The sisters ongoing battle against the demons continues
as Shadow Wing’s forces look for the spirit seals, a way for them to break
through to Earth and, from there, break through to Otherworld as well. The fate
of both world rests in the balance and the D’Artigo sisters make a thin line of
defence.
They have only a little support from the Queen of the
Elves, because Otherworld has it’s own turmoil. The fairy queen, Lathanasar,
has become more erratic and cruel, her increasingly failed rule has now lead to
outright civil war, dragging in the other forces of Otherworld and destroying
or occupying the agencies that should be helping against the demons.
Into this we follow Delilah, the middle sister, cat
shapeshifter and private detective (her cover job, at least). She’s approached
for a case – a local werepuma pride is under attack by an unknown murderer and
her and her sister’s skills are needed to track it down – becoming all the more
urgent as the bodies pile up and there’s a clear link to Shadow Wing’s
campaign. Along the way she has to make some deals with some terrifying
entities, Elemental lords of extreme power that untap some long dormant power
within her.
And she loses some more of her innocence, some more of
her naivety and is faced with more of the cruel, stark reality that faces them
in this war – to say nothing of the complications in her love life, with her
polyamorous nature clashing with her human boyfriend
This world is huge – with 3 realms of beings, a million
kind of fae, shapeshifters, demons, vampires and many variations of each, it’s
a world with near infinite diversity. I could spend hours just pouring through
the world building alone. Part of this is because each element seems to have
some weight, there’s not just werepumas, they have their own society and
customs and it differs depending on whether they’re Earthside or Otherworld.
The vampires aren’t just vampires, they have their own meetings and
difficulties. The kingdoms of the fae and the elves have their own cultures and
depths. There’s a weight behind the world building that suggests a lot of work
and preparation has gone into it beyond just names and labels.
And that full, rich world with all its possibilities and
magic feeds directly into the story. We have epic forces and a thousand options
and a constant idea that anything can raise its head. I do think the action
scenes were a little truncated and could have been less anti-climactic, but
following to them is interesting as we learn more. It’s not the most novel
concept – find the bad guys, save the world – but the path there is original
because it wends through so many different characters and so many fantastical
diversions. It isn’t a mystery – there’s no questions and little investigation,
it’s more a hunt, a battle and an exploration and they become ever more deeply
involved in a much wider and larger meta-plot.
The characters are also very full and real. They have an
excellent relationship with each other – friendly and warm and touching. They
make decent decisions and I haven’t torn my hair out from spunkiness once. They
have their difficulties and challenges but they face them together, united and
strong rather than constantly diverting, they’re sexual without shaming and
polyamorous without guilt – though there’s a lot of jealousy going round. I
like these characters, they have a strong realness about them
The main problem I have with this book is the severe lack
of urgency on the part of the D’Artigo sisters. Someone comes to them with a
case where someone is dying almost every day and they schedule them in for the
weekend. There’s a lot of scenes where they sit around waiting for Menolly to
wake up, which I can understand wanting to include her, at the same time when
there’s a matter of urgency, twiddling your thumbs
And there’s a lot of time spent on their mundane lives –
eating, shopping, talking, eating, seeing the love interest, eating, talking
some more, eating, telling stories, eating. Did I mention eating? They spend a
lot of time eating big meals and lots of snacks – but I can understand that,
since they only actually eat breakfast and then lots and lots of snacks and
sandwiches. It’s nice to see these elements of a character’s daily life – but
not so constantly.
Especially since the characters seem so very laid back.
Oh they’ll spend lots of time worrying and fretting, but there’s no urgency to
them. They don’t just eat breakfast, they’ll take their time. They’ll make long
plans, they’ll pause to play with the gargoyle, they’ll have some small talk.
When going somewhere, they will mosey along quite happily – and it’s just that,
moseying along to save the day. Not charging, hurrying or even hustling, it’s
more like a gentle saunter.
Which is exacerbated by the number of relationship
conversations they have (Camille and Delilah really bond over her worries about
Chase and Zach) which are great in and of themselves, but they do tend to have
them at the most inopportune times. Which is further made worse by Delilah’s
own mental rambling – because she’ll get distracted. While they’re discussing
and recapping to each other about the big bad issue, Delilah provides her own
mental commentary that can wander at times.
The problem is, when you put all of this together, it
detracts both from the tension and the epic of the book. The very fate of the
world is supposed to be in the balance, untold billions of lives could be lost
– this is supposed to be pretty urgent and epic and it’s detracted by this lack
of character urgency.
We do have some GBLT inclusion with one gay character who
is more than a little stereotyped (and only appears extremely briefly and
unnecessarily) and a lesbian who is tragically closeted (and oh-so-very
lonely). We do have a lot of bisexual characters – but the relationships we see
with them are over and over again with the opposite sex. Racially, one of
Camille’s boyfriends, Morio, is Asian, but while he is often present, he isn’t
often a major force in the story and is usually hanging around in the
background.
The story is great, the world is probably the richest and
most diverse I’ve ever seen and the characters are strong, interesting and
compelling. It has all the ingredients of not just a good book, but a truly
great book – if only it had a little better pacing.
