Emberly is a phoenix and has spent several lifetimes
living under their curse – to never know love and to have their heart broken
each lifetime. She’s also seen no end of bad results come from her attempting
to save lives
But when Sam, the lover who broke her life this
incarnation, is imperiled she can’t help but act despite all the bitter
memories.
Now she finds herself facing something new even after all
her lifetimes – humans infected with a whole new condition due to unwise human
tinkering into vampires. They’re dangerous, contagious and must be stopped. And
they’re gunning for her.
This book ticks a lot of boxes – a rich original
mythology. A protagonist who is clever, capable and determined as well as sexual
without shame. Throw in a setting we don’t see often and a storyline that is
nicely paced and full of fun and it’s definitely pulling me in.
One element that really intrigues me is romantic and
sexual nature of the phoenixes. They are paired together, sexually. They must
have sex with their soul-mate – but at the same time they’re cursed never to
love that soul mate. Inherently, if they want any romantic connection, they
must seek romance outside of their partnership while also continuing to have
sex with their soul-mate. They are inherently polygamous beings – but there’s
no shame or angst about that. They know what they are, they are happy in the
sex lives they have and even when Sam accuses her of cheating she doesn’t feel
slightly guilty; she’s clear that he only accuses her of that because he is
utterly ignorant of her nature.
It’s nice to have a female protagonist who is sexual, has
multiple partners and doesn’t even have a moment of angst about this.
I will say that her relationship with Jackson is distracting.
I can get they find each other hot and love that she’s eager to explore that –
but their timing is far too often ill-advised when they’re already neck deep in
other things going on
The whole nature of phoenixes in this is quite original,
I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it in any other book: the reincarnation,
the many lives and lifetimes, the connected souls. It’s all very new – and
that’s rare considering how much of the genre I’ve read.
This couples with things like the fae connected to their
elements and a whole lot of creepy difference with some vampires that brings a
lot of unique aspects to the story. I say again, I’ve read a lot in this genre
which makes me really value the original. I love to read something completely
new and this book definitely brought the new
An element I found annoying under-developed was the lack
of examination of Sam‘s police unit. It is shadowy, has all kinds of nebulous
power and not even the slightest nod towards due process or respect for human
rights. And absolutely no-one challenged them on it or expressed how shadowy
and terrifying it was. Even if there had been some comment about how Emberley wasn’t
surprised or that shocked because of her age and she had seen how power was
abused over the centuries, it would have been something. Instead we just seemed
to have a general acceptance of this amount of power. There wasn’t even a huge
amount of wariness about him – even when Sam took extreme measures like
drugging Emberley and Jackson against their will. It was treated as… a faux
pas? Something to give him a good talking to about but generally to get over
and not worry about. Emberley was even quite friendly with him afterwards and
any efforts to stay away from him were presented more as… petty, childish
revenge than actual outraged avoidance of such an abusive person.
Like many books in the urban fantasy/detective genre there
is also a big question as to WHY Emberley is getting involved. She’s a
secretary/admin/assistant for a boss she didn’t like all that much who ended up
being murdered. Why did she take it on herself to play plucky amateur female
detective? I can understand it when the enemies started targeting her as well,
but she decided to dive in there well before that. It also made Sam constantly
trying to sideline her seem much more sympathetic because she really didn’t
belong in the investigation
Inclusionwise, this isn’t great. Emberley is a strong and
capable female character who I like a lot – but the only other women in the
book are side characters – one of them a sexual, black widow assassin, her
distant briefly appearing boss and Rochelle, a future love interest for Jackson.
They’re just quite minor characters and both Sam and Jackson, the only other
major characters are male. There are no LGBT characters either. The only POC in
the book I can remember is one Black vampire who was only, again, a brief character.
This is the first book in a series and, between the
world, the meta plot, the characters and the original characters, I’m in. I
look forward to book 2 and seeing where all of this is going – because I think
this is going to be excellent fun.
