Series: SATURN'S DAUGHTER
Plot Type: UF
Ratings: V4; S2; H2
Publisher and Titles: Pocket
Boyfriend from Hell (9/2012)
Damn Him to Hell (6/2013)
WORLD-BUILDING
The series is set in an alternate Baltimore, where the area surrounding the harbor has been permanently damaged by a series of toxic chemical spills and fires, all connected with the Acme Chemical plant. After cordoning off the worst part of the hazardous area, the government turned its back on any further clean-up and has shown little interest in the rest of the contaminated Zone ever since. The Zone appears to be loosely modeled after District X (aka Mutant Town) in the X-Man series by Marvel Comics.
Shortly after the spill, strange things began to occur in the Zone. People developed magical powers, buildings glowed, tires softened and stuck to the asphalt, and stone gargoyles came to life. As the series heroine says, "I had no desire to linger in this neutron-infested industrial stinkhole where the buildings lit up after dark—literally. After the last flash fire of chemical waste, the streets and bricks of the remaining edifices glowed neon blue without the benefit of electricity." (p. 7) The people of the Zone are a ragtag group of misfits who are happy living away from the "normal" society of Baltimore. They're glad that the government doesn't pay much attention to the Zone, allowing them to make their livings their own way—sometimes on the wrong side of the law. Unfortunately, this basic premise—the idea that the government would allow citizens to live in an area designated as a Superfund site—is highly improbable and impossible to believe, so this presumption puts the series on shaky ground from the very beginning.
The series heroine is Justine (Tina) Clancy, who begins book 1 as a law student who works part-time as a bookkeeper for Andre Legrande, one of the Zone's most powerful entrepreneurs. Andre appears to be a sexy mob boss who owns a number of slightly shady businesses and has his fingers in everything that goes on in the Zone. Tina has had a hard-luck life. Her childhood was spent traveling from place to place in an RV as her tree-hugging mother traveled around the country searching for the meaning of life. Then, in college, Tina was arrested after she led a student revolt that became violent. While she was in custody, a police officer pushed her down a flight of stairs, breaking her leg in three places and leaving her with a painful limp because the broken leg healed three inches shorter than the uninjured leg. From that point on, she withdrew from social contact. She says at one point, "I'm not a particularly courageous person. In my experience, every time I got noticed, I got hurt....I hunkered down over my books because I didn't want to have to deal with the inexplicable actions of the people around me." (p. 105) Early on, Tina describes herself as "a mouse brown, gap-toothed, four-eyed cripple." But, trust me, that description doesn't fit Tina for very long.
BOOK 1: Boyfriend from Hell
As the series opens, Tina is unhappy with her boyfriend, Max MacNeill, who has been somewhat inattentive in recent weeks. When Max is once again late in picking Tina up from work, she texts him an angry message. She figures that since she has given him her car to drive every day, he could at least be prompt. Then, he roars up the street with an angry look on his face and appears to be set on running her down. As she tries to get out of the way, she curses him: "Damn you to hell!" (p. 18) As soon as she speaks, the car veers into a pole and explodes, enveloping Max in a ball of flame. Hours later, when Tina looks into a mirror in her apartment, Max looks back at her, claiming that he's in hell, that he's innocent, and that he needs her help to find out what really happened. Soon, an old guy warns Tina to stay away from Max's family, and mysterious men-in-black begin following her around and bugging her apartment. She also discovers that Max had a lot of secrets, none of which he shared with her while he was alive. The main story line follows Tina as she investigates the circumstances of Max's death and tries to find out who is after her and why. The resolution of this story line is predictable after a certain point, but is still satisfying and somewhat open-ended—leading into book 2.
The magical Zone mythology combined with the murder investigation would have been enough to carry this book, but the author has loaded it up with a few more story lines and mini-mythologies. The first one involves the fact that after Max's death (which Tina apparently caused by cursing him), her mousy, stringy hair turns fashion-model lovely overnight. Then she begins to get messages from a mysterious "Themis," saying things like this: "Your Saturn transit is almost complete and the asteroids are in position. Conga-rats, newest daughter. Use your talent more wisely next time." (p. 56). So now we have an additional mythology added to the Zone mythology. The Saturn's-daughter mythology, though, is just hinted at—not fully explained. It has something to do with the fact that Tina can make things happen just by visualizing them. It would probably have been better to have tied Tina's magical gift to the eccentricities of the Zone rather than impose the unwieldy Saturn mythology on the series, but alas, that is not the case. Another story line involves a magical stray cat (Milo) that Tina finds in an alley. We watch the cat grow in size and fight like a tiger, but the mythology behind that reality shift is never explained. Then, we have Andre, who occasionally takes a Hulk-like appearance and sometimes disappears for days at a time. No explanation for that one either—it's just mentioned in passing.
The magical Zone mythology combined with the murder investigation would have been enough to carry this book, but the author has loaded it up with a few more story lines and mini-mythologies. The first one involves the fact that after Max's death (which Tina apparently caused by cursing him), her mousy, stringy hair turns fashion-model lovely overnight. Then she begins to get messages from a mysterious "Themis," saying things like this: "Your Saturn transit is almost complete and the asteroids are in position. Conga-rats, newest daughter. Use your talent more wisely next time." (p. 56). So now we have an additional mythology added to the Zone mythology. The Saturn's-daughter mythology, though, is just hinted at—not fully explained. It has something to do with the fact that Tina can make things happen just by visualizing them. It would probably have been better to have tied Tina's magical gift to the eccentricities of the Zone rather than impose the unwieldy Saturn mythology on the series, but alas, that is not the case. Another story line involves a magical stray cat (Milo) that Tina finds in an alley. We watch the cat grow in size and fight like a tiger, but the mythology behind that reality shift is never explained. Then, we have Andre, who occasionally takes a Hulk-like appearance and sometimes disappears for days at a time. No explanation for that one either—it's just mentioned in passing.
Just so the reader doesn't get too confused with all of the story lines, Tina regularly brings us up to date by using the rhetorical sum-up gimmick. Here's an example: "I had goons gunning for me, a van load of potentially explosive material for which a man had died, a boyfriend in hell, and a life that was falling apart. I needed someone to talk with." (p. 262) A "summation" literary device can work once in a story, but if the main character needs to provide a series of "the-story-so-far" briefings for the reader, that is usually an indication that the author doesn't have the plot fully under control.
What we have in this book is an interesting mythology (the Zone) and the germ of a good story, neither of which has been thoroughly thought through—or at least not managed very well. It's as if the author had too many mythologies and too much to say to fit in one book so she chopped off some bits and pieces of some of the mini-mythologies and character elements. Unfortunately for the reader, that leaves a rough-cut, disjointed plot that presents more questions than answers. As far as character delineation goes, this is a cartoonish, cardboard cast of characters, which, with the exception of Tina, are never fully developed.
Tina tells her story in the first-person voice, and not very gracefully. First-person story-telling is tricky, and unfortunately, this author handles it awkwardly. As Tina punishes more and more bad guys, she receives a physical "gift" each time, one of which is that her bad leg gets magically healed. At that point, Tina's transformation from a gawky nerd to a kick-ass street fighter comes in the blink of an eye—way too quickly. It's hard to believe that this woman is able to defeat multiple, armed black-ops thugs all by herself when the day before she was hiding fearfully in the shadows from the neighborhood beat policeman. A healed leg and good hair don't seem to be enough to turn Little Miss Muffet into Wonder Woman overnight.
The cover art is misleading in that this is not an edgy, dark, or sexy story. It's a plain vanilla urban fantasy with an improbable premise, an overloaded mythology, and barely a hint of sensuality. Click HERE to read a brief excerpt—the scene in which Max gets sent to hell.
The cover art is misleading in that this is not an edgy, dark, or sexy story. It's a plain vanilla urban fantasy with an improbable premise, an overloaded mythology, and barely a hint of sensuality. Click HERE to read a brief excerpt—the scene in which Max gets sent to hell.
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