Yzabel / May 12, 2014

Shadows & Dreams by Alexis Hall

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

My name’s Kate Kane. And right now, I don’t know which is more dangerous: my job, or my girlfriend. My job makes me the go-to girl for every supernatural mystery in London. My girlfriend’s an eight-hundred-year-old vampire prince. Honestly, I think it’s probably a tie.

A few weeks ago, I was hired for a simple missing person case. Next thing I know, I’m being arrested for murder, a vampire army is tearing up London, and even my dreams are out to get me. Something ancient, evil, and scary as hell is on the loose and looking for payback. The vampires are in chaos, the werewolves are culling everything, and the Witch Queen can’t protect everyone.

Which means it’s down to me. And all I’ve got to hold back the shadows is a stiff drink, a quirky sidekick, my creepy ex-boyfriend, and the woman who left me for a tech startup. It’s going to be another interesting day.

This title is #2 of the Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator series.

Review:

[I got an ARC of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I liked this one better than the first one. Partly because I already know the characters, but also, I think, because I found it less heavy on some of the things that had bothered me in the previous volume.

Characters, first. The reader will meet known ones again: Julian, Nimue, Ashriel, and get to know more about others (such as a Eve). Kate remains a fun point of view character, with a good dose of humour even in dire situations. She has a tendency to do things that aren’t exactly good for her, but at least she acknowledges it… even though it doesn’t prevent her from getting into dangerous situations. Elise plays a more important part, being here from the beginning, this time, and I must say she’s also a character I’ve taken quite a liking to. She’s discovering life as a normal human being (well, as normal as possible in the circumstances, that is), has an interesting way of speaking and apprehending the world, and I found that her becoming Kate’s assistant actually helped with furthering the plot. In “Iron & Velvet”, I sometimes felt that Kate stumbled upon information; Elise being tasked with finding information streamlines things a bit, and makes the investigation more believable in my opinion. Last but not least, Eve: she may seem bigger than life to some, but I found her geeky, Batman-wannabe side quite funny. And she gets the job done; no comic-relief useless sidekick on her part here.

There was less romance/erotica this time, and for me, it was for the best. I guess I’m used to the Kate-Julian relatioship now, so I wasn’t bothered by insta-love or anything similar. Owing to the plot, the two women didn’t spend as much time together, which wasn’t pleasant for them, sure, but also allowed less room for the sex scenes. (I don’t have anything against sex scenes, only they didn’t work for me in book 1, in part because of the weird similes often associated with them. So, yes, less of those here meant less clunky scenes in my opinion.) Although I still think Kate should learn to keep her dick in her pants, metaphorically speaking, she wasn’t as unfocused as previously, and therefore felt more believable as a PI.

I must admit that the Patrick/Sofia routine, while funny at first (with all the drama queen antics and the woe-is-me-I-totally-shape-the-world-to-my-beliefs attitude that clearly hints at bad emo stories), became a little tiresome after a while. I must’ve rolled my eyes as often as Kate did. But then, Patrick is an infuriating character, and one that is meant to serve as a comic relief.

The bit about the Vampire: the Requiem game made me smile. No irony lost here. It reminded me a bit of the RPG bit in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, and I wonder if this was intentional or not? On the other hand, I’m certainly not holding that against the author here, because it’s the kind of scene I like (and would probably write as well at some point).

Not the best book of 2014 for me, but definitely an improvement on the first one. I think I’ve warmed up to this world and characters.