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Any book with a blurb on it that name checks Tanya Huff and the Vicky Nelson series is a book that’s going to get my immediate attention. And after reading the summary on the back cover of Phaedra Weldon’s Wraith, I was quite prepared to give this one a shot.

Turned out to be a solid read overall: Zoe Martinique is a young woman who’s developed the ability to have her spirit go out of her body. That this is the result of the traumatic experience of being raped when she was younger is handled with a surprising amount of deftness; a darker book might have lingered on that, but one of the things I appreciated about this is that Zoe was presented in a position of strength dealing with the experience. I’ve read novels wherein the heroine was raped and wherein, quite justifiably, she was shattered by the experience–but in this case, while it was certainly traumatic for Zoe, it was more of a case of being a defining moment in her life where she first developed some magnificent ability to deal.

She’s since learned to take advantage of her ability by hiring herself out to use her ability for private investigation, and the story starts off with a bang when she astral-projects herself right into witnessing a murder. When she tries to learn more about what happened, she starts learning very quickly about layers of the supernatural world she knows nothing about (not surprising in Book 1 of a series), and gets disturbing hints about where her ability may have come from (her mother is a witch and there are Mysterious Hints about her long-vanished father).

Other plusses in this story are that the obligatory Handsome Cop Love Interest this time around was described in such a way that I instantly thought “David Tennant with a Southern accent and blue eyes”. This was a plus. It helped as well that the actual character, Daniel Frasier, is likable, and the chemistry he has going with Zoe seems lively without going over the top like so many urban fantasies and paranormal romances do these days.

About the only weird note for me was that as a narrator, Zoe was often very chattery and a little scatterbrained, which I found distracting at first. On the other hand, as the story progressed and the situation got darker, her narration actually was a bit of a welcome contrast. Towards the end, it helped ground the story with a bit of reality for me, in a way that going over the top with the darkity darkness would not have done.

Definitely looking forward to reading Book 2. Four stars.

ETA 7/16/09 12:16pm: Adding new text and splitting the second paragraph into two to amend some deeply stupid wording on my part! Thanks to smeehrrr for calling that out.

It is perhaps indicative of how little impact The Ionian Mission had on me that, writing this review several weeks after I actually read the novel, I can barely remember what happened in it. Which isn’t really fair to the novel or Mr. O’Brian’s writing, to be sure, since this is after all an Aubrey-Maturin novel and by definition comes with a certain default level of Awesome. Also, a lot of the events in this book naturally inform what comes next in Treason’s Harbour.

Unfortunately, the book did indeed make little impact on me. I do recall Jack’s encounter with his old flame Mercedes (who goes clear back to Master and Commander), and his later being called on the carpet by Admiral Harte, and the general sucktitude of the Worcester as a ship when compared with Surprise. Other than that, though, the book’s primary virtue for me is serving as a lead-in to the superior Treason’s Harbour. Three stars.

The second Sebastian St. Cyr mystery is a decent episode in the series, following up on Book 1 by giving us a nice juicy politically motivated murder–and a side helping of expounding upon the background of Sebastian, revealing all sorts of intriguing secrets about his mother. It seems that the lady did not in fact die when Sebastian was eleven, as he’d been told, and that furthermore, a certain necklace that’s cropped up in the case he’s trying to solve ties back to her. Meanwhile, we learn more of why Kat, the actress Sebastian loves, steadfastly refuses to marry him: she has political intrigue in her own background, a life she’s desperately trying to abandon.

All in all the murder’s fun enough, set up intriguingly and giving an interesting portrait of Englad at the time, and in particular the popular opinion of the Prince Regent. But what really drove the plot for me here more is the background on Sebastian’s mother as well as the background with Kat. I’ll be very interested to see how this progresses with Book 3. Four stars.

Steve Alten’s The Loch was a grocery store impulse buy for me, and I have to admit I was drawn in by the promise in the blurb of a scientist guy haunted by a drowning experience in his childhood and being driven back to Loch Ness in Scotland to investigate whether the monster is really real. Sounds like fun, I said to myself.

Problem is, as grocery store impulse buys often do, the book just didn’t work for me over all. Our hero’s father is one big reason; the man’s an abusive prat, and constantly maligns his son’s manhood, calling him “lass” and randomly chosen feminine names practically every time he addresses him. And yet this is apparently all for the altruistic purpose of making Zach face his childhood fears. Um, what? Really? I gritted my teeth practically every time the character opened his mouth, and when Zach actually finally called his dad on his abusive asshattery, it really was too little too late for proper emotional satisfaction, even if it does shut dear old Daddy up.

Also, although this is less the fault of this book in particular and more the fault of being a general trope: I am generally crankier these days about romance plots that equate strong lust with actual love at first sight. I did sympathize with our hero getting dumped by his annoying fiancee after his initial accident, but wound up losing a good bit of that sympathy as his romance with his Actual Love Interest played out. Too many overused romance cliches, there.

Now, all this said, I did at least like the book well enough that I kept reading to the end, and it was doing interesting things with tying in the history of the Loch Ness monster to a centuries-old Jesuit conspiracy and a secret order. And it did have at least a bit of decent suspense. So overall, I’ll give it two stars.

The Patriot Witch, first installment of ccfinlay‘s Traitor to the Crown series, sets up the story of young Proctor Brown, who’s inherited the ability to scry from his mother. His only wish is to marry his sweetheart and prove himself to her father by making a fortune on his farm… except that the stirrings of rebellion are beginning in the countryside, and Proctor’s sympathies are with the local militia with whom he’s enlisted. When he encounters a British officer carrying a powerful protection charm, he’s set onto a path that leads him deeper not only into the brewing revolution, but also into understanding his own power.

All in all this was a fine little tale. Proctor’s an engaging young hero, and Deborah, the girl he eventually meets after his initial sweetheart abandons him, is his equal in spirit and his superior in magic. Some interesting threads are laid down about the greater role that magic plays in this version of the history of the American colonies; I’m quite intrigued to see where this will be going.

If anything my only beef at all with the book was that it felt a little too light. But that’s okay for the first book of a series, with Proctor as young as he is. It’ll be fun to see how Books 2 and 3 progress. Four stars.