Harbinger of Books

Describing this book without giving away spoilers is rather difficult. This is what I can say Kara finds herself in the middle of a windstorm that she did not know existed. In short she is a pawn where everyone has their own side for their own purposes. In this book Kara has literally left the planet and moved into the demon realm. Thus marks the move from a supernatural police mystery kind of book to one in the fantasy realm, there are points of the book which I am very interested in and others where it did not work so well.
The good points are we finally get to see into the world of demons and how the operate. Kara is finally learning something about the demon realm. I actually liked that we got to see the other side and begin to understand the relationship between the two worlds is quite complex, but we are left with more questions than answers.

As much as I hate to admit it this book left me with more issues than not. To begin a lot of my issues with the book are around the setting. I love high fantasy so I have no issue with the switch but in this book I have to say I think it was poorly executed. At the end of the day the world was not well developed for example I still am not clear on the flow of magic and where does it come from?? Is it the grove or internal power?? Why does the Grove speak to Kara?? Even the maneuverings and politics’ of the demon lords was not well explained…for example there are 12 well 11 since one is missing and yet four seem to hold power together while the others are where?? Then I never got a feel for how big the realm is at times it felt like it is one small town but in previous books it seemed like it was huge. When I read high fantasy books the details of the new world are really ingrained in the writing for me the entire setting paints a picture…in this book for me the strings of details never came together and so I feel left with a rather cursory view of the world.

My next issue was with Kara. There has been time’s in other books where Kara is a little slow but in this book she is suddenly TSTL at times. Why can she never seem to ask the big questions?? Moving on in all of the other books Kara knows how she is supposed to barter and speak to demons in this one it seems like she was over it and said the dumbest stuff. What magnified it for me is she was a decent cop before and now all of the sudden you are in a strange land and have no idea who is friend or foe and your detective sense doesn’t kick in?? Oh and the cursing jeez I have no issue with a potty mouth but it felt like a ten year old who just had no idea what she was saying. My last complaint is when did the mousey not very attractive lady suddenly become a babe magnet? Really everything with a penis wants to have sex with her…really why certainly it is not for her great conversation?? What is worse is that Kara has spent so much time in prior books learning about relationships and learning how not to be guarded so it feels off that she is in a place where she has been betrayed and her trust issues are so minor. Then we have her amazing powers …really …this made no sense.

Despite all of my whining during the book I must admit that at the end of the book I enjoyed the conclusion of some of the arcs and it left me curious to see what happens next. Having said that the challenges I have with this one are not so easily over come. I will definitely read the next one and I suggest that anyone who reads this one takes the time to re-read the series first.