friend Zaneâwith whom she shares emotional baggage that isn't quite in the pastâis a bartender. When Bailey kills an attacking demonic creature called a tremens, she learns that bartenders have a far deeper history than most people know, and that drinks mixed with a specific brand of booze can temporarily give her magic powers to fight the monsters. Nobody believes her when she notices supposedly impossible things the creatures are doing that could signal an oncoming tremen apocalypse, and some of those she trusts may be more dangerous to her than demons. The rare action scenes are brief but intense, but even a flood of tremens takes a backseat to Bailey fighting her way through the shadowy bartenders' world. The climax seems a little too easy, but the winning main characters and the occasional histories of the drinks provide plenty of fun. Agent: Jennie Goloboy.