Review: Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane
| Genre: Urban Fantasy“A Dark, Complex World with a Non-Traditional Take on Heroes and Heroines”
 The Download… Straight from the CoverTHE AFTERLIFE IS ONLY THE BEGINNING. The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch and freewheeling Debunker and ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing the human liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that’s landed her in hot and dangerous water. Chess owes a murderous drug lord named Bump a lot of money. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah. |
Zelda’s Two Cents…
Stacia’s Kane’s new Downside Ghosts novels have been all the rage this year. For many months I heard the trumpeting about Terrible and couldn’t help but wonder just what the fuss was all about. This dreamy character named Terrible had driven a number of my friends to daily swoons and desires for t-shirts that said “My Other Boyfriend is Terrible” across the front. I figured I must get myself a piece of this Terrible action.
After finally picking up Unholy Ghosts I admit I was completely thrown for a loop! Terrible, this man of my friends’ dreams, was big, oafish and… unattractive? Wha?!? Okay. So Terrible didn’t do it for me right away. Completely not my idea of the hot, hunky, swoon-inducing hero. But was there still something here?
The book takes place in a futuristic world driven to crime and ruin after ghosts rise and massacre a good portion of the human population and the Church must step in to keep order. It is a world run by druglords, populated by thugs and prostitutes, and ruled by the iron fist of the Church. The heroine, Chess Putnam, is a streetwise orphan addicted to drugs and beholden to her dealers. The heroes of the novel are gang members with battle scars and stilted dialects. Ghosts are mean and there really are no happy endings.
What Stacia Kane has done here is brilliantly turn the character mold of urban fantasy on its head. She has created such fascinating and complex, flawed characters in Chess, Bump, Terrible, Lex, Slobag, etc. etc., that it’s hard not to recognize how truly unique the Downside Ghosts series is. To add to this, the plot is also beautifully complex and captivating, with enough action-packed suspense to keep readers on their toes. My only complaint in reading Unholy Ghosts is the fact that I really wanted more sex (what can I say? I like my UF a little naughty!).
I think that the only thing holding this book back from a higher, 4-book rating is the fact that I simply had a difficult time getting into it. Perhaps it’s that I’m just a vain person and prefer to read about beautiful people… Perhaps I was suffering from PMS that week… who knows why it didn’t grab me and shake me around like it did others! In fact, it is only after marinating on the book for a while that I came to really appreciate it for being such an unusual and well-crafted piece (the benefit of waiting a while before writing a review!).
Regardless, I am anxious to see how the storyline progresses in the second and third books… and whether I can ever truly fall in love with Terrible… after all, I really would like for my other boyfriend to be Terrible.
Zelda Gillian is a wife, a mother and a lover, likes strong espresso, stiff corsets and never strays far from her Kindle.
