This book is rather a hodge podge of genres that, for me, doesn't quite come off. Layla is a weapons expert of Russian descent, teaching in WashingtonThis book is rather a hodge podge of genres that, for me, doesn't quite come off. Layla is a weapons expert of Russian descent, teaching in Washington DC, when her grandmother, a seer/witch, phones telling her to come home immediately. Home is a small town 500 miles away but Layla loves her grandmother and knows she has psychic insights so packs some of her swords and daggers and does as requested. When she gets there, her grandmother has already boarded up the house and got in lots of supplies, but gives Layla another huge shopping list. In town, Layla sees Ian, her childhood sweetheart who cheated on her then married someone else. She also picks up the holy water on the list.
When she returns from her shopping expedition, the TV is full of reports of a killer flu. Workmen arrive to carry out repairs - a strong fence has already been erected around the property - and Layla assists in getting rid of a lifetime's accumulation of trinkets, storing the supplies in the newly-emptied cupboards. All her grandmother will say is that Layla must wait and see. The TV has reports of national guardsmen shooting violent flu victims (though I doubted the authorities would permit the transmission of that), riots in major towns and general quarantine. Grandmother tells Layla that her own granny gave her a mushroom tea to awaken her latent psychic powers, and she offers the same to Layla. After drinking it, Layla sleeps for two days and when she awakens the zombie apocalypse is in full swing and she must go to help the survivors in town. Her natural leadership skills mean she is able to organise and delegate where necessary. The convenient death of the wife of her ex means that he has designs on rekindling their relationship, but she starts to see what a sleazy person he is and develop feelings for his medic brother Jamie who, it transpires, loved her all along.
Layla's weapon skills are very convenient though I accepted that as part of this take on the apocalypse. She does verge on becoming a Mary Sue at times with some of her feats, such as shooting a gun from a motorbike, being a little beyond belief. The love triangle of the brothers isn't too unpleasant given the backstory, and Ian starts to become a minor villain once his negligence and the stupidity of another man result in the death of another character.
I think it was a mistake not to continue with the character of the grandmother. The forest spirits were an unusual element which could have worked with the Russian folklore background, but the switch about two thirds of the way in, to an entirely different type of book which dropped the zombies in favour of a different supernatural being did not convince. I also thought the character of Buddie, a hunter with a bow, should have been used to more effect earlier in the story as it's almost as if he only appears with that abrupt twist into a different kind of story. The story also ends in a cliffhanger; I see from other reviews that an end chapter about another character used to be included, but that wasn't the case with mine. Altogether, I can only rate this as 2 stars because of the wasted potential: a lot more could have been made of the community surviving in situ, especially with the hints that the zombies were becoming intelligent....more
Some years ago I read a few paranormal/urban fantasy novels by such authors as Patricia Briggs, but became dissatisfied as I found a lot of them formuSome years ago I read a few paranormal/urban fantasy novels by such authors as Patricia Briggs, but became dissatisfied as I found a lot of them formulaic. I recently came across this one in a charity bookcase at a supermarket, and it caught my attention as being an obvious American import and not likely therefore to have been published in the UK.
I gathered when I began reading that it was a later book in a series (when I checked it was book 2) and some questions poised in the opener are answered or at least partly-so in this volume. The book's universe is one in which, forty years ago, an engineered virus, which became embedded in a genetically modified tomato, wiped out about a quarter of the human population world-wide. Most of the uncanny folk who lived alongside humans unbeknownst to them decided to come out of hiding and have lived openly ever since, often enjoying more power and influence than humans. Some were completely immune to the virus and some caught a dose resembling flu. Only the elves were wiped out, due to their previous interbreeding with humans (although that's not necessarily true.)
The story is told in first person past tense by Rachel Morgan, a witch: in this reality, witches are another species, not human. Rachel is engaged in pulling off a heist to steal a fish, supposedly the mascot of the Cincinnati baseball team, ably assisted by Jenks, a tiny and feisty pixy (not a typing mistake: the book uses that odd spelling instead of pixie despite using pixies as the plural). Rachel lives with Ivy, who is a live vampire and will become one of the undead when she dies. Ivy is currently trying to avoid drinking blood. Jenks and his extensive family live in the garden of the ex-church that Rachel shares with Ivy. (An oddity as part of the plot depends on every part of the building except the kitchen being sacred ground, yet I know that churches turned into secular homes are deconsecrated.)
The opening scene is just the first of a series of mishaps and ill-conceived scrapes which Rachel makes a habit of entangling herself in as she always acts on impulse, quite often through anger, even when she knows she's making a stupid move and wiser heads such as Jinks' expressly tells her not to. During the course of the novel she is embroiled in more and more ridiculous situations involving deadly vamps, her own co-tenant (who keeps being overcome by bloodlust and attacking her) and a demon which was first sent to attack her in book one. The demon’s bite has left her vulnerable to take-over by any vampire in the vicinity and she also is in his debt though I can't recall why.
There's a gratuitous explicit sex scene with human boyfriend Nick. I felt sorry for him and for the hapless fish which she abducts, mistreats and rarely feeds. Eventually, the poor thing ends up as someone's dinner. She never considers taking it back to the rightful owners when learning of her mistake: given that they are rich and influential and are werewolves, or at least have weres working for them, I found it unconvincing that they didn't at least sue or have her arrested. The situation in which she involves Nick becomes so extreme by the end of the story that I lost all patience with the character and won’t bother to seek out the rest of the series. I liked Jenks but even he couldn't redeem it for me, so it's an overall 2 star rating and that's purely for Jenks' sake....more
I found this one a bit uneven. Maddy is kidnapped from her bed and finds herself in a fortress where she is told she is one of the vaettir, a Norse naI found this one a bit uneven. Maddy is kidnapped from her bed and finds herself in a fortress where she is told she is one of the vaettir, a Norse name for nature spirits, but also rather wider than that if googled. She has a 'gift' or curse whereby she can inadvertently draw out the energy of other people, killing them, when she is only trying to comfort them for a relatively slight injury. For some reason, she has been left in the human world, untrained, until now, but the leader of a particular faction among the vaettir wants to use her ability. Quite a bit of the story involves walking around the fortress and traipsing up and down corridors and in and out of the kitchen, so it did strike me as rather static until Maddy finally leaves the fortress.
There is a lot of torture and graphic descriptions of injury and death. There is also a sort-of romance with another character, the brother of a vaettir who helps the heroine. Maddy is drawn into the conflict between the various factions and never knows who is on whose side given the shifting allegiances. It's a bit confusing about the abilities of the various characters - her would-be boyfriend has cat fangs at times but doesn't actually shift into a cat creature. Altogether, I found the world-building not quite concrete enough and the violence a bit too graphic so I can only give this an OK 2 star rating....more
Persephone, who works as a professional psychic, meets UFO expert and celebrity Paul, and they fall in love while being chased by alien-human hybrids,Persephone, who works as a professional psychic, meets UFO expert and celebrity Paul, and they fall in love while being chased by alien-human hybrids, possessed humans and human collaborators. She has a spirit guide but there's a twist around that, and develops psychic super powers very conveniently though I imagine that's actually being channelled through her by the "spirit guide". There's a reset button about a major plot point. Quite light-hearted fluff and decently written but not something that interests me enough to read the rest of the series. I rate it an OK 2 stars....more
As with a lot of this author's work, this is a mix of romance, suspense and extrasensory perception. Zoe is an interior designer with two secrets: oneAs with a lot of this author's work, this is a mix of romance, suspense and extrasensory perception. Zoe is an interior designer with two secrets: one is that she picks up sensory clues from places where negative emotions have impressed themselves, often from a crime of violence. This provides the impetus for her to hire a private detective, Ethan, to investigate the possibility that a new client may have murdered his wife. The other secret is shared with a friend of hers, and provides the main plotline.
The main characters were fairly convincing and the romantic aspect not overplayed, with the sex scenes not cringe making. There was also some light and humorous interplay from Ethan's young nephews. I did find some of the dialogue more like something from a corporate brochure than how people actually speak.
There could be a trigger for some readers as two minor characters have a propensity for sexual violence against women, though they don't actually succeed in their attempted rapes. The female protagonist is active and courageous, and does not passively await rescue by the hero when danger ensues, which was positive. On the whole, a nice light read but not a keeper, so for me this rates 3 stars....more
I can't recall how this book and its sequels ended up on my Kindle, but I decided it was time to read a few of the books that have been on there for aI can't recall how this book and its sequels ended up on my Kindle, but I decided it was time to read a few of the books that have been on there for ages. I found this good on the whole, but not quite good enough to earn a full five stars.
On the plus side, the premise and world building are refreshingly novel for the paranormal romance genre. Addie, short for Addled Alchemist, is a young woman who has no memory beyond waking up near the burning ruins of the famous alchemist school. However, her encyclopaedic knowledge of alchemical formulas is undamaged, and the tatoos on her arms indicate she is a Master Alchemist, something very unusual for one apparently so young. For this alternative world is one in which magic returned about 20 years ago, and New Magic, as it is known, is alive and well and even has a government department to oversee it. (Old Magic, which includes a few creatures such as Hellhounds, stayed undercover until the return of magic.)
There are magical people and creatures - such as the Elementals who can wield earth, air, wind or fire, and Addie's close friend James, who is a shapeshifter and Hellhound with the ability to create gateways into a reality where living beings generally cannot survive. Alchemists are not magical in themselves, but their potions work practical magic. Other magical practioners include necromancers who tend to be villains as they reanimate the dead - and sometimes kill people to do so.
As the story opens, Addie is earning a living making magic bullets for a gunshop run by James' very unpleasant brothers, but both of them are soon set on a breakneck series of adventures when some SWAT type characters arrive, seemingly to kidnap Addie, and they are helped by Rowan, Lord of Fire, a powerful Elemental. A mutual attraction eventually becomes a romance between Addie and Rowan, despite Addie's habitual sarcasm (the story is told as a first person narrative). Addie's quest to discover how and why she lost her memory, and to regain it, ultimately causes heartbreak for her and others.
I enjoyed the story but found it a bit too whistlestop in places and would have liked a bit more change of tone. I also wasn't totally won over by the ending, although I can see that sets up great possibilities for the sequel(s). So, as indicated above, it is a 4 star rating for me....more
This volume of the series is the last one in my possession and after reading this, I won't bother to seek out any more. It is definitely the weakest sThis volume of the series is the last one in my possession and after reading this, I won't bother to seek out any more. It is definitely the weakest so far, with a rambling set of incidents thrown together, starting off with a rather boring and pointless wedding at which Sookie gets to play bridesmaid in great detail. She finally divests herself of at least one more boyfriend, and it seems that in book 7, which I don't have and haven't read, she and Eric were bonded by his having given her blood three times to save her life. It sounds as if book 7 might have been more interesting than this ragbag of ideas.
Some more backstory on the family and Sookie's fairy ancestry is explained, but some of it is pretty distasteful. For someone to hope that her grandmother was raped rather than choosing to have an extramarital affair in order to have children (because her husband was sterile due to having had mumps) is pretty awful. More baggage from the whole Debbie Pelt saga also materialises, something that has been dragged out much longer than it merited. Other distasteful elements are stalkerish behaviour by ex-boyfriend Bill, tolerated by Sookie, and her continuing jealousy towards his ex-girlfriend. She also now seems to be daggers drawn with ex-friend Arlene, which must be due to something that happened in book 7.
In this volume, the decks are cleared for what seems to be a new direction for the series at the very end (view spoiler)[when Sookie seeks out a family member who seems to have the same gift as herself (hide spoiler)]. All in all, I'm quite content not to bother with any more of these and am rating this rather generously as an OK 2 star read....more
In this sixth volume of the series, some major developments occur. However, contrary to the blurb the book is not all about Sookie's visit to New OrleIn this sixth volume of the series, some major developments occur. However, contrary to the blurb the book is not all about Sookie's visit to New Orleans, ostensibly to deal with the affairs of her cousin Hadley, who had become a vampire and been murdered by another vampire, six weeks before the current story opens. In fact, it isn't until page 150 that she is finally in a car heading there.
The first part of the story is pretty slow. It deals mainly with various 'domestic' issues such as Jason's love life, and his status as a "bitten" shapeshifter, and some changes in the line up of men who have been queuing to jump into bed with Sookie. A couple of her suitors drop out of the running when she accepts the fact that she could never bear to live in the inbred and remote community led by Calvin Norris, and she falls out with another man who was formerly a front runner. I did find her reaction to finding out that Calvin had fathered three children by different women - his duty as pack leader, since the birth rate is low in his community - rather extreme when she says she was profoundly glad she had never considered marrying him because she would have thrown up, during the conversation when they finally come to the end of the road in their potential relationship. I appreciate that she might have felt uncomfortable around the various women and their children, but this seems another symptom of the mentality which made her seethe with rage and jealousy when Bill brought his new date into the bar where Sookie works - despite the fact that he had been her abuser by most people's standards.
The impending visit to New Orleans is introduced early on in a weird revelation about Sookie's cousin Hadley, her vampire nature and her relationship with the vampire Queen of Louisiana. It seems that the vampire who killed Hadley has already been executed, and that this was carried out with Sookie as a witness, according to some vampiric ceremony. I hasten to say this is not a spoiler because Sookie feeds this to the reader as an infodump on page 13. I thought I must have missed out a volume. But no, I had read the book immediately preceding this one, which contains no mention of Hadley. I vaguely recall that a daughter of her aunt was mentioned in book 1 of the series, as someone who had gone off the rails, possibly through drug addiction, and had not been in touch even when her mother had died so could have been dead. It seems all along that she had instead become a vampire. But it is a weird authorial choice to tackle all that in a few paragraphs, as it seems sufficient material for a whole book, given that Hadley had been off the radar for years.
Sookie's new relationship with were tiger Quinn is the big romance of this volume. I did wonder if there was a continuity error when Sam reacted to Quinn's appearance at the bar - Sookie stated that she hadn't told him of Quinn's involvement (as an event organiser) in the leadership contest among the Shreveport weres at the end of the previous volume - since I did remember Sam's reaction to smelling a tiger's scent on Sookie in that story. I went back to check and it wasn't such an error as I thought, as he hadn't at the time realised the tiger was Quinn and she hadn't told him, but as he knows who Quinn is in this volume and can surely smell that he is a were tiger, it's odd that we don't see the "penny drop" from Sam's reaction.
As if there aren't enough supernatural elements in this series already, more are introduced in this volume: demons and semi-demons. Also, the fairy character Claudine mentions that she is attempting to become an angel, and it seems demons, fairies and angels are on some kind of sliding scale. Claudine acts again as fairy godmother, and a later revelation perhaps explains why she takes so much of an interest in Sookie. She does explain why she hasn't been able to turn up every time Sookie is in trouble, so the author obviously realised that needed to be covered.
More minor characters are introduced, but at least the witch Amelia is an appealing character and it seems might become a friend for Sookie. One thing that should be mentioned is that the book needs a trigger warning for a scene in the second half involving assault at the hands of one of a band of abductors.
As previously, the author describes scenes of action well, such as those set in the swamps, or the climactic battle. But the book drags in all the places where the setting is scenes of domesticity, people chatting about forthcoming marriages etc.
A huge revelation occurs in the New Orleans section of the book, which rocks Sookie to the core and leads to some rather reckless behaviour. Despite the other character's attempts to make amends late on, it seemed like classic abuser behaviour to me so I was pleased that Sookie did not fall for it.
The New Orleans setting was, I felt, rather wasted. Apart from a sequence set in swamps outside the city, there wasn't really anything evoked of the area or that couldn't have happened in any normal town.
All in all, a rather mixed bag so on balance it comes out at a 3 star rating...more
In volume 5 of the series, Sookie's suspicion that her brother Jason is now a lesser shapeshifter after being held prisoner and bitten several times bIn volume 5 of the series, Sookie's suspicion that her brother Jason is now a lesser shapeshifter after being held prisoner and bitten several times by a were panther who was jealous of his relationship with a female shifter, has been borne out. This makes him a suspect with the rest of the shifter community when a sniper starts shooting were wolves and other shapeshifters, as some believe Jason may be taking revenge for his involuntary change. Meanwhile, Sookie herself becomes a target for arson and other attacks, and is trying to help her friend Tara, who has fallen into the power of a rather nasty vampire. And as ever, she is trying to balance her relationships with the multitude of men in her life, all of whom are non human and keen to get her into bed, with or without the intention of forming a steady relationship.
(view spoiler)[The elephant in the room is tackled early on when werewolf Alcide points out that Bill did rape her when she was trapped by his very nasty and now deceased ex-girlfriend. Again, Sookie excuses Bill by saying that he was suffering from torture and blood deprivation, and desisted when he realised it was her he was attacking - something that hardly excuses it in reality. Later, she feels happy and safe when Bill arrives to cuddle her in her hospital bed. This is just wrong on so many levels. (hide spoiler)]
In this story, Sookie provides more evidence of her lack of taste in men and her inability to keep her distance, raising expectations in various shifters and vamps. If she had any sense, she would take up with Sam who she admits is a good friend, and fancies, is a hard worker with his own business and as a minor character confirms, is "nuts about her".
The books do seem to suffer from changed premises and another occurs when the fairy character suddenly acquires a brother whom Sookie has met off stage as it were, despite no previous mention and a time lapse between this book and the previous one of only a few weeks. At one point also, a certain character suddenly acquires a title, as in Sir Charles, which is a one off and seems to be an error.
More minor characters - one introduced previously and two others in this book - come to premature ends. There is a huge cast of characters by now and the book does rather lack focus, especially with such emphasis on werewolf politics. So many characters appear that most are very sketchy and I struggled to recall who one was whenever he appeared - the werewolf who opposes Alcide's father in the contest for leadership of the Weres.
On balance, this is more of a 2 and a half stars, but given the Goodreads rating system, comes out as 3....more
In volume 4, Sookie is trying to come to terms with her breakup with the perfidious Bill, who luckily is absent from most of the story -although he reIn volume 4, Sookie is trying to come to terms with her breakup with the perfidious Bill, who luckily is absent from most of the story -although he returns in time to deliver some useful information about an enemy of hers. Sookie is kept busy because she finds Eric, the usually suave, sarcastic and totally in command, Viking vampire, running scared down the road near her house because he has amnesia. When she contacts his second-in-command Pam, she learns that Eric has been cursed by some very nasty witches who are trying to take over his business and also to get their hands on him - possibly not because he is drop-dead gorgeous but more to do with his blood fetching a lot on the black market given his age. Sookie is then employed to keep Eric safe, during the day lying low at her house and using the under the house bolt hole that Bill had previously installed, but she is soon preoccupied with the disappearance of her brother Jason.
This story includes pretty much everything bar the kitchen sink given that it features not only the vampires, shape-shifters and werewolves previously introduced, but also a fairy (which given her description would have been better termed a fae or Sidhe I think) and various types of witches: Wiccans (nature religion humans), magic practitioners, and weres who are both witches and drinkers of vampire blood.
The two subplots weave together a bit more successfully than in earlier volumes, and the latter half of the book is more successful as I found it dragged rather in the first half. It was interesting to see the sweet, rather insecure, version of Eric, but even Sookie recognises by the end that a relationship with him in that state would be fake and that it is best that he be restored to his normal state. Having him like that though did enable Pam to come to the fore and show her effectiveness, and she is quite likeable for a vampire. There is also an interesting possible development for Jason. (view spoiler)[ I did think though that the author had thrown away one possibility for some later tension, in killing off a particular enemy so soon - if that person had been around for another book or two, there would have been more potential for havoc (hide spoiler)]
Given that this was a book of two halves for me, with one pretty boring and slow, and the other chockful of action, on balance I would rate this at 3 stars....more
This second volume of the series is rather a mixed bag. Sookie is still in a relationship with vampire Bill, and still involved in the affairs of the This second volume of the series is rather a mixed bag. Sookie is still in a relationship with vampire Bill, and still involved in the affairs of the wider vampire community, through Eric to whom Bill owes allegiance. This leads to her having to go to Dallas and assist the chief vampire there to investigate the disappearance of one of their members: an activity that puts Sookie into multiple perils given the presence of an anti-vampire cult in the city. She also comes into contact with the shapeshifter community there. That part of the story was interesting, although the presence of a vampire who has been a lifelong serial abuser and killer of children was disturbing. However, the story is topped and tailed by another, disconnected, subplot which gives the book a rather messy ending, and it is unfortunate that one of the more interesting minor characters is killed off as a result.
There are fewer graphic sex scenes thankfully, but one unfortunately is rather a trigger (view spoiler)[ - after an absence, Bill wants rough sex and won't take no for an answer (hide spoiler)] which was rather a turn off than the opposite. The continuing fixation with the minutiae of what Sookie is wearing is also noticeable, and helps to make the character seem rather shallow. Considering that her grandmother was murdered in their house a few months previously in book 1, she is remarkably unchanged by that experience and doesn't seem to have suffered any grief for the woman who raised Sookie and her brother after their parents were killed when they were young children. Her 'love' for Bill seems mainly based upon his prowess between the sheets. I continue to feel sorry for Sam, her employer, who for reasons unexplained kept his attraction to her a secret until she became involved with Bill - although he is a shapeshifter, adding to the continuing need to suspend disbelief in these books, he does seem to be rather a better prospect on a number of counts, including the fact that he is considerate and a decent man (when not in the form of a collie dog).
This story was a bit better than book 1, hence the 3-star rating, but considering that I have quite a few of these books in hand, I'm beginning to wish I hadn't bought so many. Luckily quite a few of them were cheap second-hand purchases!...more
On the face of it, a story set in an alternative reality where vampires are accepted as a reality, albeit supposedly victims of a virus that made themOn the face of it, a story set in an alternative reality where vampires are accepted as a reality, albeit supposedly victims of a virus that made them allergic to sunshine, silver (the author's own addition, I think) and garlic, and where the Japanese have developed a synthetic blood for them to drink so that they can give up preying on the living and integrate into society, should have been really interesting.
It started off quite promisingly, when the first person narrator, 25-year-old Sookie Stackhouse, a bar worker, saves the life of Bill, a vampire newly moved into her town. Bill was born before the American Civil War and has taken possession of an ancestral house near to the one Sookie shares with her grandmother, now that vampires have legal and civil rights. Soon after, Bill is able to return the favour and the two fall in love, at least as much as a vampire and human find this possible.
Against this background, Sookie is trying to solve a series of murders because she is a telepath who has spent her whole life trying to block out the thoughts of others, but now with Bill's encouragement begins to develop her gift. And she eventually realises, without total enthusiasm, that it makes her useful to other vampires. Bill is not the most powerful in the area, and owes allegiance to Erik, who originated in Viking times.
As if the existence of vampires isn't enough, the author soon introduces the existence of shapeshifters. I liked her shapeshifter minor character and one or two other bit players, but Sookie herself isn't that interesting. We learn constantly about the clothes she dresses in, and how she spends time at home shaving her legs etc, but apart from her telepathy there isn't much to her. Gradually, due to the ingestion of vampire blood, she begins to become more than human, becoming stronger and able to heal better, but these aren't traits that make her more sympathetic to the reader. Similarly Bill is very bland and one dimensional. The only slightly interesting vampire is Erik.
Another problem I had was with the explicit sex scenes which came across as rather gratuitous, and detracted from what was supposed to be a murder mystery with supernatural beings in it. I found all that rather boring. It was also a shame that one minor character was killed off halfway through (view spoiler)[perhaps because it would have made it more difficult for Sookie to pursue the relationship with Bill if her grandmother was still alive (hide spoiler)]. It seemed that the writer did that to remove an obstacle rather than because it was essential to the plot.
All in all, I would rate this as an OK 2 star read....more
Initially this book was promising and involving, with the unfolding of a worldwide pandemic beginning with the infection of one man at a New Year celeInitially this book was promising and involving, with the unfolding of a worldwide pandemic beginning with the infection of one man at a New Year celebration in Scotland. He returns to the USA and along the way infects dozens who go on to do likewise. Apart from a few who appear immune, the disease is unrelentingly fatal and the description of its effects harrowing.
The story is followed from the viewpoint of a number of people who appear immune. They face a new menace when rumours emerge of the government rounding up people like themselves for experimentation. So I anticipated a tense story of the struggle of the immune to survive and build a real life when they must perpetually look over their shoulders.
However it unfortunately developed into a cross between a soap opera and a young adult paranormal romance. For no known reason, some immune develop various superpowers or become faeries or elves. One of these characters then conceives the One and the book strayed into Buffy the Vampire Slayer territory but without the vampires. More and more impossible things were piled onto the increasingly top-heavy book, and it lost all credibility when a sort of Gandalf vibe was invoked at the end. The other characters which initially had been well developed dwindled into ciphers. From a possible 4 or even 5 stars, this plummeted to a barely scraped through 2 star rating. Disappointing....more
Obsidian Prey is number 6 in the Harmony series, set on a human colony planet, 200 years after it was cut off from contact with Earth. The inhabitantsObsidian Prey is number 6 in the Harmony series, set on a human colony planet, 200 years after it was cut off from contact with Earth. The inhabitants have developed psychic powers, fostered by the psychic energy which emanates from the alien ruins around which every human settlement is based. And in the last few books, the author has also introduced some additional powers which do not depend on the mineral called amber, which most people use to focus their psychic energies. Continuing this theme, the hero is a descendant of one of the families who are part of the Arcane Society, and who came to Harmony as colonists, and uses the obsidian of the title as his focusing stone of choice. This book, in fact, makes explicit the connection between this series and the Arcane Society books, which had been eluded to in earlier books, especially the one preceding this.
As the story opens, Lyra is at loggerheads with Cruz Sweetwater, member of the powerful Sweetwater family. His family have been involved in the amber trade for genearations, and he heads up their security branch. Lyra has a grudge against the Sweetwaters, stemming from when her grandfather was supposedly swindled out of his amber mine in a poker game by Cruz's grandfather. Three months ago, she and Cruz were having an affair, but then she found out he was actually trying to find out the location of some alien ruins she had discovered. These ruins contained various artefacts made from the rare amethyst amber, with which Lyra, an amber tuner of great skill, has a particular affinity, and she had attracted Cruz's attention by trying to sell some of the artefacts on the black market. His parent company moved in and took the mine from her, as she refused to accept the compensation offered and instead started a law suit, which she has had to abandon due to lack of funds.
Cruz comes back into Lyra's life when five people become trapped in the ruins by an energy field, which only she, being an amethyst adept, can dispel. He confines in her that the 'accident' was deliberate - someone has stolen an amethyst artefact from the Sweetwater laboratories and murdered a lab tech in the process. He and Lyra join forces, albeit with a lot of friction, to find out who is committing the crimes and seemingly trying to frame Lyra. Meanwhile, Lyra has been dealing with her own issues, as she has been having strange distorted hallucinations and an unknown admirer has been sending her very expensive orchids.
This wouldn't be a Harmony novel without a cute dust bunny or two, and here we have Vincent who, in accordance with his name, turns out to be an artist. Lyra and a friend who runs a gallery have a mini scam going, selling Vincent's paintings without letting on that the reclusive artist is not human, something she justifies on the grounds that the law suit left her broke.
I liked the heroine in this novel because she works hard, with her hands, which is a bit of a change from the usual female protagonist businesswoman working in more refined professions. Lyra routinely goes into the catacombs and the underground jungle environment and explores, looking for amber. She has been raised by her grandfather which may explain part of the toughness of her character. I did find it a bit disconcerting at first to have a hero whose name is one letter away from sounding rather unfortunate, then worked out it was meant to be like Tom Cruz's surname and pronounced that way. As usual, we have a mixture of murder mystery, Harmony weirdness, a couple who have issues, and cute furry animals. A likeable 3-star read....more
In this fifth volume of the Ghost Hunters series, we have the elements we've come to expect: feisty heroine who usually has a downer on ghost hunters,In this fifth volume of the Ghost Hunters series, we have the elements we've come to expect: feisty heroine who usually has a downer on ghost hunters, controlled, powerful, hunky hero, cute dust bunnies - the indigenous life form which likes to pair up with (usually) the heroine, a mystery of some kind involving murderer(s) who would stop at nothing, and lots of alien tech and psychic powers.
In brief, Harmony is a colony cut off from Earth for 200 years after being established in the late 21st century. During that time humans have developed psychic powers, perhaps from exposure to psychic energy from the ruins left by departed aliens, which each major city and town has been built around and which extend underground for unknown distances - plus are probably connected by the recently discovered artificial rainforest environment - although the author seems to have found the original powers developed in the first two books rather limiting. We now have various additional abilities which are known to have been brought from Earth by members of the Arcane Society - another of her series - and which do not depend on the mineral found on Harmony, named amber by the colonists, to provide a strengthening focus. Similarly, the ghost hunter talent - the ability to control the errant energy clouds which manifest in and around the underground catacombs, and which are a serious hazard to human explorers - has developed so that as well as its usual manifestation in controlling and manipulating green energy, we have encountered heroes who manipulate blue, silver and now dark energy, all of which have different properties than the usual green light.
As the story begins, reporter Sierra McIntyre is in the office of John Fontana, new chief of Crystal City's ghost hunter Guild. She has been doing a series for her paper alleging Guild involvement in drug manufacturing - a new drug called juice has had an unfortunate and rapid effect on some ex-Guild members who have become homeless addicts. Fontana has recently come into office to replace the former chief who was involved in corrupt activities, including serious drug trafficking. McIntyre is taken aback when Fontana suddenly proposes they enter a Marriage of Convenience that afternoon - he convinces her that her inquiries into the disappearance of the homeless ex-hunters has placed her in danger as well, something that is proven when two men in motorcycle gear attack her as she leaves her apartment to travel to the registrar office. Luckily she is able to reach the nearby tavern where she knows several retired Guild members who come to her rescue, and deliver her in time for her wedding, somewhat dishevelled and bruised.
Sierra is an unusual heroine for this series, rather a dilletante. Most of Castle's previous heroines are career businesswomen, often down on their luck due to previous adversity not of their own making, but trying to get their own businesses going. Sierra at first appears to be a crusading do-gooder as Fontana calls her, but she actually comes from a privileged background and has never settled on a vocation. She has tried one dead end job after another, her stint on a despised tabloid newsrag being the latest. We learn by the end of the story that, despite her zeal to get justice for the washed up guildsmen, and to find out what happened to those who disappeared, she is just as quick to quit the newspaper job for one her new husband provides. Also, unlike the heroines in the previous books, she has no special psychic ability. She has an unexplained claustrophobia, but that doesn't actually impede her from doing anything in the story. I wasn't that keen on her, to be honest, and it was difficult to grasp what Fontana saw in her.
As is usual for this series, the hero and heroine are strongly attracted to each other, and the man is convinced she is the only woman for him, but the heroine needs a lot of persuasion. Despite her friendship with the old guildsmen, Sierra has a low opinion of the Guild itself. The story of their ups and downs romantic journey is interwoven with danger from the motorcycle gang, who are soon shown as working for more powerful figures behind the scenes, and the resolution of the various threads of the drug running and disappearances. For light relief, we again have the heroine's companion dust bunny, this time a bit too cute perhaps with the author milking it for all she's worth: the dust bunny is called Elvis and has a little cloak, miniature pair of glasses and little guitar, plus he spends quite a bit of the time literally floating around on a balloon-powered platform in the newspaper offices. This and Sierra's character were both starting to grate a bit by the end, but the book does just about scrape a 3-star rating....more
In this fourth volume of the Ghost Hunters series, the author returns in some respects to the territory previously explored in her earlier trilogy setIn this fourth volume of the Ghost Hunters series, the author returns in some respects to the territory previously explored in her earlier trilogy set on a similar planet with a colony cut off from Earth. Before now, we haven't heard about marriage bureaus despite the fact that Covenant Marriages are for life - on Harmony, Marriages of Convenience allow people to see if they are compatible first. But the heroine in this book is a marriage counsellor.
In the prologue, a woman is attacked in an underground carpark and drugged. It is some time before we discover what happened to her. We switch immediately to the heroine Celinda who is visited by the police - a cameo appearance by Detective Martinez who has been a minor character in previous volumes - in company with Davis Oakes of Oakes Security. It transpires that a small object Celinda purchased in a junk shop for the amusement of her 'companion animal', a dust bunny called Araminta, is connected with the death of a drug addict and small-time thief. The object is actually a relic from the alien ruins which cover much of Harmony, especially underground. It was stolen from the ghost hunter Guild in the city, and the chief of the guild has hired Davis to get it back. (To explain, pyschic powers are routine on Harmony and one of the most important is that of ghost hunting - the ability to control/manipulate the energy clouds which manifest in and around the underground catacombs and which are dangerous to humans. The guild provides protection for anyone who works underground to retrieve alien artefacts, the trade in which is an important part of the economy of Harmony, as well as creating a lot of research jobs in universities.) Most ghost hunters are male as the talent is very bound up with testosterone.
Celinda is about to give Davis the object when her dust bunny, objecting, grabs it and runs off with it. For quite a bit of the story following, they attempt to find out where she has put it, without success. The object of course turns out to have special properties, and a couple of very dangerous people are after it. Various threads are interwoven in the novel: the continued search for the artefact and the evil machinations of those working against them go on alongside the mutual attraction which Celinda and Davis are fighting. They end up attending a family wedding as a couple so that he can provide her with protection, to the surprise of her family. And even there, they are not safe.
In previous volumes, we saw the author expand on the psychic powers developed by the human population since the colony was cut off from Earth, with some individuals not being dependent on amber, the stone which allows most people to focus their psychic power most effectively. We also saw the discovery of an artificial environment underground - rain forests created and left behind by the long-departed aliens. As part of this, came the revelation that some ghost hunters can manipulate energy elsewhere on the spectrum, rather than the normal green light. It transpires that Davis is one of these: he is the Silver Master of the title, and silver light has particular properties which I won't divulge to avoid spoilers. The downside is that to use it heavily doesn't just put him into the normal post burn situation - ghost hunters experience strong sexual desire followed by an irrestible urge to sleep for several hours - it can put him into a coma. His past experience of hospital treatment after such an episode has left him paranoid about the medical profession. Meanwhile, Celinda has her own past traumas to deal with, and her own particular psychic ability, which makes her a good matchmaker - she can pick up on the mental and psychic characteristics of others, and in extremis influence them. We have the usual situation in this series where the characters are strongly attracted to each other, but resist it to the bitter end.
Light relief is provided this time by Davis' partner in the business, a down-to-earth character called Trig, who is reading Celinda's book on how to make a good Covenant Marriage, and the protagonists are a little more developed than in the previous volume, and more interesting as a result. And for double cuteness, both the heroine and the hero have dust bunny 'companions' this time. A 3-star read: satisfying but not spectacular....more
This is number three in the Harmony series. Harmony is a earth colony which was cut off from contact with Earth. In the two centuries following, the hThis is number three in the Harmony series. Harmony is a earth colony which was cut off from contact with Earth. In the two centuries following, the humans developed psychic powers which were triggered off by the extensive alien ruins which give off psychic energy. In this book, a different viewpoint is taken from the previous two, as we switch to a different couple, although Emmett London and Lydia Smith, since married, do make a cameo appearance.
Unlike Lydia, Elly St. Clair doesn't have a grudge against the ghost hunter Guilds which act like a cross between a milita, the mob and a union for anyone - men mostly - who can resonate with the green energy clouds that manifest around the alien ruins and especially in the extensive catacombs under them. Ghost hunters provide protection for anyone who excavates legally in the ruins, to search for alien relics. The trade in these relics forms a major part of the economy on Harmony. Elly doesn't have ghost hunter powers herself, but instead has a psychic affinity with plants which only her family knows about - mainly because there are only two recognised major psychic talents, ghost hunting and tangling - the ability to resonate with and defuse illusion traps which are also a major hazard of underground exploration - and anyone claiming to have different abilities is viewed as mentally unstable.
In the prologue, Elly calls off her engagement to Cooper Boone, head of her local town Guild, when she discovers he fought a duel over her with another hunter apparently due to Guild politics. Six months later as the story proper begins, she has moved to a city and started a herbal business, utilising her hidden ability to determine psychically which herbs will suit her customers. Then a friend called Bertha, a prospector under the ruins, goes missing, and she calls on Cooper's help, having been told by her mother that he has come to the city. Bertha has been attacked in the catacombs, and it eventually becomes clear that the person responsible is a sociopath who will murder anyone in his way.
As with the other books we have a mystery, a couple who are obviously made for each other but won't admit it or can't communicate - Cooper actually loves Elly, but finds it difficult to show his emotions, and Elly is angry and upset that his dream career from childhood was to be a Guild boss when she wants him to love her as she loves him - and a cute native animal called a dust bunny who is the heroine's companion. This time the dust bunny, Rose, has a penchant for wearing Elly's bracelets.
The author has obviously decided, from this book onwards, where both main characters have powers a bit 'different' from usual - Cooper is a ghost hunter with a difference - that her original set-up was a bit restrictive, so is starting to make this more like her other series set on another colony planet where the humans develop psychic powers (Amaryllis, Zinnia, Orchid). In that series, the psychic abilities were very varied. Having begun to read the book after this one, it's clear that is now the way this series is going to go. Plus a whole new environment has been introduced which I won't explain to avoid spoilers.
A fairly decent read though I actually liked Bertha more than the protagonists who came over as a bit bland, and would have liked to have seen more of her. Again, a 3-star rating....more
This is the second in the series set on the remote planet of Harmony, which was colonised from Earth before being cut off by the closure of the energyThis is the second in the series set on the remote planet of Harmony, which was colonised from Earth before being cut off by the closure of the energy cloud called the Curtain, which had enabled such far distant travel. Two centuries later, Harmony has returned to about the level of 20th century Earth technology, but with various important differences, due to the development of psychic abilities among the colonists.
The sequel to 'After Dark', this book stars the two main characters of the first volume, Lydia Smith and Emmett London. A couple of months have passed and they are dating, though not totally over the prickliness which marked their relationship previously. This isn't helped by the attempted assassination of Mercer Wyatt, head of the ghost hunter Guild, early in the story, and Emmett's temporary appointment as acting Guild head. Given Lydia's grudge against ghost hunters - the testimony of two of them after she was lost underground for two days was instrumental in getting her fired from a career she loved - she worries that Emmett will be pushed into taking the job permanently, and has graver concerns that he will be the next target.
As with the first story, this begins with them finding a dead body, this time of an ex- professor who had phoned Lydia saying he had important information about what happened to her during her Lost Weekend as she calls it. Conveniently, he has died of a drug overdose, but evidence eventually emerges which convince both Lydia and Emmett that someone wanted to silence him. Bodies start to pile up, with a strange connection to the supposed deaths of some rather odd people a decade or more previously, as well as to the century ago rebellion, led by a man called Vance, who tried to use his own private army to take over Harmony. It was that conflict which led to the setting up of ghost hunter Guilds in each city and town, as private militia. These days, the Guilds handle training of youngsters - mostly boys - who exhibit the ability to deresonate the dangerous green energy clouds which form a hazard to anyone exploring the catacombs under the alien ruins each city and town has been built around, and also rents out the services of adult ghost hunters to protect official expeditions like the one on which Lydia was lost.
As with book 1, the murder mystery and the characters' own conflicts are interwoven, plus the appearances of a cute furry animal - known as a dust bunny - which has adopted Lydia. The final scene which stars him and a female of the species is the most cute in the book. I did find though that the shopping scenes were a bit tedious - Lydia has a friend who guides her in what to buy for her various social occasions - and slowed down the story. There are misunderstandings between Lydia and Emmett who turns out to have a romantic side she didn't appreciate. As the relationship has now been consummated, there is a little too much low level description of plumbing for my taste; less is more really or sex scenes can become farcical. A good read on the whole, but not spectacular, so it merits 3 stars from me....more
This is the first in the author's Ghost Hunters series set on the planet Harmony. To begin with, I thought it would tie in with an earlier trilogy witThis is the first in the author's Ghost Hunters series set on the planet Harmony. To begin with, I thought it would tie in with an earlier trilogy with books named after the heroines, who all have flower names, but although the background of the two series is the same, the Harmony books differ in several respects. Both deal with societies which have grown up on planets remote from Earth, which were colonised after an energy cloud appeared near Earth that enabled travel to far distant worlds, but which were cut off abruptly when the Curtain, as it was known, suddenly 'closed' or disappeared. On both worlds, the humans encountered the remains of an alien civilisation, possibly not native to the planet, which utilised psychic forms of energy, and on both worlds the humans subsequently developed psychic abilities of their own. But whereas in the earlier series the forms these abilities took were very varied, but all depended on a particular type of talent - known as a prism - to focus their talent so that people had to work in pairs, on Harmony, more conveniently, a crystal known as amber is used instead.
The story starts when Lydia Smith, who is showing her prospective client Emmett London around the third rate museum where she works part-time, finds the dead body of her friend, Chester, inside an alien sarcophagus. Lydia is upset, not only because Chester is dead, but because she assumes London will cancel their professional arrangement. But London does engage her to help him find a family heirloom, pawned by his nephew, who subsequently disappeared. He also ends up helping her solve the mystery of Chester's death.
A number of threads weave into the story. Firstly, Lydia previously had a promising career as a para archaeologist at the university, cut short a few months ago. She had supposedly wandered off when part of an expedition into the underground catacombs that extend beneath the local alien ruins - most of the larger human settlements on Harmony were established around the ruins of alien cities - and subsequently suffered amnesia following an encounter with one of the 'ghosts', the nickname given to the green energy clouds which can inflict severe mental trauma and even death on any human they touch. Such ghosts are found in abundance in the catacombs, and the only people who can deal with them are 'ghost hunters', mostly men, who can attune themselves psychically to the dangerous energy and either deresonate it (derezz in the book's parlance) or use a ghost of their own to cancel it out. The ghost hunters are organised into Guilds within each town and city, and most boys who develop the ability at puberty join the local Guild for training and spend time as ghost hunters, though quite a few eventually move on to other professions. Although the author tells us there are a few female ghost hunters, we don't meet any in this book.
Two ghost hunters, assigned to the expedition to provide protection, blamed Lydia for ignoring procedure. Before she knew it, Lydia was written off as a potential basketcase who would be a potential danger to her colleagues, since the medical profession found it amazing she had managed to hang on to her sanity after being lost underground for two days. As a result, a former colleague of hers who has since become head of the department, had her fired, hence her part-time job at the low class museum, and her current attempt to start a business as a consultant to the antiquities trade.
Apart from being a former archaelogist, Lydia is also a 'tangler'. The other hazard in the catacombs are 'illusion traps', dark fields which are anchored to objects, usually made of alien green quartz. For reasons best known to themselves, the aliens left plenty of these underground, and anyone caught by one is drawn into a disorientating mental experience which can result in permanent residence in a mental hospital. People who can attune their psychic energy to such traps in order to dampen them down and unset them are called tanglers. It was Lydia's ability which led her into the academic field, since any tangler who can afford it goes to college and gets umpteen degrees to allow them to enter a university para-archaeology department. Anyone who can't afford to do this, like Chester, becomes a ruin rat, as the people who earn a precarious living exploring the underground ruins to find saleable objects, are known.
The second thread in the story is the mystery around Chester's death and subsequent events which throw doubt on the theory held by the police that he was in the museum to steal an object to sell. As part of this, various characters are floated as suspects, including Emmett's former fiancee, who ditched him as soon as it became clear he was going to resign as Guild Head, and then promptly married the head of the Guild in Cadence. Everything weaves together in this, including the disappearance of Emmett's nephew.
The third thread is the growing attraction between Lydia and Emmett London, who until recently was the Guild Boss in another city where he had modernised the Guild and turned it into a modern business enterprise rather than a quasi-Militia. Lydia has a great deal of prejudice against the Guild after the testimony of the two members resulted in the loss of her career, so this is a big stumbling block in their ongoing romance. That, and her desire to keep things on a business level, means that the sexual tension between them is maintained through most of the book and they don't get things together until fairly late in the proceedings, which I preferred. I did although find Lydia's character a bit wearing at times, and sympathised with Emmett and his forebearance.
One aspect which will probably either charm or annoy is the inclusion of a little animal known as a dust bunny: a small fluffy predator with six legs and two sets of eyes, one for day and another it opens at night or when hunting. Most of the time it is quite cute, munching on pretzels and such, but does play a key role as, apart from anything else, one thing Lydia has not disclosed about her Lost Weekend, as she calls it, is that this dust bunny found her and guided her back to civilisation. This is the only example we see of any other lifeform: the author doesn't provide a completely workable world building scenario to explain why this animal would have developed six legs.
The book is a standalone story and does not resolve the mystery of what happened to Lydia, but it is fairly obvious that things are left open for a sequel. An enjoyable read, but not spectacular, so 3 stars....more
Third in the St Helen's series and by far my favourite. The hero in this is the third in the trio of three male friends who together spearheaded the dThird in the St Helen's series and by far my favourite. The hero in this is the third in the trio of three male friends who together spearheaded the defeat of the pirates who tried to take over the Western Isles some years ago, and who has made cameo appearances in the previous two books. Rafe Stonebreaker, grandson of the CEO of Stonebreaker Shipping, has paddled his own canoe up till now, after estrangement from his grandfather. He has made his money with stockmarket portfolios, having an astute assessment of business, courtesy of his particular psychic skill, known as a strat talent (presumably strategy, but on the planet of St Helen's where this is set and everyone has some psychic ability, strat talents are fairly rare 'exotics' who are regarded as primitive and possibly dangerous hunters).
As the story opens, Rafe is planning with his grandfather, with whom he has now reconciled in the face of a threat to the firm, to attend the forthcoming board meeting in a few months time and make his bid to become the new CEO. Rafe's cousin, who has worked for the business for years is also gunning to take over, but due to a belief instilled into him from childhood by his mother, who blames Rafe's grandfather for her husband's death, he plans to sell the business to a rival and break up the firm, throwing two thousand people out of work. St Helen's is a very family values planet and Rafe needs to be married when he attends the board meeting, or at least engaged. The problem is, divorce is unknown and everyone is carefully matched through matrimonial agencies who also take into account the compatibility of the candidates' psychic talents. A lot of eligible young women have been put off by Rafe's exotic talent, although he has secured a (fake) certification which states he is only 6 rated. In common with the heroes of the previous two volumes, in reality his talent is off the scale, higher than a 10, the official maximum.
To be able to use a psychic talent for more than a few seconds, each talent needs the co-operation of someone known as a Prism who is able to project a psychic crystal through which to focus the psychic energy. Strat talents need the assistance of a particular and rare type of Prism, known as an ice Prism, who can fine tune and adjust the prism they create. Rafe also has a sideline in private investigation and this gives him the excuse he needs to hire ice Prisms from each of the available bureaus so that he can, unbeknown to them, assess their suitability as a mate. Meanwhile, he engages the services of a representative of a top marriage agency - a continuing minor character seen in the previous two books - to find him a wife. When the story opens, the latest prism he has hired to help him with an investigation is the eponymous heroine of the novel, who has been mentioned in the other two books as the author of romantic novels featuring (supposedly mythical) psychic vampires. (As the previous novels have shown, such people are not quite as mythical as the public would like to think.)
Orchid is working part-time as an Ice Prism in between novel writing, in order to pay the bills. She is also looking for a marriage partner and having the same difficulty as Rafe. Ice Prisms such as herself are difficult to match, and she has only had one agency date in the last year, a man who turned out to be a creep wanting to use her family background and contacts to get himself a lucrative position in the academic town where she grew up. Initially, she and Rafe rub each other up the wrong way, but she comes to see that the societal preconceptions about strat talents are not true in Rafe's case, while he comes to realise that her value to him is not just her ability to craft a prism which perfectly matches the needs of his talent. The two become involved in a murder mystery which is connected with Orchid's past involvement in a project at an institute which was supposed to be delving into the ability of prisms like herself to make therapeutic adjustments to the skewed talents of the mentally ill, but instead proves to be completely unethical.
This story is much more successful in the melding of the character conflict and interaction, with the murder mystery. The sex scenes are also less heavy-handed and leave more to the imagination than book 2 in particular. Also the heroine is far more likeable than those in the previous two books, and holds her own with the somewhat taciturn hero. He in turn is an interesting character who starts off very dark and serious but gradually lightens up through his growing attraction to and then love for Orchid. A good wrap up for the series as a whole....more