John and Theodora are television psychics. Who actually
find the thing that goes bump to the night – and destroying them, banishing
them and removing them.
Until they find a well of darkness that is way way worse
than anything they had encountered before. New dark forces are rising with both
them personally under attack – and the entire world in the balance.
John and Theodora make an awesome team, backed up with
John’s deceased, ghostly, yet still effortlessly awesome nana, these TV
paranormal investigators are actually the real thing. Their battle against the
darkness – along with the parallel story of a whole new dark force rising are
both immensely creepy. The sense of this book – the darkness, the grief, the
horror and (I’ll keep saying this over and over again) the overwhelming
creepiness are really well done. It’s thematically excellent. So very very
excellent – the whole feel of this book is perfect.
I love Theodora’s storyline the most. The way she was
almost destroyed by the demons, saved only by her husband’s dedication and
devotion – and new allies – and then turned it into an immense strength was
excellent. I don’t want to spoil this which makes it so so so hard to
adequately describe the awesome here – but she goes from bed ridden and
helpless to the one leading the charge, telling the darkness who is boss and
embracing a whole new existence of possibilities. She is awesome and her power
is book changing.
The plot has lots of excellent action, twists and feel
and is excellent to read.
I have that issue that keeps coming up a hundred times in
the books I read – a kind of unsupported middle. We kind of waffle for a bit
and lose any forward momentum. But as I read the words I’ve just written, I
realise that it’s less about the middle of the book and far more about the
whole book and the lack of coherent world building
This is the issue which stopped the book being a complete
win for me. We have ghosts and demons and magic… and no reasoning behind any of
it. It just is. No looking at what this is or how it’s done – and the whole
story kind of rests on this. A large part of the plot rests on an elder demon
who ends up in conflict with some other demons with no real explanation as to
either. Our main character, John has apparently had a career of fighting the evil
supernatural creatures but we don’t see that career. We have John‘s awesome
grandmother ghost… but no history or background. John‘s wife Theodora is a
medium – what does that mean?
I can’t stress how much this matters to the plot – those demons
and what they do with Theodora is an essential cornerstone of the book. We have
a whole organisation of people who are fighting against the darkness but beyond
some references to the Vatican there’s, again, little information behind it.
I feel like we’ve jumped in on book two of the series and
the introduction has been skipped. Which is a shame because, again, the plot
and the concepts are excellent. The characters are interesting. The writing is
excellent and has a whole lot of tension and epicness about it. It has an
excellent sense of horror and creepiness (seriously, the harbinger of the dark
demon is an excellently well crafted creep show on an epic level). Theodora is awesome,
in charge and amazingly not in her husband’s shadow, a damsel despite her
rescue or in any way secondary. There’s
a whole lot of good here.
Diversitywise… well we have a moderately compact cast
which is my preliminary shaky way of saying don’t expect a great deal. We have
a gay man who is a personal assistant (LGBTQ servant trope!) who barely appears
and is actually sabotaging his own relationship in the name of serving John and
Theodora.
Theodora is, as I’ve said, repeatedly awesome and managed
to avoid so many of the usual tropes, especially when the first half of book
seems to be about her being victimised – but that is so wonderfully turned
round and her strength becomes the primary force of this book. We also have
ghostly Nana who, despite her brief appearance, manages to be absolutely incredibly
awesome. Considering the small, tight cast, those two characters are notable.
In terms of POC… we have a book that has an aversion to
describing people. Anyone. Which can make it hard to identify POC. There’s an
Asian doctor who doesn’t especially play a big role and an early killed villain
is briefly described as “darker skinned.”
It’s not great for diversity nor the background. But the
plot is excellent. The characters are intriguing and the writing excellent –
but it needs more foundation
