Shotgun Sorceress by Lucy A Snyder

Shotgun Sorceress

Lucy A. Snyder

***** no, **** - wait, maybe ***** - hell no the ending ****

but the plot and writing were pretty good.....*****, ahhhh - unnecessarily graphic sex scenes ***. Fuck it. four and a half stars out of possible six

cover - see those hairy long things? look like logs or posts, or something? take a closer look - they are spider/ferret furred legs. Oh yeah - that is a seriously gargantuan spider/ferret creature. Read Spellbent for the full story on that one. See the glowing eye? way cool - she lost her eye and her face is a little wrecked. See the flames and smoke emanating from her left hand? Her left - your right. Oh yeah, another leftover byproduct of her last adventure. All in all - a pretty cool cover. Doesn't she look pissed off? Don't MESS with her man!

I really am having a hard time rating this book - even for myself. The thing is, Ms Snyder does have talent and has come up with some pretty intriguing plots in the two books of hers that I have so far read. The thing is, is that when I pick up a urban fantasy book, I really want to read urban fantasy - focus on story with danger, monsters, women kicking ass, etc. I really seriously don't mind a bit of sex once in a while within those novels, but I do get tired of reading graphic sex scene after sex scene. To be fair, this particular novel does feature a goddess that wreaks havoc on people's lust - so of course there is going to be areas where the characters have to deal with lust and sex - and I think that there were some scenes that totally fit in with this, and she did a very good job including the lust and some sex that ended up happening even though those involved wouldn't normally have gone together. Snyder didn't shy away from the situation even though it was awkward for the characters. Those scenes actually didn't bother me.

That said, there were some scenes (especially at the beginning of the story) that I could have gone without reading and still enjoyed the story for the story. It just didn't need to be as graphic as a paranormal romance/soft porn novel. Normally, I would just kind of skim over it, because I really do get bored with it all, but then there were many many many....MANY very -shall we say - "down to earth" descriptions of female body fluids....I really don't need to have quite so much detail when I'm reading a book. Really. The story wasn't improved by the inclusion of all those....descriptions. Y'know, there's blunt and then there's....gross.

However - all of that aside, the story was pretty good and there were some mythical elements that I had never heard of before (I'm sure there's a lot I haven't heard of before) with a town that was held captive in a very unique way. This is where the main story takes place.

In the first book of the series, Jessie Shimmer had to rescue her boyfriend and some of his previously-unknown brothers from a hellemont and demon. She was left with some serious injuries and magical legal troubles. Shotgun Sorceress starts out just where Spellbent left off. Which is good, except that I passed on the book last year, and the details were a bit vague to me.

Snyder also has an unfortunate habit of inserting major info-dumping within her novels. in the last novel, these huge blocks of information would happen RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF SOME INTENSE ACTION. This time around, I didn't really notice this happening in the middle of intense actions scenes, but there were a few conversations that were interrupted with long introspectives of...info-dumping. It has improved, though from the previous novel.

Jessie and co. have to go to faerie (neutral ground) to discuss actions and consequences. As they're leaving, they are attacked and Jessie opens a portal in the sky (they were flying on her ex-familiar, Pal) landing them in Cuchillo, Texas. Only they can't leave. And they can't use magic.....all because of this goddess who makes Jessie very, very horny and affects those she touches (in more ways than one) in very intense ways.

The dialog between Jessie and the rest of the characters was great - very believable. One of the things I loved from the last book was Jessie's voice. Even when narrating - first person pov - Jessie had the country girl way of speech, her thoughts and her spoken speech sounded very in character. I could very easily picture or hear her accent in my head. In this book, it started out like that, but unfortunately there were some sections where Jessie sounded a bit out of character - kind of like a teacher.

Does it sound like I can't make up my mind about this book? I can't. I liked it. It irritated me. I loved it. I hated it. I enjoyed it very much....there was all this great build up and then at the end.......very boring end to her dangerous situation. It was kind of like watching a big huge balloon get bigger and bigger and bigger, you know it's going to pop with a very loud BOOM and then it finally pops with a little teeny pop.

Right away...or rather at the end, you know there's going to be a third book, because Jessie has to go after someone. Okay. But the ending was disappointing even though parts of the book were so great, and yet I was grossed out by some of the womanish terminology and bored by some of the sex scenes, yet some of the other sex scenes were downright inspired.....

yep. Mixed feelings. Like a blended fruit drink with chocolate sauce. Good parts that don't quite go together.

I might read the third......maybe. Hell, I really don't know. I still don't know how I feel about the damned book.