Gay Insights

I love first person, in fact I rarely buy books that aren’t in first person. You can usually tell when someone from a romance reader background stumbles into Urban Fantasy, the first complaint they will have is how it is in first person and there is too much self examination, so when I read reviews by people complaining about the voice chosen, I usually discount them automatically. UF is almost entirely written in first person so if you don’t like that voice, you probably shouldn’t read the genre.

The upsides to this book, it’s action packed and great world building. Charlie is a cop in Atlanta, but in her Atlanta, two new planes of existence have been discovered and people from earth are having to learn how to co-exist with incoming inhabitants of both. It is a terrific premise and one I’m surprised hasn’t been done more often before.

Charlie’s partner Hank is a being from Elesyia, a heavenly like place who has been assigned to work with her on a taskforce dealing with the immigres. There is a drug that is being manufactured and killing people, called Ash, that is made from a flower from Chabydon, which is the other (not so nice-more hellish) plane of existence.

Hank is a great character, he is gorgeous, funny, kind, watches her back and kicks butt. He’s also a smart ass like Charlie so they quip alot.

Charlie is a divorced single mother who is still in love with her husband but cannot forgive him for lieing to her that he was using black magic to make his business grow faster. He says he’s quit, and he wants her back, and she is torn. This was all really well written and believably handled.

The downside: Charlie is a little “too kickbutt”. There has been a trend lately in UF where every female has to be so overly aggressive they just go around in a rage kicking everyone’s asses on general principal, and their partners are the voice of reason. I quit reading police procedurals because of this trend with the men cops. Now we have all the women protaganists being overly violent. I took away a star because I really felt it was overly done. Also, it is a bit cliched to have the main character end up with super powers they didn’t know they had.I wish there had been a few less characters introduced so I could have gotten to know them better. Also, I find it unlikely even when i suspend all disbelief that the US would allow people to enter our world that wouldn’t allow trade and equitable immigration into their world. In Gay’s book we have a whole lotta Elysian’s running around but hey…we’re not allowed to go to their world. I just can’t see US Government being cool with that.

However, all that being said, the last third of this book made up for everything, it was a roller coaster and a lot of fun and frankly for all my complaints about her being to kick ass the end of this book reminded me of all the good things I loved about the first three or four Anita Blake books. You know, back when they were good. So I am looking forward to the next book and I hope she tones down Charlie’s testosterone just a tad.

Rating: 4 / 5

Plot Summary: Charlie Madigan is a special detective in Atlanta, Georgia, the epicenter of otherworld activity. When scientists discovered other realms, the creatures who lived there decided to come out of the closet and mingle with humans. Charlie polices the aliens with her partner Hank, a gorgeous hunk of a siren, and interestingly enough, she was literally killed on the job eight months ago. A brilliant researcher saved her, but Charlie notices ominous changes within. She’s trying to keep it together, raise her kid, keep her ex-husband at bay, and solve a narcotic problem that’s putting humans in comas.

I was moderately impressed with Kelly Gay’s urban fantasy, The Better Part of Darkness. She’s a natural-born writer, and I expect great things from her going forward. Here’s the thing though… everybody and their sister is writing urban fantasy novels these days, and it takes a lot to stand out. There was one crucial thing missing from this book – the element of surprise. It was utterly predictable from start to finish, and I can’t rave for stories that are patently formulaic. For that reason I’m giving this 3.5 stars.

What I liked best about this book was Charlie’s sticky personal life. She’s got an attractive partner who is strictly off limits, she’s got an ex-husband trying to worm his way back into her life, and she’s trying to raise a tween who is too smart for her own good. It was messy and realistic. It’s strong stuff, and it carried my interest. What’s needed now is a real romantic interest for Charlie. I don’t mind following singleton heroines, but what really draws in the dedicated fans are protracted romances.

The supernatural side was okay, but a little vague at times. I could’ve used a bit more time devoted to the world-building, but I know those nagging questions will be resolved in the coming books. Speaking of which, book two, The Darkest Edge of Dawn (Charlie Madigan, Book 2), will be released in August 2010.
Rating: 3 / 5

I give credit to Kelly Gay for an original world and a definite uniqueness to this debut urban fantasy series. Just about everything about the idea of underground Atlanta and the denizens of both dimensions were fascinating. And the concept for the story was also a winner. Integration Task Force detective Charlie Madigan has lived for thirteen years in a world that has acknowledged the existence of the inhabitants of two diametrically opposed worlds – Elysia, the “good” world full of happy shiny creatures, and Charbydon, far more hellish in nature with lots of darkworld jinn and nobles that bear striking resembles to vampires of a sort. The inhabitants from these two worlds have been visiting ours for millennia, and are the thread of truth in our mythological and perhaps theological past. The ITF that Charlie works for is sort of like the police force for the immigrants of those worlds. And all is not well in Atlanta when a drug called Ash is showing up on the street and in the private school that Charlie’s own daughter attends. Finding out where it’s coming from and who’s responsible for it is the job of Charlie and her Siren partner Hank. But what they find could bring darkness like no other to their city and threaten the lives of human and otherworlder alike.

I wish that Gay had left the focus of this novel at the mystery of the deadly narcotic and the world-building for her series, because not long into The Better Part of Darkness, things go a bit awry. I think mostly because the author tried to do too much at once. The first major problem I had was the lead character, Charlie. Eight months ago she was beaten to death and resurrected. But she came back wrong somehow, and hasn’t slept much since. And things just keep getting stranger and stranger with her, as her ex-husband starts coming around again and she’s hit by unreasonable rages, inhuman strength, and the freaky new healing ability. She’s got a daughter she loves immensely, and ex-husband she loves but can’t trust, after his addiction to the same dark magics that killed her twin brother years ago. She’s also got a sister she tries to protect and a partner she loves like a dear friend – and she’s told no one of the turmoil she’s carrying around since the night she died.

She’s the sort of stoic, carries-all-the-load-herself sort that can become very frustrating very quickly, when that character stubbornly refuses to admit that she can’t take on the world singlehandedly. And emotionally, she’s all over the map. She’s got hot lusty thoughts about ex-hubby…but is mortified to an almost puritanical degree to go into an Elysian bathhouse. She’s spent the years since the death of her twin walling off her emotions to do the job of protecting her sister, then her daughter, but with a few short comments by her sister reevaluates her entire life. Wants to knock around anything or anyone who gets in her face and mouths off when discretion is the better part of valor, but gets paralyzed by fear more than once in less threatening situations. She’s a mess, really, and I didn’t see her as kick-ass as I’d heard her described for the first 3/4 of the book. Something happens towards the end that DOES push her into the realm of kick-ass heroine, but up until then she was way too self involved and wishy-washy.

There were also some plot holes, conflicting developments, a lot of weird random character encounters (the lab rat? Shameless and ham-handed set up for the second book), too many two dimensional secondary characters (her partner Hank and sister Bryn in particular should’ve been fleshed out more), and too many unresolved issues at the end for me to rate this read higher. And I still don’t fully understand what the drug Ash had to do with the rest of the goings on with the major baddie in the book. On the bright side, it was a reasonably engaging read that kept my attention, and while ultimately I think I’ll probably check out the second book when it comes out, I don’t think I’ll read more than two if that one is as messy as this one and without some major character development for Charlie and the rest.
Rating: 3 / 5