Chasing Magic by Stacia Kane - review

Chasing Magic
Stacia Kane
urban fantasy
2012/mm[b
******  (6 out of 6)


cover - love this cover.  love all the covers.  I like the tattoo inked on her, the colors, everything.




I have eagerly waited for each of the novels in the Downside series ever since I read the first book, Unholy Ghosts.  Everytime I finish reading one of these books, I'm already feining for the next book.  Can't get enough.  Chasing Magic was no exception.  What's weird, is that I am enjoying things in this series that I usually roll my eyes at in other novels - angst, the does he or doesn't he love bit, the odd decisions that Chess makes - and it's all due to the skill of Stacia Kane's characterization.  What I get frustrated with in other books just works in this series.


In this book - Chess is continuing with her spiral of drug use, trying to keep things hidden and alternately riding the highs and lows of her relationship with Terrible.  In keeping with her addicted personality and background, she has some serious insecurities - both as a partner and as a human being.  But the one thing she's always been proud of is her work, and even that is threatened because of a past decision, and everyday because of her addiction.    


There's a bad drug being passed around in the territory where she lives, people are having some really bad reactions.  When Chess and Terrible start to dig a little, they find out that it's further reaching than they first thought.  Even people in Lex's side of town are dropping.  As things progress, her relationship to Terrible is threatened, Lex threatens Terrible, one of her relationships at the Church changes, and things get very dangerous very fast.


Kane does a wonderful job of producing a book with many layers - the plots and subplots, the relationships between Chess and Terrible, Chess and Lex, Lex and Terrible, etc.  Usually I don't want to read too much of the relationship side of things, but because of the way Kane presents things, it all goes hand in hand seamlessly.  It's brilliant the way she writes the relationship between Chess's personal life and her professional life, her insecurities and the decisions she makes.  You can't help rooting for her, and she's easy to relate to because she make some poor choices and is far from perfect.  I also enjoy the way her drug use is weaved in throughout the novel - it's a huge part of her life, and so it makes sense to me to read all the times she grabs a couple pills, bumps a line, craves a bump, worries about her stash - it's all a part of her and her daily life.


Those who enjoy the not so goody two shoes type of heroine will enjoy this - it's refreshing to read a character who is so flawed and yet functions, who goes through life sometimes in a fog sometimes just high, yet is still trying to do the best she can, with what she's capable of.   It's a different world in the Downside, and all the characters reflect this, with their speech patterns, their behaviour and their acceptance of each other.  Stacia Kane has done a great job at portraying each character, with all their quirks,  flaws, good points and bad points.


I am now eagerly waiting for book #6. 

It's Monday, and I'm Reading This and That, That and This...

It's Monday - and not only is it Monday, but it's coming towards the end of July.  I find myself beginning to feel a bit panicky - normally I would be looking forward to going back to running the afterschool program, as well as returning to the library job I have; but the school district, in all their infinite wisdom decided to change the way they run things, which meant that I and about 7 other employees lost their jobs.  Along with that, the other participants in the afterschool program lost their contract, which means that all the people that were working with us lost their jobs....Bottom line is I'm going back to less than half the time I did have, and feeling a little panicky about how I'm going to make ends meet.  (This is turning into a personal mini-rant blog)  

I finally broke down and applied for unemployment insurance.  I'm sure I qualify, since there's a line there about people who have lost part of their income - in so many words.  I should have done this earlier, but things weren't so tough earlier.  Hindsight is always better than foresight!  But I'm not sure I filled out the application right - there's no way on those applications to explain that I worked for the same place for over 15 years, and yet was paid from three different budgets, and now my hours are less than half.....Oh well.  I filled out the application and submitted it.  Now I have to just let it go and see what happens.  Things have been very tough around here.  Between my son who lives with us losing his job, my husband being out of work on workman's comp and them lowering their payments, and me losing most of my income, things have been mighty tight.  I've never seen our fridge empty for so long a period before.  We went from spending $200 a week on groceries to less than $50 a week.  No fruit, little veggies - if it weren't for the tomatos we're growing, we'd have NO veggies.  Eating healthy costs too much money.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, please.  I know there are a lot of people having a hard time - we've been going backwords and now we're older - it's harder to just go out and find work now at our ages and with our respective conditions.  I wanted to be planning my retirement soon, not worrying about paying bills and eating! 

Thank god for the books I already have here!  I'm going to have to start entering book contests again to get new books if things don't turn around - haha!  I actually have many books here that I haven't yet read, so this will be a good time to start chipping away at mountainous TBR pile that I've been adding to for the past few years...  seriously - I have books that have been waiting for five years!   :)

Sorry bout the rant - Guess I felt the need to publicize my bad financials, at least I actually cut a lot of this out.  There was more, much more.  LOL!  So on to the books I've read.....

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is a weekly book blog hosted by Sheila at BookJourney.  We "get together" and "talk" about what we've been reading and what we're going to read - or what we'd like to read.  It's fun.  Lots of people are taking part - over 100 people go to BookJourney to take part.  

Finished Reading:

I'm picturing an anthology here, but I've only read one story from it - Full Scale Demolition by Suzanne McLeod who is at the top of my alltime favorite writers - I will buy any story with her name on it - and read anything I can get my hands on with her name on it.  This is a re-read for me, but sometimes the second time around for a short story is even better.  I find that I tend to rush through a short story - get all over enthusiastic or something.  So the second time around, I usually appreciate the story more.  And this one was a fun short story.  Gave an interesting, dangerous event from Genny Taylor's job, and had everything you need in a short story - danger, just a tease of lust/romance, good plot and fun characters.  Genny Taylor is the main character from the Spellcrackers.com series (The Sweet Scent of Blood, The Bitter Seed of Magic).   Fun to give myself a little tease when I know I'll be able to read the next in the series very soon.  The Shifting Price of Prey (#4) will be coming out in August of this year, in the UK - but come hell or highwater, I'm going to have a copy - sooner or later.  :)  it's a firm goal. *g*

The only other book I read this past week was The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen.  This is the fourth and most recent novel by Allen, and had that touch of magical realism that I look forward to in her writing.  Review will be posted soon (I actually wrote it already! and it's scheduled for posting via the scheduling thing-a-ma-jiggy.  Sometimes I tend to wait a while before writing reviews.  I think there are books I've read from the beginning of the year that I mean to write.  I post quickly for requested reviews, and some of my favorite authors - but I'm pretty good at procrastinating.  It's an art. *g*) - look for it next week.  Good book, satisfying read. :)

Currently Reading:

I found myself jumping back and forth between a few of my books last week - some of them just didn't really GRAB my attention for the moment. Not at all the fault of the writing styles, or the novels - both of the books that I started to read are well written books.  Good narration, plots are exciting - my mind just wasn't into them at the moment.  Later, I'm sure I'll get to them later and enjoy them quite a bit.  Then I started thinking about that TBR pile I mentioned earlier - I have books that I just HAD to buy right when they came out, books that when I bought them, were put on a shelf (if they were lucky- those are the ones I can find now), or laid down somewhere (those are the unlucky ones, the ones I'm not sure where they are at the moment - did I give them away? did I inadvertantly throw them out? unlikely.  are they HIDING? more likely - damn books-never know what they're up to) meaning to get to them...and up to four or five years later....

Click cover for excerpt

When I'm being organized (haha!it's rare) I put these books in one of four places.  So Sunday I toddled over to the living room TBR shelf and went through a couple of books.  I found one that's been waiting since May of 2010.  2010! I just saw a review on one of the sequels, for crissakes.  So I picked up Hunted By The Others by Jess Haines and started reading it.  In the span of three hours I had made it to halfway through the book, it's interesting - a couple pages of serious informational overload- but the information is actually written in an interesting manner, maybe I shouldn't refer to it as overload.  So I'll call it worldbuilding.  heehee.  This is the book I'll be focusing on this week, probably will end up finishing it in the next day or two - barring distractions.  Then it's on to another from the infamous TBR pile....except;

Expecting in the mail

*from birthday money - (to alleviate some guilt)*

I had just a few dollars to spend on myself for birthday books.  I had noticed that Stacia Kane's latest Downside novel was supposed to out - since the end of June.  But every time I went to Barne's & Noble, I could not find it, neither could I find Tin Swift - Devon Monk's latest steampunk novel.  It's supposed to be out now, also.  What is UP Barnes&Noble??  I didn't feel like ordering it from them (still bitter bout them being the only major bookstore in my town since Borders fell)  so I didn't order any of them from them.  Instead, I found out that I have one month of free prime membership trial from Amazon thanks to having a KindleFire.  The only thing I could get from that was free two day shipping and it'll expire on August 9.  So I ordered Chasing Magic - a print copy because I decided that I'm going to collect print copies of books I love to pieces and get books that I'm not sure about, or would pass on through the Kindle. While I love having a KindleFire, there's nothing like holding a book in your hands.  It's because I was born in the 20th century, 1960.  I'll always prefer holding a book, even while I appreciate new technology that makes it possible to have a bookreader that I can use for internet and playing WordsWithFriends!  Should cut down on the space needed for books, because I don't necessarily want to keep all the books I read.  And when I try to put books-even brand new books- up for giveaway I almost have to BEG people to enter (which I find frustrating - I don't ask for demanding entries or hoop jumping for extra entries and all that)  I should be gettin Chasing Magic within two days (I ordered this a few days ago - so I should get it on Monday, right?) and I also bought something I've been wanting for a very long time.  A DVD of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather.  Over in England they MAKE MOVIES OUT OF HIS DISCWORLD BOOKS!  I want to see them - very much.  Hogfather is one of my favorite of his books, Death takes over the Hogfather role (kind of a rough father christmas) which leaves his job unattended, so his stepgranddaughter, Susan has to take over his duties....fun times are had by all.  Sadly, Tin Swift will have to wait - but that just means I'll have some books to look forward to buying in a few months. I love to make lists of books to buy, something I haven't had to do for a few years.  It'll be fun - a list for my kids to buy for me (Christmas is coming).  

Barnes & Noble - if you had kept these books in stock, you would have made a sale of at least two books to me - too bad.  Now I wonder how many other books you'all aren't keeping in stock... (like they care about selling two books, *g*)

Did you read the whole post?  Wow - pretty cool.  Thanks for reading, have a good reading week, hope all the books you read this week are good - great.  Have a good week, and hug all your loved ones

Teaser Tuesday and LOL Catz

Tuesdays are one of my favorite days because of the blog meme Teaser Tuesdays. Hosted by MizB of ShouldBeReading this is the place to tease others with snippets from current reads. There are full guidelines at the link. No spoilers, please. I usually visit her blog for Teaser Tuesdays, but there are lots of interesting posts and reviews up at ShouldBeReading.

This week, I'm keeping my teaser entry down to one book - I've been known to post three or four, sometimes. I'm being sane tonight though (except for the whole being awake at 3 in the a.m., even though I have things scheduled for 10 a.m. .....). But instead of two sentences, I'm posting a few more than two. So....

from Sacrificial Magic by Stacia Kane

page 99:
' She took the cup, downed the contents in one long swallow, and almost spit them back up. "Ugh, what the fuck is that?"

"Green tea. It's unsweetened, it's good for you. Cleans the blood, gets rid of impurities."

For fuck's sake. She didn't spend most of her income on drugs so she could have clean fucking blood. And that green tea tasted like swampwater and death.'

I just love this series, this main character - flaws and all - and her secondary characters. The whole world building Kane has worked is excellent - and her characters aren't accidentally flawed, quickly becoming well behaved citizens...nope - these are just like people you come across everyday. People with both good and bad tendencies working their way through life, doing whatever they have to {or what they percieve as "have to"} to get through life.

both of the lol cat pics have been captioned by me. Click on the pic to visit my LOLCat page and see all my wit on the pics I've captioned. It's rare, but once in a while, a funny comment storms through my brain.

A trip to the bookstore with a young companion

Weekend before last, I had a serious craving to be in a bookstore. I remember mentioning it around my granddaughter - that I might go to the bookstore later that week.... She heard me and got all happy. Said 'granma! when you go, come and get me and I can get a book too!' (translated from granddaughter speak, this means I can buy her a book. *g*) So I told her sure - if I went I would stop and get her first...

Well, last week I did go to the bookstore, and when I was at the cash register I remembered I had promised to take her.

bad granma

Of course, I felt bad for not taking her. So this week, I had this mad impulse to go AGAIN to the bookstore - even though the gods and everyone else around me KNOWS I have plenty of books to last me sitting around here (not quite all getting read) and this time, I remembered to go get her. Sent a text to my daughter - have Liliana ready, I'm picking her up.

She was ready. She had dressed herself in a pair of gray leggings with small multicolored polkadots and paired this with a pink shirt with large brown polkadots. Gotta love a five year old's sense of style. To complete this outfit was her old bright pink cowgirl boots. (resembling the boots shown in this picture I lifted off the good ol' net) The girl has two very cool suede boots, one pair black, one pair brown complete with metal buckles and circles - wish I had boots like those - but her favorite pair are the old, used, pink cowgirl boots that her cousin's mommy bought her - when she got them, they were way too big for her, and she used them for play. Now they're still a wee bit big for her, but she seriously wears them the most.

girls and their shoes.

The cowgirl boots, the granddaughter, polkadots and I went to the bookstore. She was very patiently helping me look for books for me. She does this by looking for books with scary covers, or dramatically creepy covers...."granma, this will be a good book for you" she'll say. After we found my books, and looked for a book for her mom - which I didn't get because I could get a ppb version for way cheaper (Practical Magic) , we strolled to the kids section.

Let me say here, that as a granma, I do NOT like the way Barnes & Noble has their children's section laid out. It is almost like a maze, and if you have a five year old that is the size of a preschooler, and she's running ahead of you, you absolutely cannot see where she is between all the aisles - and the voices echo. At one point I had to loudly suggest that we meet at the entrance to the children's section. I know space needs to be filled, but how about two open squares, so you can SEE your kids/grandkids? (I live in fear that she's going to get stolen from me while we're shopping= which is why she has to accompany me while I'm looking for my creepy books *g*) We finally found each other and then we (or rather, SHE) found two books for her.

Liliana love Dr. Seuss books - both my grandchildren love them. And she's also recently discovered the joys of the Junie B Jones chapter books written by Barbara Park. She wanted me to read to her at the store (loves to be read to) so I promised to read one chapter of the chapter book. She worked it by waiting until I was a few pages in, then asking to switch to There's a Wocket in my Pocket. So we read that one, and then noticed a little girl who was there with her dad/grandpa (never know, nowadays, can't go by apparent age) who was listening in and getting all happy about the book. Turns out this is a book that gets read to her every single day and she knows all the words by heart. She looked like she was around two years old - very cute, social and spirited *wink, wink*
By the way - I haven't explored many children's publishing house sites - but I am impressed with the webpages that Random House has set up for Seussville and Junie B. Jones. Just click on the above author names for links - each page has activities, excerpts and fun things for kids to do. I'm saving these in a favorites folder for my grandchildren - who like to surf the internet, now that granma has started them off on it long ago. :) a few years ago, I would sit near Liliana and open pages for her, help her drag and click, and change sites for her. Now she can open the internet herself, and she has figured out which folder is the children's folder, and uses the icons to decide what site to go on. From there she just browses and plays. She's able to use my laptop and the desktop. My grandson's father (my son) now only has to set up the page for him, and Elliott can use the mouse, playing and navigating the games and videos. Pretty fun. I know many young children are exploring and learning computer skills - nowadays, but for me, someone who grew up before game systems - this is exciting stuff - to watch grandchildren learn computer skills beginning from age two on. next up - keyboard skills.

Oh - and the books I found for me?

Ann Aguirre's fourth Corinne Solomon novel, Devil's Punch - even though I still haven't finished reading Shady Lady. Started it. Got a third of the way into and kind of lost interest - hopefully temporarily. Her Sirantha Jax SciFi series is one of my favorite series. (new Jax universe series coming! woohoo! )
I also found Sarah Addison Allen's novel, The Girl Who Chased The Moon. Her novels remind me of the best of Alice Hoffman. lyrical, poetic, magical, surreal. Fun reading.
BEST OF ALL!?! The frosting on my bookstore cake, the apparent reason for my intense craving to GET TO THE BOOKSTORE TONIGHT, even though I still am feeling a bit sick.....

STACIA KANE'S fourth and long, eagerly awaited Downside novel

Sacrificial Magic. <---download 3 chapters

ooh man, I'm sure glad I went to the bookstore, and had the $$ to buy a few books.

Oh Yeah!

At the end of our bookstore event, we found the Godiva chocolate bars...my granddaughter very quietly says to me...whispers "granma, I was hoping we could get some chocolate...". Who can resist such a sweet way of asking? especially after she was so well behaved (this is not always the case, believe me, lol) and after she had worked so hard trying to help me find books for myself, not to mention the way she was sweetly waving at the little girl who was listening in on our story, and the way she sat so quietly during the story. I have to say that this was one of our best outings ever. It was short and sweet with no behavioral issues - anyone with children or grandchildren can witness to how much this is a rare and wonderful thing. Kids try, but they don't always have the greatest control. Tonight, Liliana was the best behaved child in the store, as well as being wonderful to spend time with.

So I bought her a $2.50 chocolate bar. When we got to her house, she asked her mom if she could eat it, then broke it in pieces to share with everyone in the house.

Amazing

I'm going to have to plan a trip with my grandson now - see if he would like to go to the bookstore with granma.

It's Monday and we're all getting sick....ugh

Being sick is not fun. It's worse when you feel sick, but you're not as sick as your husband and the husband is making all those moaning and groaning noises every time you come into the room - as if he feels the need to prove to you that he is in pain and doesn't feel good. Why is it that women are always accused of being Drama Queens when men are so very dramatic? especially when sick? At least being sick on a three day weekend means possibly missing less work.

Yesterday, before realizing that I was coming down with a cold the grandkids and I put on some music. I started dancing this weird super dramatic dance - you know (no offense meant if you're the type to dance like this for real...) the type of dancing that you see aging hippies do at music festivals? waving the hands around in mystical movements....Only I was doing with a Vogue-ish attitude, and even though I could feel this in my back and legs, I was going for it anyway because the kids were laughing and I was having a lot of fun.... Every move I made, the kids copied. Even the dog took part. Not willingly, but we made him dance too. We did this for 30 minutes. The dog only had to dance for three minutes.

Then my granddaughter and I slept on our couch because Granpa was sick...and we thought we would let him have the bed (he was coughing and making all that noise anyway, haha)

This morning when I woke up....oh..my..god!

So much pain! Dancing might have been a mistake
But it was fun while it lasted. ;)

And here we are coming up on another Monday. Time just flies by. Time now for It's Monday What Are You Reading? Hosted by Sheila of Book Journey, this is our time to discuss what we've been reading.
At the beginning of this year I decided to keep a list of books - not only a list of books that I finished reading, but the books I started reading also. Problem is, I start books faster than I can keep up....I've listed SOME of the books I've started and I actually a little bit embarrassed at the sheer amount that I've listed - especially when I compare them to the books I've finished reading. Factor in the few books that I can't remember, or the books where I've only read the first two pages, and it's even worse.
So far I've finished reading seven books for 2012. I've started more than 17. Not a good percentage. Can you tell that I've easily bored/frustrated/distracted?

And now I've gone and added two more books to my TBR pile/mound/MOUNTAIN.

I've been short of spending money - but even so, it's tough to stay completely away from the bookstore. I put in some extra hours at the library. After I was finished, I found myself in the parking lot of Barnes & Nobel. I have NO idea how I got there (coughdrovecough). Once there, however, I browsed the scifi section. I found a promising looking novel called The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi - thank goodness I actually bought something new that is the first in a series. Then I came across the first book from a series that I had mistakenly bought the second book. Crossover by Joel Shepherd has a main character who is a cyborg. hmmmm.
Now - Keeping in mind that I have 17 books that I've started (well, actually more than 17) I'm going to try like hell to concentrate on only two books this week. It's seriously very hard for me {remember I suffer from B.A.D.D., an apparently widely spread faux disorder} but I'm going to try.

The two books I'm going to try to focus on are Another Kind of Dead by Kelly Meding and SharpShooter by Marianne DeLacourt (aka Marianne DePierres of Nylon Angel fame)

Coming up? Any one of the books listed on my Books Read page - there's a section just for books I've started for this year...though I'm pretty sure there's a few that I haven't listed. ;)
There's plenty there to keep me busy for a while - I should make THAT one of my non-challenges that I'm challenging myself with. A read from your non-finished books list....except that I'm against wasting time on books that aren't working for you. Maybe a give a book a second chance before giving up on it challenge. Title too long though.

What are y'all up to?
Know what I'm missing though? A little bit of Stacia Kane's Downsider series. It's been a long time. Hope one is coming out soon

City of Ghosts

City of Ghosts

****** Oh hell, let's give it more ****

by Stacia Kane

urban fantasy


City of Ghosts is the third book of the Downside Series by Stacia Kane. In this novel, Chess has a huge mystery to solve and is paired with a member of the Black Squad, an elite section of the Church's investigative section. While she is dealing with this member, who is arrogant and hard for Chess to work with, Chess is also dealing with her broken heart of extreme feelings of guilt and low self-esteem. She has less respect for herself, and is using even more drugs. Because her drug dealer is in charge of part of her life, she gets thrown together with Terrible even though he doesn't want to be near her, and being around him is breaking her heart. This book was great, and you might need a few tissues.

The writing is good, the story was great, the heartbreak heartbreaking, and the choices Chess makes are hard. You can just see her in a kind of freefall with her life. Nothing is going right for her, and she is in danger, with even less protection at times than she had before.

Chess is investigating what seems to be serial kills, body parts have been left here and there - but as usual with Chess, nothing is as simple as it first seems. There are quite a few twists in City of Ghosts. A strange looking little girl tries to steal something from her purse, a strange new vendor of magic potions shows up in the Downside Market place, even church members are being killed.

Even with all life seemingly against her, Chess still makes her self go through daily life, she still goes to work, she still tries to work out what's happening with the ghosts, and she still tries to just survive.

Even though there isn't much of Lex featured in this novel, he does have a part here. Most of the novel focuses on Terrible - along with the disastrous mystery and killing that Chess is trying to solve.

This is an amazing book and when I finished it, I was already missing reading it. I recommend it for the fresh twist on the urban fantasy female character. Chess isn't perfect, not by a long shot. She's very vulnerable and yet doesn't behave in the typical lash out at everyone way that some characters do in other book.

I love the fresh new twist in urban fantasy that Stacia Kane gives us with this character and series. Ghosts, a drug addicted main character that is functioning in her own little world, trying to keep her drug use a secret and trying to stay isolated from people even while she is falling in love and breaking her own heart as well as other's.

On a more personal level, I'm am glad to see a character like Chess Putnam. I think most likely it'll also mean a lot to many other women out there who have led less than stellar lives. There's a lot of people who have been through a lot, made some poor choices and still manage to work, raise families, love children and family and make as good a go at things as they can. Life is full of people like that. We might not all be fighting ghosts and demons - but there are lots of other hurdles that many face. Some need crutches - some need crutches forever and never come out of it, and some need these crutches temporarily and go on with our lives. Not everything is black and white in the world, and there are many levels of existing, and a lot of us do the best we can with what we have. We don't always make the best choices, but a lot of us pick ourselves up, hopefully learn something along the way, and try our damnednest to make as good a life as we can. I'm not sure if I'm expressing my thoughts clearly enough. What matters in the end, I think is how well you love your self, your family and how much you TRY to do what you can do.

Anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this series so far, and I hope to see more about Chess, Terrible, Lex and others in the Downside.

Other books in the series

Unholy Ghosts (#1)

Unholy Magic (#2)

Other series by Stacia Kane

Personal Demons (Megan Chase #1)

Demon Inside (Megan Chase #2)

Demon Possessed (Megan Chase#3)

E-book Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet

Stacia Kane has also written quite a few erotic fiction novels under the name December Quinn (sound familiar to anyone? I remember seeing the name before, but didn't know about the connection until Stacia had written Personal Demons). Her alter ego's books are still available, though December Quinn is at the moment in retirement.

Reading Challenges

Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

Unholy Magic

Unholy Magic

******

Stacia Kane


Stacia - your book seriously kicks ass.

I enjoyed Unholy Ghosts so much that I actually started to worry that I wouldn't like the second one as much (sometimes that happens). No need to worry.

Chess Putnam is still our lovable little mess. She hasn't made any miraculous recoveries from her addiction - in fact it seems like it's getting a bit worse. Her relationships are suffering a bit - the tightrope she's been walking is fraying.

I think what I really like about this book is that Chess really has this need for her medication, she makes some twisted decisions, you can tell she knows in the back of her mind that she's not making the best decisions, and in fact is having some consequences but she still keeps plugging away at her life. Some things are working for her and some things aren't.

In this sequel to Unholy Ghosts, Chess has been getting more work, a bit more variety from the Church. She feels a bit more under scrutinay (never a good thing when you're trying to fly under the radar, so you can continue self-medicating). Chess is given a complicated case of a haunting with a TV star's family. At the same time, hookers are being murdered from both of Chess' s dealer's turfs. Someone is creeping Chess out also, spying on her. She's barely holding things together....and then

BAM!!!!

THE SH-- HITS THE FAN

Somehow, Chess manages to keep going, even though her heart is broken....

I can't wait for the sequel (next week!- or yesterday, the website says 7/27 That's it, I'm going to the store!).

For me, everything works in this story - the addictions, the messes Chess gets in, the uncomfortable situations, the suspense, the tension, the dialogue - even the sad parts. And as with Unholy Ghosts, I found it refreshingly twisted - Chess is definitely going through some crap, she's not going to get a happy ending with a miraculous drug addiction recovery. Chess has some issues and continues to work, continues to do the best she can in her situation making no excuses for herself. In fact, that's what I like about the Stacia Kane is presenting Chess - she's not coming across as being judgemental in her portrayal, or glorifying the addictions. It's an objectively told story - showing the nasty and uncomfortable bits as well as the bits that Chess enjoys.

Reading Challenges

2010 Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

POC reading challenge (main squeeze is Asian)

Unholy Ghosts

Unholy Ghosts

******

Stacia Kane

339 pages

The genre is not listed on the spine of the book, but Unholy Ghosts is a great dark futuristic urban fantasy. This was one of those books that kept me interested the whole way through - from the first page, to the last.

The Church seems to be the ruling entity in this futuristic world, and they also seem to have some vaguely sinister undertones. The Church has admitted to the general public that there is no real god, only The Truth....and ghosts. Deadly, hungry, mean spirited ghosts. Of course The Church keeps them contained in an underground city - except for the annual one week festival. When you read the book, you can find out more about this. It's sinister in a kind of "we're taking care of you" way.

Chess Putnam is one of the employees of The Church. She is a debunker, a witch (tattooed with magic infused tattoos) who checks out complaints of hauntings. If a family has been haunted by a real ghost, they are entitled to a payment from The Church and the ghost is escorted to "The City", courtesy of debunkers and The Church. If the debunker is able to disprove the presence of real ghosts, then they are entitled to bonuses - after a set amount of debunking. (I kind of like that verb.)

One of the main characters is Chess, and there is a side character of Chess' addiction to drugs - any drugs she can get her hands on. Of course this addiction colors and affects everything she does, because this is a daily - at times hourly - need. Chess' addiction leads her to a job that at first seems simple enough, but is not.

The job Chess has to perform for the dealer that she owes a lot of money to, leads her into quite a bit of danger, and also leads to very sinister plot. Chess also is forced to work closesly on this job with the dealer's main enforcer, a man named Trouble. A rival gang leader/dealer has plans of his own affecting Chess and the job she's working on and brings some complications.

Unholy Ghosts is a very gritty novel. There is no sugarcoating Chess' addiction, the men she deals with are definitely NOT angels - in fact there probably isn't very many truly good people in this novel. Unholy Ghosts is about damaged people living in damaged times and making the best of their situations, even though they are incapable, at times, of making good decisions because of choices they've been making.

I found it refreshing, in a twisted way, to read about people who are not pillars of society, who aren't just one step away from redemption and changing their lives for the better. No, Chess does not have any epiphanies about her drug use, and at the end of the book is still using. There is no sense of that changing. Chess is still a kind of functioning addict, even though she herself will admit that her drug use is affecting her senses, her choices, and her reasoning.

The combination of Chess, her addictions, the men in her life that are not "hidden do-gooders" but really are twisted individuals, the changed Church, and beliefs of people in general all add up to a very different kind of urban fantasy.

The dialogue was believable.

Chess' actions and behaviors were believable.

Chess' drug uses fit right into her character.

I also found it refreshing that one of the men that Chess found her self attracted to was described as ugly - in fact while she was experiencing these feelings, she was questioning why. This story was not full of unbelievably handsome men - there is one, but he's not a very nice guy either.

Unholy Ghosts was a very satisfying read for me.

If you can't stand reading about damaged people, who don't find redemption by the end of the book, this book might not be to your taste.

However, even if the you can't like the character (I had no problems with this) the story itself was great.

If you're looking for a different, twisted, good read, then this would be a good choice.

There were plenty of suspenseful situations, a little bit of dysfunctional attraction, friendship growth, and lots of danger and adventure - some spooky adventure.

LOVED IT!

Ready to read the sequel (Unholy Magic)

Reading Challenge
Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

want to read a little bit of Unholy Ghost?

The first cover, the small kind of blurry cover, was the cover that was going to be used, or the rough draft cover copy. The final cover, the larger much clearer cover is the final draft. I like the retro look of Chess's hair on the first cover, but everything else looks much better on the second version. Check out the tattoos on her arm and back. :)


Stacia Kane's new novel will be coming out soon, {though I'm having a very hard time being patient about this, all I can do is wait though} Only Eight more weeks to go, according to Stacia's blog. June 10th is the official release date. To give us a little treat, and to whet our appetites she has put up an excerpt of Unholy Ghost on her website. This is a different excerpt than the one you can get to by clicking on the cover picture, the newer cover picture. (--->). This is great, and for anyone who has read her other novels (Personal Demons, Demon Inside and Demon Possessed), this series is different. For one thing, the main character, Chess, is addicted to drugs. Even her pov is much different, kind of jaded and a little crude {my kind of girl!} She's definitely no angelic little human, tyring to help others.

It's very cool of Stacia Kane to put up excerpts of her books. I love when an author does that for her/his readers. It's like a little gift.