NEW SERIES! Devon Monk: ORDINARY MAGIC SERIES

Author:  Devon Monk 
Series:  ORDINARY MAGIC
Plot Type:  Urban Fantasy (UF)
Ratings:  Violence—3; Sensuality—4; Humor—2-3  
Publisher and Titles:  Odd House Press
          Death and Relaxation (6/2016)

          Devils and Details (8/2016)

          Gods and Ends (Spring 2017)

This ongoing post contains an overview of the world-building and reviews of the first two novels. I will add reviews of future novels when they are published.  

                        WORLD-BUILDING                        

     The oceanside village of Ordinary, Oregon, is populated by a mix of ordinary humans and extraordinary deities and supernatural creatures (aka deits and creats). The creatures (mostly vampires and werewolves) live in Ordinary in their human forms, and some of them have lived there for many, many years. The deities, on the other hand, use Ordinary as their vacation spot, stopping in for a year or ten or twenty to relax and get away from their god/goddess responsibilities. All of the deits and creats have regular jobs in Ordinary. For example, many of the vampires are firefighters and EMTs; an aquatic creature owns a brewery; and a Valkyrie runs Ordinary's annual festival—the Rhubarb Rally.

     For future reference (mostly so that I will remember who's who in future novels), here is a list of the main deits and creats currently residing in Ordinary:

THE DEITIES: 

 > Odin, head of the Norse gods. In Ordinary, he is a (bad) chainsaw artist.

 > Frigg, Odin's wife runs Frigg's Rigs, a towing company in Ordinary.

 > Crow (aka Raven), the trickster god, is a glassblower who holds Saturday glass-float-making classes that he calls Blow Your Own Balls.

 > Thor (aka Thorne Jameson), Odin's son, the hammer-wielding god of thunder and lightning, is a mediocre guitar-playing lounge singer who collects vintage vinyl record albums and rubber duckies.

 > A Valkyrie who calls herself Bertie is the head of the community center and runs the town's four annual festivals.

 > Zeus, king of the Greek gods, wears expensive suits and runs a high fashion and fancy decor shop that caters to tourists with lots of money to waste. 

 > Hera (aka Herri), Zeus' wife (and sister), runs Mom's Bar and Grill.

 > Ares (aka Aaron), Greek god of war, runs the local nursery and garden center.

 > Hades, Greek god of the underworld, is a happy, soft-hearted man who runs a bed and breakfast where each room is decorated in literary themes: romance, mystery, western, historical, and fantasy.

 > Athena (aka Thena), Greek goddess of reason, runs the local surf shop.

 > Nortia, Etruscan goddess in charge of fate, is the cook at Jump Off Jack Brewery.

 > Heimdall, the Norse god who is supposed to alert the gods in Valhalla when Ragnarök is at hand, is a fisherman.

 > Thanatos (aka Than), Greek god of death, shows up in the middle of book one and takes a job as a kite maker. He is fond of wearing brightly colored Hawaiian shirts over tee shirts with touristy slogans.

THE CREATURES: 
 > Travail Rossi (aka Old Rossi) is the head of the vampires. (All vampires have the surname "Rossi.") He does not like the heroine's boyfriend, Ryder. In his current form, Old Rossi is a New Age hippie/yoga fanatic who is obsessed with the flow of chi in his house and who collects carved eggshells.

 > Granny Wolfe is the head of the werewolves (All werewolves have the surname "Wolfe.")

 > Ben Rossi (vampire) and Jame Wolfe (werewolf) are the town's token gay couple—both firefighters. They play an important role in book two.

 > Chris Lagon is a gill-man who owns and runs Jump Off Jack Brewery. 

     The key human characters in the series are the three Reed sisters: Delaney, Myra, and Jean. For generations, the Reed family has been in charge of keeping the peace in Ordinary. Outside the Reed family, very few humans know about the existence of the deits and creats, and neither of those supernatural groups is allowed to reveal their secret identities to the humans. Of course, that leads to problems when deities hook up with humans of the opposite sex, because deit lovers tend to suddenly disappear at the end of their Ordinary vacations, leaving a trail of broken human hearts in their wake.

     In the original oath they signed, the Reeds "were bound to answer the call of the deities as quickly as we could." In fact, Delaney has a special telephone on her desk at the police department that is a direct line to the Casino, which serves as the headquarters and mail drop for the gods. She has to drive out to the Casino once a week to pick up the gods' messages and meet with any new deities who want to vacation in Ordinary. New deities are required to sign a contract promising to divest themselves of their god powers while they are in town. They must also agree to other non-negotiable rules: "Get a job or otherwise be a contributing member of the community. Don't kill anyone or harm through intent or neglect. And most importantly: do not procreate." Also, as Delaney reminds Thanatos, "You understand that my family is the law in the town, and our word is the final justice." Although the deities enjoy vacationing in Ordinary, there is one big downside: "While any god was vacationing and powerless, he or she would be mostly human, and, therefore, could be injured, and even worse: killed."

     Each Reed sibling has a particular magical power. Myra has the gift of always being where she needs to be at the right time. Jean can tell when something bad is going to happen and usually has an idea as to what that bad thing is going to be. Delaney, who inherited her father's position as chief of police as well as his powers, serves as a bridge for god power. She uses her talent primarily in two ways: to transfer a vacationing god's power from him or her during vacation time and to transfer the god power from a dead god to his or her replacement. If a deity dies, its god power lives on and must be transferred to a willing human within seven days. It is Delaney's job to carry the god power of the late deity within her own body, find a willing human, and transfer the power to its new owner, who then takes on the identity of that deity. If she fails to transfer the power in time, the god power will leave her and attack the town and its environs.

Note: All quotations (in green) in the World-Building section are taken from Death and Relaxation.

                         NOVEL 1:  Death and Relaxation                          

PUBLISHER'S BLURB: 

     Monsters, gods, and mayhem…Police Chief Delaney Reed can handle the Valkyries, werewolves, gill-men and other paranormal creatures who call the small beach town of Ordinary, Oregon their home. It’s the vacationing gods who keep her up at night.

   With the famous Rhubarb Festival right around the corner, small-town tensions, tempers, and godly tantrums are at an all-time high. The last thing Delaney needs is her ex-boyfriend reappearing just when she’s finally caught the attention of Ryder Bailey, the one man she should never love.

     No, scratch that. The actual last thing she needs is a dead body washing ashore, especially since the dead body is a god.

   Catching a murderer, wrestling a god power, and re-scheduling the apocalypse? Just another day on the job in Ordinary. Falling in love with her childhood friend while trying to keep the secrets of her town secret? That’s gonna take some work. 

MY REVIEW: 
     The plot begins to build in the first chapter when someone blows up Dan Perkin's rhubarb patch in the middle of the night. The town's tourist-attracting Rhubarb Festival is days away, and Dan (a human) is convinced that one of his rivals—Chris Lagon—has committed the crime. As Delaney tracks down leads, she discovers that one of Chris's alibi witnesses is her childhood crush, the handsome Ryder Bailey, who has moved back to Ordinary and back into Delaney's dreams. Delaney has stayed away from Ryder since he returned, but when she interviews him, she's once again hopelessly swamped with seemingly unrequited lust/love. Her lustful feelings are directly related to the fact that Ryder is stark naked when he answers her knock on his door. Soon, Myra and Jean sneakily hire Ryder as a reserve officer to help them out during the Rhubarb festivities, and Delaney's romance with Ryder begins to get serious. 

     The next event, which is foreseen by Jean, is the death of one of the gods, which means that Delaney absorbs the dead deity's god power—an uncomfortable experience that knocks her unconscious for awhile. Now, she has several tasks: solve the mystery of the rhubarb explosion, find the god killer, find a human to take the dead god's powers, and deal with her very complicated relationship with Ryder, who seems to be concealing some law enforcement skills that don't match up with his career as an architect. Clearly, Ryder is keeping some secrets. As if that's not enough, Delaney's ex-boyfriend, Cooper Clark, comes back to town ready to take up their relationship where he left it a year ago when he went off to "find himself." 

     The romance is weakened because Monk sabotages her heroine. As the police chief who deals with vampires, werewolves, contrary humans, and unpredictable deities, Delaney is portrayed as dependable, loyal, strong, intelligent, and competent. But every time Delaney is in the presence of Ryder Bailey, she turns into an ugly puddle of embarrassing, mindless lust-mush. Every single time they are in the same vicinity, Monk flips a switch in Delaney's brain that turns this mature, well-spoken woman into a stuttering, love-struck adolescent. It's hard to believe that this is the same author who created the fearless, feisty Allie Beckstrom. (Click HERE to read my review of that series.)

     Although Monk sets up a suspenseful plot, I found it relatively easy to figure out the identities of both the god killer and the human who becomes the new god, because Monk drops so many clues into the narrative (most of which Delaney—implausibly—misses). SPOILER AHEAD IN NEXT SENTENCE: At one point, early in the book, someone leaves a threatening message of warning at the deities' Casino message box, but that message turns out not to have come from a deity or a creature—so how did the message writer know about the message drop? And why was the message even sent? None of this is ever explained.  END OF SPOILER 

     For me, this novel wasn't as good as I expected given Monk's terrific writing in her ALLIE BECKSTROM series. On the plus side, though, she has created an interesting and detailed mythology and some quirky characters. If Delaney can pull herself together and be the heroine we know she can be, I believe that the series will be successful. But if she keeps melting into a love puddle every time she sees Ryder, I will probably stop reading the series. Click HERE to go to this novel's Amazon.com page where you can click on the cover art to read an excerpt.

     One last thing: The sisters play a game they call "No-goes" when faced with a task that they don't want to do. I never heard of it before and was slightly confused by the reference, so I did some research. If you need some background on this little game, click HERE. 

                         NOVEL 2:  Devils and Details                         

PUBLISHER'S BLURB: 

     Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea…Police Chief Delaney Reed is good at keeping secrets for the beach town of Ordinary Oregon–just ask the vacationing gods or supernatural creatures who live there.

     But with the first annual Cake and Skate fundraiser coming up, the only secret Delaney really wants to know is how to stop the unseasonable rain storms. When all the god powers are stolen, a vampire is murdered, and her childhood crush turns out to be keeping deadly secrets of his own, rainy days are the least of her worries.

     Hunting a murderer, outsmarting a know-it-all god, and uncovering an ancient vampire’s terrifying past isn’t how she planned to spend her summer. But then again, neither is falling back in love with the one man she should never trust. 

MY REVIEW: 

    In the second novel, Delaney must deal with a major problem: finding and recovering the god powers, all of which someone has stolen from Crow's "secure" hiding place (inside one of his glassblowing furnaces). Naturally, the deities are in an uproar—furious at Crow for his lousy security and angry with Delaney for allowing Crow to stay in Ordinary when he was supposed to have left town for a year. You see, one of the rules the gods must follow when they vacation in Ordinary is that if a deity takes up his or her powers while in town, he or she must then keep those powers for a year and get out of town. 

     This story begins several months after the end of book one (in which three deities took up their powers in order to assist Delaney in resolving a major problem), and the other two gods (Hera and Thor) have both followed the rules. In fact, Thor is demonstrating his anger at being kicked out of town by soaking Ordinary in a never-ending series of thunderstorms. Why on earth did Delaney allow Crow to break the rule and remain in town? At the time, she believed him when he said that his trickster nature allowed him to "bend" the rules, but now that he has lost all of the god powers—including his own—Delaney is on his case, as are all the rest of the deities. 

     The second problem—which turns out to be completely unrelated to Crow's problem—is that Sven, Old Rossi's newest vampire, is found dead with a bullet in his brain and mysterious symbols written on his body in blood—Ryder's blood. Delaney is shocked by the crime and stunned when Rossi tells her that it was the bloody symbols that killed Sven, not the silver bullet. Rossi calls this "ichor techne"—blood art. The fact that Ryder's blood was used in the crime reaches back to some foreshadowing in book one in which Delaney suspected that Ryder, who claims to be a full-time architect, was much more familiar with guns and police procedures than one would expect an architect to be. Did Ryder murder Sven? Is he trying to undermine Delaney and damage her town? What deep and dangerous secrets is he hiding? Who is the mysterious (and obnoxious) man that Ryder brings to Rossi's house? Much of the plot deals with Delaney's attempts to get answers to those questions. By the end of the book, all of Ryder's secrets are revealed to Delaney and her allies, and all of Ordinary's secrets are revealed to Ryder. As part of that process, Ryder makes an extremely risky decision that will change his life forever. Part of this story thread involves the introduction of a new god—Mithra, the Zoroastrian god of contracts and justice. Mithra was mentioned in book one, but in this book we get to meet him in all his scowling, menacing god-glory.

    Another foreshadowing from book one also comes to fruition: Hera's prediction that war is coming to Ordinary. By the end of the book, we learn who is bringing the violence to Delaney's town and in what form.

     Basically, the story follows Delaney as she searches for clues to Sven's murder, investigates the mystery of the vanished god powers, and deals with the repercussions of Ryder's mind-boggling revelations.

     And one more thing: We are forced to suffer through yet another silly town festival: the Cake and Shake fundraiser, in which teams of ice skaters compete to deliver food packages. According to Delaney, Ordinary has four festivals each year, so I'm guessing that each novel will include one of them. Thankfully, we only have to suffer through a few pages of Cake and Shake action, but even that is too much. Monk probably includes the ridiculous festivals to provide comic relief in these dark plots, but really, the novels would be stronger without them.

     Simmering along in the background is the mostly untold story of the mysterious death of Delaney's father, the previous police chief, who died in a suspicious auto accident. Back in book one, Than (god of death) hinted that there was more to it, and in this book Delaney gets a bit more information from Odin—not enough to solve the mystery, but enough to keep her wondering.

     Delaney is still going all weak-kneed and wobbly every time she is near Ryder, so that situation still hasn't improved. And that's too bad, because in every other way, she is a stalwart, intelligent, logical woman who handles the supernatural and human problems of Ordinary quite efficiently and effectively. But if Ryder is on the scene, Delaney turns into a lust-addled nitwit without a brain in her head. What a shame to waste a terrific heroine on such a lame "hero." I was hoping that Monk would allow her heroine to be an independent woman, but I guess that's not going to happen.

     There is one stylistic oddity: In the first novel, Delaney constantly referred to the deities and the creatures as deits and creats, but in this novel, she drops those nicknames completely and just calls them gods and creatures.

     Still, even though the romance subplot is predictable (and icky), the action scenes have plenty of suspense and they move along at a crisp pace. So...if you ignore the mushy stuff and concentrate on the action, you may enjoy the book. Click HERE to go to this novel's Amazon.com page where you can click on the cover art to read an excerpt.

UPDATE! Cathy Clamp: THE LUNA LAKE SAZI SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Cathy Clamp's  LUNA LAKE SAZI SERIES by adding a review of Illicit, the second novel. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Suzanne Johnson's SENTINELS OF NEW ORLEANS SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Suzanne Johnson's 
SENTINELS OF NEW ORLEANS SERIES by adding a review of Belle Chasse, the fifth novel in the series.

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Kim Harrison: PERI REED CHRONICLES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Kim Harrison's PERI REED CHRONICLES by adding a review of The Operator, the second novel in the series. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Robin D. Owens: GHOST SEER SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Robin D. Owens' GHOST SEER SERIES by adding a review of Ghost Maker, the fifth novel. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Nalini Singh: GUILD HUNTER SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Nalini Singh's GUILD HUNTER SERIES by adding a review of Archangel's Heart, the ninth novel. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

NEW PARANORMAL ROMANCE ANTHOLOGY! "Blood Red Kiss"

Authors:  Kresley Cole, Larissa Ione, and Gena Showalter  

Title:  Blood Red Kiss 
Plot Type:  Soul Mate Romance (SMR) 
Ratings:  Violence—3-4; Sensuality—4+; Humor—2-3

Publisher and Titles:  Pocket Books (10/2016)

                    INTRODUCTION                    

     What we have here is a collection of three novellas, each from a different series. One is a revised version of a story that was published in 2006. The other two are new. These are best read if you are already familiar with the mythologies of the  three series. That is particularly true of the final story, "Dark Swan."

     Click HERE to go to this book's Amazon.com page where you can then click on the cover art to read excerpts from the three novellas.      

                    PUBLISHER'S BLURB                    

     Good things always come in threes—and this paranormal romance anthology featuring steamy stories from New York Times bestselling authors Kresley Cole, Larissa Ione, and Gena Showalter is no exception! Get ready for a collection chock full of vamps, demons, aliens, and plenty of sizzle!

     In Kresley Cole's remastered story "The Warlord Wants Forever," the first in her scorching IMMORTALS AFTER DARK series, vampire warlord Nikolai Wroth will stop at nothing to claim his Bride, the one woman who can make his heart beat again. But can beautiful Myst the Coveted accept an enemy vampire as her own? 

     Tehya has spent the last twelve years as an accidental wolf, but is truly a vampire at heart. When she gets injured, Lobo sneaks her inside MoonBound's headquarters and nurses her back to health...with potentially deadly consequences. Desire collides with danger in "Forsaken by Night," a MOONBOUND CLAN novella from Larissa Ione!

  In Gena Showalter's OTHERWORLD ASSASSINS novella, "Dark Swan," Lilica Swan isn't quite human or otherworlder; she is the best—and worst—of both. She is willing to do whatever proves necessary to save her sister from the seductive and deadly Alien Investigation and Removal agent, Dallas Gutierrez, even bond her life to his...effectively wedding him. But without consummation, the bond will fade. Can Dallas resist his insatiable desire for the powerful beauty? Or will she lead to his ultimate downfall?

                   MY REVIEWS                      

1. Kresley Cole: "The Warlord Wants Forever"
     Click HERE to read my reviews of the books in the IMMORTALS AFTER DARK series.

     This is a revised version of the very first entry in the IMMORTALS AFTER DARK SERIES that was first published back in 2006. In honor of the tenth anniversary of the series, Cole includes some extras: an explanation of the origin of the Valkyries as portrayed in this series; several pages of FAQs; a panorama showing the evolution of the cover art for A Hunger Like No Other; and a lengthy text dialogue among the three authors of this anthology. As usual, at the beginning of the novella, she includes excerpts from The Living Book of Lore that include pertinent information about the Lore, the Valkyries, the Vampires, the Horde, the Forbearers, and the Accession.

     This is a steamy interspecies love story starring the Valkyrie Myst (aka the Coveted One) and the Forbearer Nikolai Wroth. The story opens with a flashback to five years ago: Myst is imprisoned in the dungeon of Ivo the Cruel. While she is waiting for her sister Valkyries to rescue her, the castle is attacked and overrun by the forces of Kristoff, the rightful Horde king. (Be sure to read the introductory glossary, which explains the Horde, the Forbears, and the Fallen.) Each adult male vampire spends his undead existence in search of his Bride, who will make his heart beat again in a process called blooding (very similar to what happens in Christine Feehan's CARPATHIAN series when her ancient, lonely heroes meet their soulmates). 

     Nikolai rescues Myst from her cell, but promises to torture her if she doesn't give him information about various factions of the Lore. In retaliation, Myst begins her blooding with Nikolai but doesn't allow him to complete the process (if you know what I mean!). Instead, she escapes with her sisters, leaving Nikolai in a permanent, painful state of tumescence—desperate, all-consuming sexual desire that can never be fulfilled until he can track down Myst and consummate their bonding. As a bonus punishment, Myst allows Nikolai to drink a few drops of her blood, which floods him with her memories—including those of her centuries of sexual escapades—thus making him insanely jealous. 

     Fast-forward five years: Myst is back in New Orleans at the Valkyries' mansion, but so is Nikolai. He has finally tracked her down, and, as you can well imagine, he's in a very bad mood. With his tracing (aka teleporting) abilities, he soon captures her and manages to magically force her to follow his every order. Naturally, most of those orders are sex-related, so get ready for pages and pages and pages of erotic sex scenes. The remainder of the story follows the two on the bumpy road to their HEA, with many arguments, misunderstandings, and reconciliations that add twists and turns to the plot. This is a nice flashback to the early days of the fascinating mythology on which Cole has built this terrific series. Nikolai is definitely one of Cole's more dominant males, but you can hardly blame him after his Bride consigns him to five long years spent in a constant state of arousal.

2. Larissa Ione: "Forsaken by Night"
     Click HERE to read my reviews of the books in the MOONBOUND CLAN VAMPIRES series. Note: This is my favorite of the three novellas. Both Lobo and his true love are terrific characters, with suitably tragic back-stories and plenty of charisma.

     Lobo is both a born vampire and a skinwalker. He was raised within the MoonBound Clan after its warriors murdered his parents for being skinwalkers. In this mythology, skinwalkers are feared and are usually killed on sight. Lobo spent his childhood years being treated (literally) like a dog: chained up on a pile of dirt, eating kitchen scraps and garbage, and being whipped and kicked by clan members. After Hunter took over the Clan, Lobo's living conditions improved slightly, but when he took the form of another vampire in order to ferret out a spy, Hunter refused to hear Lobo's side of the story and banished him from the Clan. 

     For years, Lobo has been living in an isolated cabin on the edge of the Clan's lands with only the company of a female wolf to keep him sane. Lobo found the wolf near death in the forest and nursed her back to health, naming her Tehya, which means "precious." By this time, they have become inseparable, and sometimes when he looks at her he sees a semi-transparent human figure—a gorgeous woman—transposed over Tehya's wolfy form. Soon, Lobo learns that Tehya is much more than a plain old wolf. You can probably guess what's coming, so I won't spoil it for you. 

     In any case, the story follows Lobo's romance, which includes no problems between him and his mate. All of the chaos and confusion are caused by Hunter and his followers, who believe that Lobo is a traitor to be feared and that Tehya is just as bad. Needless to say, the situation works itself out when Lobo and Tehya save the Clan by putting themselves in harm's way.

     As always, Ione provides meaty back-stories for her main characters, although they are similarly grim and Dickensian (in a paranormal sort of way). In this series, most of the heroes and heroines must suffer greatly in their early years in order to be rewarded with true love if they can manage to stay alive long enough to reach adulthood. 

     The plot is ingenious, just complex enough to be interesting. It's a terrific story that can be read as a standalone, although having the background from the earlier books would enrich your enjoyment. The romance has plenty of steamy love scenes as the lovers discover that they really enjoy the fact that they are fated to be together forever.

3. Gena Showalter: "Dark Swan"

     This is an ALIEN HUNTRESS novella. Click HERE to go to a page on Showalter's web site that lists the books in this series with links to plot summaries.

     As a person who has not read the novels in this series, I felt slightly lost in the mythology of this world. I did manage to make sense of the novella's plot, but I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the earlier books.

     Having said that, here is a brief summary of the plot: A set of female triplets have been created and raised in a laboratory of the Institute of Otherworld Technology (IOT): Lilica, Trinity, and Jade Swan. When the lab is destroyed, the scientists flee and the girls—now young women—are left alone to fend for themselves in a world that is totally unfamiliar to them. Unfortunately for Trinity, the scientists caused her to become infected with a succubus-type illness, a parasitic disease called Schön. A Schön host like Trinity addicts men to her taste. "Those men would then find themselves infected with the Schön disease, faced with a gruesome choice: have sex with others to spread the disease, keeping it from feeding on their own bodies, or rot from the inside out, ultimately succumbing to the desire to eat human flesh." So...yes, Trinity is running around the country spreading Schön and creating sex-zombies. Naturally, she has to be stopped.

     The three sisters were created from the DNA of 23 humans and aliens, with each one winding up with a slightly different mix of abilities and each one different in appearance from the others. Frankly, it's difficult to keep all of their abilities straight, particularly since sometimes at least one of them can absorb and use the superhuman abilities of people she touches.

     Dallas Gutierrez is an Alien Investigation and Removal (AIR) agent. AIR is an enforcement group that is trying to capture and destroy Trinity. Meanwhile, Lilica and Jade are trying to keep from being captured by AIR so that they can find Trinity and save her...somehow. When Lilica reads Dallas' mind and realizes that he is going to kill Trinity, she lets him capture her so that she can use her powers on him, specifically her "voodoo voice," which forces people to do exactly what she tells them to do. Unfortunately that doesn't work out so well because almost immediately Dallas and Lilica form a mate bond that binds their minds, bodies, and emotions closely together—so closely that their powers don't work on each other.

     The story follows a convoluted path as Dallas and Lilica stumble their way through a series of erotic sex scenes even though he continues to control her through drug injections right up until the end of the book. Both have had terrible childhoods that they unwillingly share through a transference of memories. Things get very emotional towards the end when it seems that there may be no way to save Trinity, but much of the drama and emotion were lost on me because of the complexity of the plot, specifically the fact that these girls seemed to be able to pull out and use one power after another even though they had no idea that they had these new powers, and they had no training in using them. Sometimes it seemed that Showalter was using the girls' newly discovered powers as deux ex machina just to solve her plot problems. By the end, I was just happy that it was over.

     Again, let me repeat that my problems with this story probably stem from the fact that I am unfamiliar with this world. If you have been reading the series, you will probably have a better reaction than I did.