Ghostbusters meets Brother’s Grimm!
This title was soo good, I read it at 2nd time; actually my husband and I read it to each other (and I submitted the review to the newspaper)

What if fairy tales pick people to be their vehicles, so their story can be told? What if some people are born predisposed to being an archetypal character or more precisely a fairy tale character? What happens in this tale, is that these narratives get out of control and become deadly. Because these aren’t Disney’s versions, these are the Brother’s Grimm.

These fairy tale manifestations are monitored by the ATI Bureau, is a little-known government agency, that prevents them from getting out of control. Henrietta - or Henry - Marchen leads a team of field-agents whose job is to deal with incursions of these fairy tale memes. One of their first assignments is to stop a Sleeping Beauty. Here, our Sleeping Beauty manifests as a disease carrier of a new H1N1 airborne flu strain, where people catching the disease fall into a deep sleep. The team’s mission is to stop the contagion from spreading beyond the hospital where everyone is infected and asleep.

There is much to enjoy in author Seanan McGuire’s writing, including strong multi-dimensional female characters. Our protagonist, Henrietta, finds creative solutions in dire situations and is undaunted by risk-taking. She commands respect from her team and is unafraid of confronting the bureau boss. Yet she knows when to back off and is able to hear feedback from her team.
Our second protagonist Sloane Winters, was born an Archetypal “Wicked Stepsister”. She is one of the few evil archetypes who managed to elude the clutches of the Narrative. But she had to fight to escape and still struggles against the Narrative’s compelling pull toward evil. Sloane is snarky and caustic providing much of the humor in the tail.
In fact McGuire weaves a lot of humor into her story, having fun with the fairy tale theme. For example “Good Grimm!” is one of the expletives Henry uses when in trouble. Another play on the theme is Henrietta’s last name Marchen or Märchen means fairy tale in German. McGuire sprinkles wry humor throughout the tale.

If you can, I recommend listening to the audio version of this title. The talented narrator, Mary Robinette Kowal, makes a really good book into an outstanding tale. Kowal’s voicing creates unique and compelling characters. Sloane’s snarkiness is just the right timbre, and you never wonder which character is doing the speaking. If you like fantasy and snarky humor - give this book a listen!