Emma Bull is urban fantasy for me. It's possible I'm a little behind the times.

Admittedly, War of the Oaks is right at the beginning of that genre and it's really good.

I don't care for Harris' Aurora Teagarden stuff, but I like the Shakespeare and Grave series...which are not, technically, fantasy. I've enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse ones that I've read, but I haven't caught up with all of the politics yet.

Sigh, so many books, so little time.

Erin: Walmart: guns, fishing rods, sewing stuff, groceries and a pharmacy.

Hard to control by yourself though. Post-apocalyptic Buffista Island?

Is Urban Fantasy the genre that usually has a cover with the female protagonist showing her back and usually sporting a tattoo and wearing leather or something badass-ish and holding a weapon?

yes. And I've liked many of them, including Briggs, Harrison, and Andrews. Not quite as sold on Richelle Mead, and go back and forth on Rachel Caine. Hate when heroines get TSTL or when after a couple of books they have to bring the big big big bad and the heroine has to have god-like powers

Hate when heroines get TSTL

I had to look that up.

or when after a couple of books they have to bring the big big big bad and the heroine has to have god-like powers

Anita Blake?

Anita Blake?

Also Joanna Baldwin in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series. I read about five of them and had to stop, and not just because I was bored of seeing Caine's fetish for Michael Shanks laid out so overtly on the page.

Also Joanna Baldwin in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series.

And it seems Mercy Thompson, in Patricia Brigg's books, is heading there too (in some ways, especially with the "this book's big bad must be bigger and badder than last books!", which by the time you get to book five or six gets...awkward) I have appreciated that while in Kim Harrison's books the heroine can be kinda dumb, and does keep getting more powerful, the conflicts are a bit different, and flow from the previous books, and aren't just "Ooh! NEW BIGGER BADDER EVILDUDE!"

I have appreciated that while in Kim Harrison's books the heroine can be kinda dumb, and does keep getting more powerful, the conflicts are a bit different, and flow from the previous books, and aren't just "Ooh! NEW BIGGER BADDER EVILDUDE!"

Y'know, it only just dawned on me that I've probably missed at least one new release in that series. This is what happens when a new series (oh Parsol Protectorate, so much fun!) absorbs your brain.

Yep, the godlike power thing can get annoying, especially in the Weather Warden series, but I've still enjoyed most everything those authors have written. Some of it is guilty pleasure reading, but that's never bothered me much. If a story is decently written and pulls me in and makes me want to finish it, I can forgive a lot.

I haven't teally minded Mercy getting more powerful as the books go on because I always thought the character was more powerful than she gave herself credit for being.