Angel Town by Lilith Saintcrow - review

Angel Town
Lilith Saintcrow

Jill Kismet series #6
urban fantasy

******
cover - this series is intense, the main character rarely has anything to be happy about, the fights are hard, life is hard, SHE is hard....is that the barest hint of a smile there? could something good be happening? What I like about this cover is the stark atmosphere remains, there's her sword, it's obvious she's going to a fight - the fight of her life? and yet there is this hint of a smile, like she knows something good is going to happen...

If you thought Heaven's Spite was an intense book, this one is really intense! This takes off right after the events - those shocking, cliffhanger, "Oh My F=ng ***" events - of the last novel. Those final events of the last novel cause Jill to wake up in a strange place - without any clue or idea of what or who she is - what she was doing, what's going on. There is absolutely nothing. She somehow makes it to a diner, where a mysterious man buys her a meal...and she begins to remember a few things. Which just gives her a few more questions. Jill must figure out not only who she is, but she has to remember what she was in the middle of. Is she going to continue her previous life, are her memories true memories? Who are her allies and can they even trust her when she goes back? So many variables to work through; is there something else going on? Was she a pawn that unwittingly followed some Machiavellian script? Will she ever be free or safe? How did she get to where she woke up? Was she dead? {Will these questions ever END? Am I now doing what I hate to read? question after question after question?} Things begin to fall in place, puzzle pieces start to form a picture, and it's not a pretty picture.

With this final novel, as with all her novels, Lilith Saintcrow brings you into a story, as if you were inside a virtual video {or something like that} . With every scene, charms are jingling, smells are smelled, pains are felt, and the scar - her demon mark is basically a side character - makes itself felt. All of this combines to bring you right into the action. I like this about Saintcrow's writing - the demon mark isn't mentioned just once at the beginning of each book - it's used as a character and a mood detector. The same with the charms and all the other descriptive detailing. Plenty of atmosphere, the virtual reality without the tech.

I really enjoyed this final novel of the series. Though reading it was bittersweet, because I knew it was going to be the last and I was enjoying it so much. I wanted to get to the end, and yet I didn't want to finish it because it's the very last novel. Angel Town is a dark, compelling, gritty story. The storytelling is stellar and as the final in the series, Angel Town stood out with the shocking beginning, the intense situations Jill was in and the incredible ending. If you're a fan of dark, gritty storytelling with flawed, tough yet slightly vulnerable heroines, then you're going to enjoy this one. Saintcrow outdid herself with the ending to this series with its fitting - it's not Happily Ever After, it's more maybe we're going to be happy, definitely we're going to suffer more, but hey, here we are - ending.

Luckily for me and other die-hard fans of Saintcrow/St.Crow work, Ms Lilith is hard at work writing more novels. Unfortunately for me, some of these are only available in e-book form. One day I'm going to break down and get something that enables me to read e-books easily - but this is way in the future. I still prefer to hold a book in my hands, see the cover whenever I choose without having to scroll through or hit a button to take me to the cover pic - to SEE the covers in full color and to be able to simply riffle through the pages when I feel like it. Hell, even the SMELL of a book is important to me. This is my longwinded way of stating that there is definitely more coming from Lilith Saintcrow - for a complete list visit her homepage. I'm happily waiting to read more of her fantasy or urban fantasy work, and looking forward even to some more of her Young Adult work.

Heaven's Spite by Lilith Saintcrow - review

Heaven's Spite
Lilith Saintcrow
******
{6 out of 6 stars}
urban fantasy {dark UF}

cover - This is one of the few series that keeps the style or theme for all the covers of the novels. They're simple, stark, monochromatic {sure hope I spelled that right} and dramatic. Works for me, I like the look of this cover.

As you can tell by my rating, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Heaven's Spite.

Lilith Saintcrow does not write happy characters living pleasant lives in easygoing situations containing happily ever after endings. Her characters tend to be damaged, flawed, angry yet spirited and keep themselves going almost in spite of themselves. Her villains are never straightforward, typical villians either - they are definitely evil {they are hellbreed, after all} and yet will sometimes be caught doing good deeds even if it's all for the wrong reasons.

That being said, Heaven's Spite is another very strong installment in a dark urban fantasy series. There is a strong horror aspect within many of Saintcrow's novels and this is no exception. People are getting ripped up and murdered left and right. There are evildoers, middle of the road people, desperately poor clawing their way through the day, the obscenely rich, and to balance things out there are the Hunters - the characters that are fighting a seemingly losing battle against the bad ones - the hellbreed and hellspawn that are preying on the innocent and not so innocent. These characters, Jill Kismet is the main character, never give up. They aren't angelic, they aren't wonderfully well behaved people; they are flawed and damaged but they are doing their best.

In this fifth novel of the series, Jill Kismet is trying to stay out of Perry's way {Perry is the hellbreed that she traded with during her training for added strength and other abilities to help her fight others of his kind. Other hellbreed and hellspawn - ironic, in a way} and Perry continues to try to make Jill go over the line to the dark or darker side, constantly testing her to get her to screw up, void her contract and lose her soul to him. Bodies that seem to be booby trapped, or have something OFF about them {something besides the fact they've been killed, that is} are popping up all in increasing numbers all over her city - and Jill is being kept in reaction mode, back and forth, never having the time to rest, eat or to simply stop and think over what's going on. It's as if she's being played.... People from the past are also popping up - the murderer of her teacher among them. There are others that always appeared to be one thing, and suddenly seem to be something else - something mysterious. And even after the horrific climax of the main plot there's yet one more twist - a shocking cliffhanger of a twist...

There are some books that I will try to read, yet end up putting aside because they are so bleak, so full of consistantly dark situations, sad and angry people and mindsets, and the characters seem to always be struggling to survive. Heaven's Spite is saved from being this type of book, because even though the running theme is so dark and yes - bleak, the end of the world seems to be hovering ever closer - the sheer talent of Saintcrow's writing keeps me interested. Her books are very dark, her characters are rarely happy, things frequently seem hopeless or doomed and yet she keeps things alive and vibrant with her action scenes, the constant atmospheric touches {i.e., the tinkling of the charms in the hunter's hair, the throbbing of the demon mark on Jill's wrist that changes with the situation and mood of Perry, the smells and sounds described throughout the book, etc}, the angry yet dark humor, thoughts and the unexpected snarky comments of Jill and crew. The very things that I've seen complaints about are the very things that, for me, add character and atmosphere to Saintcrow's novels. Not many writers can pull this type of thing off - the combination of despair and triumph, the building of scenes and moods with words, the feeling that you can not only picture in your mind what's going on, but you can hear the different sound, the charms and feel the sensations throughout the book, with every different scene - but Lilith Saintcrow sure can. Added to the atmospheric touches - even though her characters, plots, subplots and situations can seem bleak, hopeless or doomed, the fact that her characters are fighting against seemingly impossible odds and never ever give up makes me want to keep reading to see what is going to happen next - see if they make it. Jill Kismet and her allies and friends just pick themselves up, get angry and determined and keep going; sometimes out of sheer bullheaded stubborness. I enjoy this very much because I think on a smaller, or different scale this is what millions of human beings do the world over. In one way or another a lot of us just keep going out of sheer bullheadedness, whatever our situation may be.

The ending - the abrupt, shocking twist of a cliffhanger was genious. I was glad that I had saved up the last four novels for a marathon of reading. Now I've had reading marathons with other series before, and I've found myself a bit irritated at repeated phrasing, the kind of phrasing that wouldn't bother me if the books were read a year apart. This happens with many series, {even by my favorite authors} and I end up skipping small sections to avoid these recaps or "remembrances". But the only thing I found a bit disenchanting was when Jill would be thinking about something, it would turn into a sort of dark pun and she would think to herself "get it, Jill? arf, arf, arf". Seriously, the "arf" was the only thing that got to me, because it felt awkward, which of course, might have been the intention. That's the one thing I wouldn't have minded going without - those sentences would have read better for me if the "arf, arf, arf" were left completely off - but then, this is Saintcrow's book, her choice as a writer, her style, her preference. It's ultimately the writer's decisions - the style they write. That's a teeny, tiny complaint in the entire novel - not bad - especially when you consider the rest of the read. {it just felt so awkward to me, *G*} Ultimately a very enjoyable and readable novel, and a series that I will end up re-reading in a few years.

Lilith Saintcrow's Heaven's Spite was an extremely enjoyable read for me - the action, horror, suspense, fight scenes; the dialogue, utter lack of info dumps {Halleliujiah!}, the spirit of characters, the flawed and damaged characters, dark humor and twisted plots all combined into a hell of a read for me. The Jill Kismet series is the type of book/series that I like to keep around so I can relive the stories - in this case, the world of Jill Kismet and her hellbreed adversaries. The next - and final - book in the series is Angel Town.

**there are three excerpts of H.S.in this review - one of them under the cover**

other books by Lilith Saintcrow:

you may already know this, but just in case: Lilith Saintcrow has written quite a few series and standalone novels. She writes Young Adult under the pen name of Lili St. Crow - most notably the Strange Angels series (her first YA work)

• new release Fantasy The Hedgewitch Queen - e-book only at the moment with a sequel out in June 2012
• an alternate history fantasy The Iron Wyrm Affair - first of the Bannon & Clare Affairs series. Available in print and e-book August 2012
• There is a list of Saintcrow's/St.Crow's books on the sidebar of Lilith Saintcrow's website, which seems to have been revamped while I wasn't paying attention {i.e., playing Castleville, *g*}, go visit, play around there; interesting stuff on her site. I dare you. *G* at least check out the other novels.
• also writes under the name of Anna Beguine - some of her earliest work.

Flesh Circus by Lilith Saintcrow - review

Flesh Circus by Lilith Saintcrow
Jill Kismet #4 (Urban Fantasy)
****
Dec 2009
Cover - The look of the complete series covers is pretty good, overall. It's stark yet dramatic. Only thing is, with the black/blue and white theme, my grandson decided to help me by coloring in the face. he's ever helpful.


I went on a Jill Kismet reading marathon last month - reviewed one of the books, then forgot to review the rest. As a whole (having read the complete series last month) I loved the Jill Kismet series. Yet while I enjoyed Flesh Circus very much, I didn't love it as much as the other books. I still think this was a very good book - lots of action and suspenseful moments. It's just that the last book was so completely full of actions and kickassery, that it's hard to top.
In Flesh Circus, a traveling troup visits Jill's city. Only this isn't your average circus (or is it?) it's more of a circus that attracts those with darkness in their hearts or souls. Those that are most likely to trade pieces of themselves for a bit of power. So while in town, Kismet has to keep an eye out FOR them, protect them while she's protecting the innocent of her city. It's convaluted and twisted and of course Jill would rather kill them all, but that would only bring down the wrath of demons.
Except that there's something strange going on. Suddenly there are possessions and zombified corpses running around and killing people and those that Jill usually protects people from. Somebody is using voodoo to get at the circus workers.
And there's something about this circus -
I mention this in each of my Saintcrow/St. Crow reviews - the words. Her words paint this almost 3D picture in my mind of each scene. For instance, the circus. Not only is there descriptions (though not page after page of these) of the workers and ambience, but the music is almost a complete side character. The music, the changes of the music, rising and falling of the melody with mood and atmosphere changes is noted with every scene that takes place within the circus. It's the same with the charms in her characters' hair, or the scar on Jill's wrist. These aren't things that are just mentioned once in a while in passing, they are a real part of the story and frequently "speak". One of the reasons I enjoy Lilith Saintcrow's books so much.
It's also very apparent that Saintcrow does her research with religions and beliefs. Flesh Circus gives us a touch of the Voodoo rites, the gods and doing's.
Everything added together made a very interesting, action packed read. One thing about Saintcrow's books - Once I start one, I can count on being engrossed from beginning to end.