Reality Bypass

Wednesday Book Review: Storm Born May 13, 2009

Genre:  Urban Fantasy

Age: Adult

Content: Sexuality, violence

Overall:  Buy or borrow

I’m more and more finding I’m a very picky Urban Fantasy reader. I don’t like the ‘genre’ in and of itself, so much as I like the vampires/wizards/werewolves element of the genre and the modern setting.  That said, I enjoyed Storm Born. The first 6 or 7 chapters were a little slow to get through, Eugenie didn’t really gel as a character for me until the book picked up more steam. Her instant bed-hopping with the character Kiyo also caused me to arch a brow. I prefer a slower build of the character relationships, I like to get to know the characters as individuals before they get pushed into couple-hood. Perhaps that’s why I see the relationships as a weakness of the book, I’m not really rooting for one or the other of the guys in her life. Another weakness I find is the very stereotyped “I’m the Heir of a Big Player” that comes up in this book, however it’s a minor enough part of the plot it doesn’t bother me too much beyond a slight, sigh.

  The strengths of the book are numerous. It has an intriguing plot with some good twists and turns, a unique take on wizardy using shamanism in an Arizona setting, and a great cast of supporting characters. I like the mix of Fae, shifters and ghosts that are added as well and the character of Volusian is laugh-out-loud funny (and sinister). I particularly liked some of the character twists near the end, I saw a few coming but they were a very clever addition. Overall I’ll read the next in the series, I think it has a lot of promise. I won’t say if it’s on the ‘must have’ list… yet, but I have hope.