Ghosts and Echoes by Lyn Benedict - review

Ghosts and Echoes
Shadows Inquiries #2
Lyn Benedict aka Lane Robins
Urban Fantasy/2010

***** (5 out of 6 stars)
Cover - I like the cover - the Miami skyline, the lavender hue, the gun in her hand, and the kind of pissed off look on the woman's face. Doesn't she look ready to shoot the next person to irritate her?

If you've read Sins and Shadows, then you know that the main character - Sylvie - can be a bit of a cranky person.  In the last book, I enjoyed her inner seething rage.  It was kind of constant, she was so pissed off most of the book.  In this book, she came across a little more sullen than angry.  Not sure if I really liked that part, but the story itself was good - a good plot, a good narration, good dialogue and some suspenseful scenes with creep factors.

Sylvie's sister, Zoe, has been in a bit of trouble and she gets dumped on Sylvie's watch while her parents take off on a trip.  Of course, Zoe disappears - she's a rebellious teen with some sinister associations as well as the same blood in her veins that has Sylvie hearing those dark, snarky thoughts.  While this is happening, Sylvie has been having money problems (all the urban fantasy heroines who work for a living seem to have money problems - so do I, lots of money problems.  I might feel like reading about people without money problems, but then again - I don't want to read about filthy rich people either.  hard to please, that's me) so her office manager/assistant forces her to take a simple case that turns out to be not so simple.  All the businesses around the area have been robbed without any signs of forced entry, and no witnesses.

AND .... a cop comes to her from Chicago, setting of her last traumatic snafu case where she had to fight gods and the furies of Greek legends.  Chicago is still recovering from this event.  Turns out this particular cop, Wright, was killed and brought back to life (yeay for CPR), only he doesn't seem to feel himself.  He has a passenger on board....a haunt....  

The book was well written, the story was a good story and the cases were interesting.  The problems that Sylvie has been having with the local police, however, hinder her investigations and she has been being harassed by them.  And kind of behaving in a harassed sullen young adult type of way.  At least there was no posturing a la Blake happening here; so uber-sensitive to that type of posturing since reading a few of those endless posturing episodes.  Because of the reason for their harassment, she gets a little sullen, but she also seems to have a bit of patience for it, understanding the reason and accepting the situations.

There is something in the ending that seemed a bit too convenient - but author's choice; and while it was so very convenient, the reaction from Sylvie wasn't exactly welcoming, it was more critical and "this is not a good thing".  The bottom line is that I'm glad I read Ghosts and Echoes and I enjoyed the book, very much. This is a good story, again, with believable dialogue and characters.  The cases were solved one way or another, and we've gotten a taste of Zoe, Sylvie's little sister.  Even though she was a total teen brat in this novel, seeming to care about nothing but her own wants and needs, she did seem to show signs of hidden depths, possibilities of growth, etc.  Promising, and could be an interesting secondary character addition to the series.   I have the next in the series waiting for me on the shelf.  I believe there are even more in the series waiting for me at the bookstores.

Shadows Inquiries #1

Shadows Inquiries #2

  

 

Shadows Inquiries #3

Shadows Inquiries #4

    

It's Monday, and I got lost...

This is a very long post; two parts - my adventure (or misadventure) and It's Monday Post.

One of my sons and I had a 'madcap' adventure yesterday.  My father was going to give me a car, since he bought a new-to-him car.  The only thing we had to worry about was a non functioning left turn signal.  So the plan was to get a ride to his place, which was about a 2 hour drive from where we live.

We did get there within 2 hours.

then we had lunch.

then we had to do paperwork (of course)

Then my dad insisted on putting gas in the car for us.

the gas station was down a freeway and a few turns away.

then we had to go to his apartment (the first house was actually his girlfriend's house) to get new directions to get back home because of course, now we had no idea how to get back to where we were...

Oh yeah - and the tail lights didn't work.  Neither did either turn signal in the back.  Or even the brake-lights.

oops.

So our plan was to leave and hopefully get home before dark.

wasn't happening.

I'm so used to driving around in my town, that I never think about the fact that I need glasses.

Apparently, so does my son.

we missed a vital turn off.

by the time we realized we had missed it, we were miles past.

decided to get off freeway, and instead of turning right around and finding the entrance to the freeway going the opposite way, son decides to turn left on some random road, and then we went UNDER a freeway, and couldn't find an entrance.  

finally, he decided to turn around, and by this time darkness had fallen!

oh - and on top of that, my son is a smoker, only in deference to me and my lungs, didn't bring his smokes with  him.  I would have let him smoke just to calm his nerves if he had them with him...

so we can't remember how far we came but found some highway that said east...only we should have been looking for a west ward route.  except we didn't know exactly where we were in relation to where we wanted to be....didn't even see a city sign.

after miles of driving we come to a bridge...and have to pay toll.  turns out we're somewhere near Martinez, which won't mean anything to anyone who doesn't know where I live.  The guy at the bridge assures us we'll find the turn off we need if we stay to the left of the highway - so after a few miles...we found it.

after miles and miles, we come across yet another bridge...and pay the toll there.

After more miles and miles....we finally see a freeway sign for a familiar sounding city - only we're not sure if we're going the right way - but we take it anyway.

lucky for us - it was in the right direction.  of course it takes going down into this town, then making a few turns to get to this mysterious highway that's going to take us to the city we were aiming for - because if we can get there, we can find our way home.

we finally end up on the right highway, and finally find the  hwy 101 that we needed to be on to get home - hallelujah.  

i was never so glad to see my city's name on a highway sign.

after four and a half hours of driving, we pulled onto our street.

apparently we had driven in a big-assed circle, went hundreds of miles out of our way.

improbably, we made it home with only one close call (almost rear ended, would have totally been our fault) and without one single traffic police pulling us over.

thank the gods!

 Glad to be home.  Unfortunately the experience left me in some pretty severe pain, and with the bitter cold we've been having, I was running extremely low on my meds...

But I had some other good luck...took a chance on calling in a refill on my med, it was a little early so they called the doc, and though he usually is pretty tight with these things, he actually okayed the release.

When the weather is extremely cold, anyone with chronic pain, arthritis or issues like that end up with more pain than usual, and the pain meds that most chronic pain users have are just enough to maintain a certain level of relief - there's no leeway for increased pain.  So I consider my self lucky this weekend.

I had to run a couple errands today, while in pain, but my granddaughter came with me, which makes it easier to deal with pain. 

Then when I got home, we just went in the house, and all the guys unloaded the car.

I went to lay down, took some pain pills, and my granddaughter climbed onto the bed with me, laying real close and we played with a couple of her 'my little ponies'.

playing barbies or with other toys with a five year old always consists of these first few sentences...

"hi, what's your name?"

"I'm Pinky Pie, who are you?"

"I'm Rarity, want to be my friend"

"Of course, let's play".... and so on

"I like your hair"

"I love your hair, is it going to stay purple forever?"

"come over to my house"

(my pony) "lets watch this movie..."

I tried to be very lazy, and have my pony lay down, but my g-daughter wouldn't let me get away with this.

haha

Monday Reading

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Miz Sheila of Book Journey...

I haven't actually finished a book this week - I spent a lot of time watching past seasons of Nurse Jackie, Shameless (U.S. version, I know there's a BBC version), Californication, and House of Lies in preparation of 

the NEW SEASON! (S)

I think there might be something wrong with me, because I very much enjoy shows about morally challenged people.  and all of these shows feature a lack of morals/ethics in wondrously strange and interesting ways.

what's even more disturbing  is when you realize...

you KNOW people like those being portrayed....

oops.

Currently Reading

I started reading Ghosts & Echoes by Lyn Benedict (aka Lane Robins) quite a while ago, but it wasn't doing it for me.  I just picked it up again, and this time around, I'm being interested in it.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, is a very different, very interesting novel.  It's Young Adult - with some honest commentary about masturbation and racial issues all mixed into the story of Junior and his quest to leave the rez.  

I'm a little more than halfway through both books.

Other books on the "plate" include the Dragonthology anthology and the Gunslingers and Ghost Stories anthology.

Great stories in both anthologies.

There is still some time to enter the giveaway from Untold Press for a $25 gift card for Amazon. 

It's Monday!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?, the weekly meme hosted by Sheila of Book Journey is one of my favorite bloggish memes to participate in.  I've been horrible at it lately.  Completely and utterly horrible at posting.  However, this time, maybe I can get this done on time.  :-)  One can always try. ;-).

I think this is a very famous meme, so everyone probably already knows guidelines, etc., but just in cast you don't, we list what we've read, and what we're currently reading.  Some people are way more organized and list future reads, posts they've posted complete with links, etc.  I'm usually doing good if I just list down what I've read. I've noticed that if I list planned future reading, it never pans out.  Sometimes, even with a current read, I notice that if I list what I'm reading then I might end up finishing a completely different novel.  Go Figure!

Here we go now;

Read Last Week

1

yeah, that's it - and I had allllllll week long to soak up the pages.   

I actually finished only one whole novels, and if I had been focusing more, I might have finished two...but then I ended up doing things like making candied yams (more like yummy caramelized yams), visiting family for Thanksgiving and then having movie night in with my dad and stepmom who were in town for Thanksgiving.  Then the next night I watched one of the same movies with my granddaughter - Brave.  That's worth a few views, good movie.

The one book I finished wasn't even on my radar for reading, but I walked by the bookcase one night, it caught my eye and I thought....I should finally read this!

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

Good read, but after all the hype about it a few years ago, I actually expected a different style of writing - something more in the line of Alice Hoffman, Marjorie M Liu, Patricia McKillip or Sarah Addison Allen - something very lyrical - but it was more matter of factly written.  Good story, fun adventure and danger, just wasn't what I expected.  A young girl runs away from home to avoid a forced marriage, searches for her father and runs into almost every supernatural problem you can think of.  Reincarnation plays a part in the history, as well as spirit powers.

Current Reads

I started off reading Ghosts and Echoes by Lyn Benedict, and ended up reading the above book.  Then I found my copy of A Local Habitation by Seanan Mcguire - this is how I get sometimes, can't settle on one novel, end up having 20 novels that I've started at one time or another.  Most of them I cannot find at the moment...