Review: A refreshing new urban fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 8, 2014
I really enjoyed this book. It is everything that I have come to love and expect from urban fantasy. Tracey Martin has created a believable and unique world. In all the urban fantasy I have read, I can’t recall a single one that is in any way similar, which is a big then, in a time when a lot seems to resemble each other. The focus is on the plot and resolving the conflict with the romance being something that adds to the book and doesn’t detract from the plot. I normally don’t read urban fantasy with demons but these aren’t the type from Christian myth. They’re called preds, short for predators, and they are much more vampire like than the fallen angel type.I love Jess, she’s not the tough badass that often is found in urban fantasy. Well she is in a way but it’s mostly because she’s good at what she does, and that comes from the training that she received. She was training to be a Gryphon, someone who protects humanity from the demons. While we don’t get a lot of detail of what that training entailed, it’s safe to say it involved some sort of combat training, plus she mentions that she’s done other training outside of that. Her demon knowledge is a little lacking, but it was mentioned that she would have learned more if she had completed her Gryphon training and became one, which leaves me to believe that they guard their secrets and only initiates only learn everything upon completion.Her lack of knowledge leads her to make some bad choices but I found that it made her more real and relatable. She has a temper, she makes rash decisions, both of which always get her into trouble. But for the most part she is capable of getting herself out of that trouble and handling things on her own. She even puts Lucen in his place often when he helps her, I don’t blame her for getting mad at him for it.I like Lucen, but I really would have loved to see something from his point of view. The book is in first person so we are limited to Jess’s impressions of him, which are not always good (more to him being a pred than to him being ‘evil’, which he’s not). Lucen is a promising character and I cannot wait to see him appear in the next book.This is definitely one of the better urban fantasy’s that I have ever read, and consider that it’s my favorite genre I have read a lot of them. I am addicted to the world that Martin has built and I cannot wait to read more books in it.