I intended to review more books than I did last year, so I’ll be doing some short reviews to catch up a bit. Also, if you check out my booklist page, you’ll find a list of what I’ve read with a link to its review where applicable.
TRICK OF THE LIGHT was won on Marjorie Liu’s blog and sent to me by the author. I have heard a TON of good things about Thurman’s other series, and great things about this first book in a new series, including its twist at the end.
The book reminded me a LOT of Lilith Saintcrow’s Kismet series, so if you like that (as I do), you should like this. Heaven and Hell interplay, a smart-mouth, kick-butt heroine, tension, action. The mythology is fun, sometimes head-scratching (to a Christian). The plot unfolds at break-neck speed (which I always appreciate), and the characters are all nicely developed.
The plot centers around a McGuffin on which the fate of the world rests (don’t they all?). What I like is that Trixa, the protagonist, never pretends she’s some good guy working to save the world. She’s upfront about her agenda and her willingness to play ball with anybody.
My gripe is the hype. (see what I did there? I’m rolling my OWN eyes at it.) It was a fun, contemp fantasy read. To me it didn’t totally demolish genre strongholds (in fact, as mentioned, it snugly fit into most of them). It didn’t make me weep in its profound commentary on anything (and yes, sometimes fun contemp fantasy reads can do that to me). So what was so great about it that the entire blogosphere was buzzing?
Oh, right, the twist at the end. I’m not tooting my own horn, but I saw it coming. There are a billion clues that virtually scream it, not least of which involve names and titles. (This assumes you are a big nerd like me and know something about mythology.) I was more surprised about Griffin and Zeke.
Another nitpick is that, dang, Trixa repeats herself a lot! Since it’s first person you can get away with more rambling than you can in other POV’s (in my experience) as it gives it that personal feel, but if she told me ONE. MORE. TIME. how Zeke is the way he is, I was going to steal the darn Light of Life myself and blast her with it. Thurman does an adequate job of showing, so all that telling grated me for its lack of necessity, and then grated me more with its redundancy.
My favorite character was Leo. Just a tidbit.
Overall opinion of this book is that it’s fun, quick, worth checking out if you like the genre at all. And you’ll love the twist at the end. You will. I loved it even though I saw it coming. It was satisfying to see it play out!