Hours Gone By

I don't like Isana much (though normally I love healer characters), partly for spoilery reasons, partly for the way I feel she (and some other 'good guys' characters) get to kind of... have their moral cake and eat it, too, if that makes any sense -- like, the world Butcher set up is one with shades of gray, but a few characters are allowed to take the moral high ground and the narrative actually makes it so they do not suffer any negative consequences for it. Or when they don't take moral high ground, they still get to come across as good and moral. But anyway!

But the protagonist just stopped being a fish, so we'll see.

LOL, it does pick up after that :) But in general, I agree. I like the integration of fae and real world in Wicked Lovely better, on the whole, and I think Dresden Files does a much better job with the mystery/PI aspect. I do think the Toby books are doing something unusual as far as urban fantasy-with-faeries goes, in that Toby is not an outsider narrator but someone steeped in the fae side of life (even though, as a changeling, she doesn't fully belong there either). But that choice has added challenges for the writing, and it doesn't pay off as well for me as I would've hoped. (Speaking of urban fantasy with faeries, have you read Holly Black's Tithe series?) That's another one that I like (YA, like Wicked Lovely).