Borderline

By: Mishell Baker

Narrated by: Arden Hammersmith

A cynical, disabled film director with borderline personality disorder gets recruited to join a secret organization that oversees relations between Hollywood and Fairyland in this Nebula Award–nominated and Tiptree Award Honor Book that’s the first novel in a new urban fantasy series from debut author Mishell Baker.

A year ago, Millie lost her legs and her filmmaking career in a failed suicide attempt. Just when she’s sure the credits have rolled on her life story, she gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales.

For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court. To find him, she’ll have to smooth-talk Hollywood power players and uncover the surreal and sometimes terrifying truth behind the glamour of Tinseltown. But stronger forces than just her inner demons are sabotaging her progress, and if she fails to unravel the conspiracy behind the noble’s disappearance, not only will she be out on the streets, but the shattering of a centuries-old peace could spark an all-out war between worlds.

No pressure.

amazing

loved this so much. it grabs you and won't let go. the the narriation was top notch. I also just found out this is a trilogy, will be getting them all.

Insightful and Unique

This book showed up on my suggestion list a fee times so I gave it a shot and I was not disappointed! The story was fresh and clever. The insight into some mental illnesses was very well written. Utterly brilliant!

super fun, great voice actress

I loved it. The story was fun to listen to and kept me engaged from beginning to end. I was sad for the story to be over.
sci fi meets mystery novel summer reading good time

It's the characters

Every once in a while, I run across a book I really shouldn't like, but I do. I don't go in for urban fantasy, I'm relatively bored with Los Angeles as a setting, Hollywood politics interest me not at all, and I typically close a book as soon as I see the word "fae".

But really good writing supersedes all of that. The characters in Borderline are so vivid and quirky that if one of them walked up to me and said even three words, I'd recognize him/her immediately. And this is true of *all* the characters, not just the main protagonist and antagonist; even the walk-ons breathe.

I'm sure other reviewers will comment on the fact that this is probably the first SFF novel ever to treat Borderline Personality Disorder seriously, and of course it's a gem for that reason alone. And yes, the magical world presented is clever and fun all by itself; but it seems to me that I would enjoy this novel even if it were mainstream literary fiction, and even if BPD didn't come up.

If you like living with characters who fascinate, this book is for you.

Interesting Premise

Based on the description I thought I would like the book more from the beginning. It took me a while to warm up to the characters and story. I thought there would be more personality and humor, but it was fairly dry and straight forward...which there was a little lack of character development.

The narrator was okay. I am not certain it was the best pairing as the world and characters were not brought to life. The voices were drab and dull, not very inspirational and added to bvb the lack luster story which is a shame because a very unique world was created... from the choice of characters with mental illness , to Hollywood, to a fae driven world. I wanted more from every angle. I do believe if there was a less drab narrator the story would gave come to life.

I am on the fence about the next book... part of me wants to check it out but another part lacks certainty.