Review: Creative and beautiful
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 12, 2013
Finding Esta is an urban fantasy tale with a riveting plot that hooked me from the very first page. It is the first installment of Shah Wharton's Supes series and cleverly weaves both mystery novel and supernatural tale together.Luna is a single, twenty-year-old woman with social inabilities that leave her lonely and awkward. Surviving as a journalist in North Yorkshire, England, Luna is viewed as a perpetual teenager; uncomfortable in her own body and out-of-sync with reality. Her inability to function normally has landed her in and out of psychiatric hospitals enduring shock therapy and a myriad of mind numbing drugs. Referred to as `rat' by her disgustingly abusive parents, Luna's only companions are Flo and Ada... but they're dead.As a Shadow Host, Luna is a safe haven to the restless Shadows who are otherwise destined to wander for eternity. The burdens of seeing the dead and painful psychic touch is further complicated when a strange, ghostly man begins following her. She quickly realizes that her b-movie life isn't all it has seemed.The depth and intrigue of this debut novel surprised me. It is not the average, predictable paranormal tale. Wharton's vivid language creates a delicious piece of fiction I could really sink my teeth into. The twists and turns held my attention but I did not find it at all hard to follow as another reviewer remarked.I found it easy to connect with Luna as she wrestled with both the desire for change and the fear of walking away from the familiar. Though her new, vampire-like qualities repulsed her she could not deny the urges that surfaced in her dreams and visions.I appreciate that Shah Wharton is able to tell such an intricate tale without a lot of lofty jargon. She also ends it in a way that makes me anxious for the next book, but not such an intense cliff hanger that I felt frustrated. It's tricky to leave a series story open-ended without cutting it mid thought and I thought she did a brilliant job.(Note that the only reason I am not able to mark this review as a verified purchase is due to the fact that it was gifted to me.)