Thursday, August 29, 2013

Review - The Better Part of Darkness

Posted by LunaMoth at 1:32 AM

The Better Part of Darkness
Author - Kelly Gay
Series - Charlie Madigan #1
Genre - Urban Paranormal
Pages - 416

 
Description from Goodreads 

Atlanta: it's the promised city for the off-worlders, foreigners from the alternate dimensions of heaven-like Elysia and hell-like Charbydon. Some bring good works and miracles. And some bring unimaginable evil.... 

Charlie Madigan is a divorced mother of one, and a kick-ass cop trained to take down the toughest human and off-world criminals. She's recently returned from the dead after a brutal attack, an unexplained revival that has left her plagued by ruthless nightmares and random outbursts of strength that make doing her job for Atlanta P.D.'s Integration Task Force even harder. Since the Revelation, the criminal element in Underground Atlanta has grown, leaving Charlie and her partner Hank to keep the chaos to a dull roar. But now an insidious new danger is descending on her city with terrifying speed, threatening innocent lives: a deadly, off-world narcotic known as ash. Charlie is determined to uncover the source of ash before it targets another victim -- but can she protect those she loves from a force more powerful than heaven and hell combined?


Charlie Madigan. Detective in the ITF, mother, and all around badass has died. How did she live? Well, she doesn’t really know. All she knows is somehow it has changed her. 

Better Part of Darkness starts out with a young girl who has ingested a new substance called ash. Ash is the new drug from the otherworlders, the magical creatures that have decided to come out of the woodworks and reside in our (human) world. You have your goodly mages and sirens and the like. Then you have your slightly less good jinn, goblins and abbadon nobles. But with everything, nothing is ever just black and white. 

While looking into the case of ash Charlies daughter Emma gets stolen and thus our adventure really picks up. 

 Not to say it wasn’t a good ride but about sixty to seventy percent through or so is when her daughter gets taken and that is when it gets very good. The beginning is good as well, the fights and plot twists are acceptable and the characters interesting although not very in-depth. 

Charlie is your usual hard and nails type with a soft side (she cries very easily, if fact I got a little sick of it by halfway through) but she was still a nice personality to have around, she is witty with her quips and really cares for her daughter and would do anything, anything for her. I also like that she doesn’t just fall into the powers she has and she is apprehensive of them . Her partner, Hank the siren is a good strong male role and I did enjoy his presence even if we never actually get to see him use his powers. 

The other characters such as her sister Bryn and the revenant Rex add a good touch. If there was one thing I would say brought the book down a bit was the lack of description. Not about the world or anything but about the characters, some of them really had no backgrounds, the bad guy especially. He is bad, that is it and no more. However this does not really deter from the enjoyment of the novel.

 

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