Joanne has barely had time to process what happened in
Ireland when she receives news her father is missing. She quickly returns to
North Carolina, to a place she hasn’t been since a child, to discover not only
is her father missing, but so is the man who fathered her child.
He Master is there, seeking to tap into the devastating
pain and loss suffered by the Native Americans to power evil beyond imagining;
unless they can stop it.
But also there are the people Joanne long left behind,
not all of whom are that willing to welcome her back, even if she has finally
embraced her legacy of a shaman. There’s also Aida, the son she gave up at
birth and a powerful shaman in his own right – and a source of both emotional
and mystical turmoil.
Joanne has, in many ways, completely her journey of
development in this book and
the last book. Last book she confronted so many of the issues she had with
her mother – and this book she does the same with her father and with Aidan, the
son she gave up for adoption. It’s not easy, there’s some heavy emotional
content there, but it’s handled in a very reasonable and mature level – no dramatic
angst, not seething rage, no losing their sense of priorities or avoiding the
actual plot and disaster they are facing. It also reflects Joanne’s personal
growth – she has finally decided to put away her desire for an instruction
manual – because she has been doing this for some time now and she’s been
managing and achieving great things. Joanne acknowledges her own skill – her own
mastery. When her dad does things differently, she accepts that they do things
differently, not better or worse. When she does something her dad says is
impossible, she doesn’t think she’s doing something wrong, she just knows she
does something different from her dad.
Joanne has reached an excellent point where she is
willing to learn from others, but not feel inferior for it and not feel like
she has to do anything their way – while still being confident in her skills
and her achievements and finally settling on the idea that she is strong, she
can do things others cannot and there’s no problem with her doing just that.
Even if it is unwise at times. It’s a wonderful development after books of
denial, books of panic, books of her messing things up epicly through ignorance
and confusion and now her finally reaching the end of that path. I love her
growth
Not just with magic – but relationships as well,
recognising her old problems, her old grudges, when she was often unfair or
unthinking or how her perception was skewed. Through a more mature, wiser eye,
Joanne looks back at herself and her old home and a fair whack of complex
feelings about it
Along with that we have Joanne and Morrison, though I
think we will find more in the next book, finally delving into some of the
issues and insecurities he has, seeing more of his growing comfort with Joanne’s
woo-woo and them really spending some time together and forging a stronger
connection. I particularly liked the role that professional ethics played in
keeping them apart – because while Joanne worked for Morrison the relationship
was impossible and, in turn, that seemed to make Morrison try to keep some more
distance between them and, perhaps, not experience the joy of Joanne’s powers
as much as he did in this book. Because his relationship with Joanne – and her
woo-woo – had to be professional he got all the creepy side of what Joanne
could do, all the useful side, but not so much of the amazing, awe-inspiring
side.
I still have a major problem with how the magic is
written about in this series. It’s
been a problem since the first book and though it’s got better, it has never
gone away. We can get lost in the description, in following the action of
this abstract magic and it can become confusing and get us very very lost.
There’s a scene in this book where Joanne first confronts the big bad and it
starts epic. It goes on for a while still epic. Then it’s still epic. Then I check
my watch and the epic is wearing off, but the scene keeps going and they’re
winning no losing no winning no… it goes on and on and then BANG people are
dead. And I’m not exactly sure how or why or whether Joanne was awesome or
awful or both.
Later it happens again where we get combat combat BANG
TIME TRAVEL (the multiple time travels in this book also add to levels of
confusion that really didn’t help) and I’m lost again because I’m drowning in a
sea of description and abstract. Even the end game battle is damn hard to
follow. Which is a crying shame because these moments are some of the most epic
in the book (beyond the flying car) and should be the pinnacle, but they lose
me – which means losing me at the worst possible time.
The book generally reads well – the story isn’t particularly
original (it’s another battle against the Master doing nefarious things with
woo-woo) but it’s exciting and moves well with enough unique twists to keep it
worthwhile – especially with the excellent characters to focus on. But the
writing does derail on those woo-woo moments.
This book has a lot of research about Native American,
specifically Cherokee, history and a very strong sense of culture and place. There
is a lot of woo-woo and woo-woo awareness, but also an overt acknowledgement
that not all Native Americans are following or participating in these rituals –
and to many who do it isn’t because of woo-woo, belief in woo-woo or more than
tradition. There’s an attempt to distance the idea that Native Americans are
inherently woo-woo while focusing primarily on woo-woo.
The impact of the atrocities inflicted on the Native
Americans is not soft peddled nor sugar coated – but presented as the horrific
genocide it was, a genocide that caused so much pain and loss that it was
beyond devastating – this book doesn’t flinch once away from that and drives it
home heavily and poignantly. It makes the references to it in the story
pertinent and respectful, rather than feeling gratuitous or exploitative. There
are also a lot of ongoing issues reflected in the story – including things like
understandable distrust of the federal government
I was also pretty happy with both Ada and Sara. Both
these women (Aidan’s adoptive mother and the wife of Aidan’s father) are
classic candidates for “reasons why all women hate Joanne!” characters which so
dog this genre. But they’re not. Oh they’re not her biggest fans, not by a long
shot, but they’re mature, they handle their issues and they support Joanne when
they think she’s right and everyone just behaves like reasonable adults. How very
very refreshing.
Unfortunately, there are no LGBT characters.
This book is coming close to the end of the Walker Papers and I have that horrible
feeling when a series I love is starting to die on me. Part of me wants to yell
that the series has so much more to give – keep it going, keep it going! Which
is an excellent sign a series has hooked me; but, equally, I can see why and I
appreciate how the last two books have really helped Joanne grow into a full
and complete person. It brings home that this series, for all its woo-woo and
epic world spanning plots, is really focused on Joanne’s personal story and as
we reach the end, that story is reaching a nice, fulfilled satisfying end,
which I appreciate a lot
But I’d still like to see her keep kicking arse and being
awesome into the far future.
