This came in my most recent Book Riot quarterly box. It's something I wouldn't have ever picked up to read in a million years. Much to my surprise I found it to be an engaging page turner!

It's the first book in a series and I'm not sure if I will continue with it but I think I might.

It's an interesting universe of ghosts and half-ghosts and I think maybe I want to know more.

It's fun to get out of your reading comfort zone every now and then! ( )

A great story to listen to around Halloween. Diabolically addicting characters and plot. The descriptions of Brooklyn and its denizens were evocative. Very well performed by the author. Warning: very salty language (overuse of F***, in my opinion). ( )

Featured in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/10/28/villainathon-wrap-up/ ( )

So much fun. I want to gather all the characters for a big ol' group hug (not that they'd all be down for that). I got a little lost in the middle, but really, I couldn't resist the awesomeosity of the characters (I think Carlos would approve of that word). And the ngks--that Ed Roth style illustration in the frontispiece KILLS me. I wish it could have been the cover! This felt like a good companion to Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, which ain't a bad thing, between the humor, the sexy bits, and the crapload of magical characters running around in our boring old reality. This podcast happened to post this past week while reading this, which led me to seek out a couple more interviews (and believe you me, there will be more, including his very own PLAYLIST for this book!), which were all awesome in turning this book into his voice (and boy howdy do I have a crush now). Yay! Can't wait to devour more!

Another neat-o thing was that my copy came from Ferguson Municipal Library, which is in my library's consortium, and it was signed (and donated, I presume) by the author himself as part of their Unity collection. So rad.

*******

Counting as my book recommendation for Read Harder. (Thanks, Michelle!) ( )

Well, book 2 from this author for me and the way he writes women officially makes me want to vomit. This is a very helpful thing to learn before I invest in any more books, so go me.
Let me elaborate a little: the main female character in here is immediately so attractive he can't stop thinking about her even though he's never seen her in person. (Spoiler alert, she is of course perfect, and sad, and beautiful, and so flat you could use her as a level, which means she doesn't say anything rude or interesting that would take away from her superficial prettiness.) The MC is downright gross in the way he objectifies her into, well, an object. She is basically a gorgeous cut out with damsel level sadness over her dead brother who our MC murdered. He doesn't let this stop him from stalking her and sleeping with her. Basically her personality and actions change around what the plot needs without having any deeper dimension.

Other issues I experienced:
I've read several reviews in which people discuss how it moves along quickly. Yes, with our MC doing very little. The feeling of quickness is created by jumping scene to scene, not by any created flow of character activity.
The MC is obnoxious. He's not driven. He's not kind or nice or interesting. He apparently, up until this very book, had no interest in his history or the actions of the shadowy group he works for. So, I guess, I can say he's almost as 2 dimensional as his female love interest? Only she's so far from 3 dimensional she's practically 1D, which helps him look fleshed out in comparison. A few side characters are at least moderately more interesting with more depth and drive, so it is possible...
I. Cannot. Keep. Track. Of. Who's. Who. Listen, I know that writing books teach you not to overuse signifiers (the tall man, the short woman, blah, blah, blah), but sometimes you have to throw the reader a bone. It took me chapters to sort out his 2 main side kick friends because after an introduction they were all names without any referring back to the difference between the two. C'mon writers. Spend a word or two here and there over the first several chapters to cement characters for us. There are 2 characters who are introduced as what appear to be obvious side characters, and then, when they are introduced chapters and chapters later they are referred to by their names with literally zero context to figure things out from. Is it so f'ing hard to say "the EMT" or "the realtor?" No. Look. I just did it.
The story line was meh for me, because our MC is basically really bad at this detecting thing so he has to be lead around by events. The idea is interesting but that couldn't carry the rest of it for me. That is actually how I felt about the first book I read by this author, which is a much newer book, so for me it's not a "letting the author grow into this thing" issue. Two books, years and series apart - going to be a no for me. It's probably a good sign that if you like his first books you'll like his later books, which is always good to know. ( )