Sometimes a book is good. Sometimes it's mediocre, and sometimes it's even actively bad. And sometimes you read a book that is so bad, so poorly conceived and poorly executed, that you enjoy laughing aloud at the sheer absurdity of its horribleness.
I'm going to try to steer clear of spoilers; I'd hate to ruin the joy of experiencing this steaming pile for someone else.
This book fell prey to just about every bad urban fantasy/tough chick stereotype out there. Our main character, Evalle, is the maligned, unjustly persecuted outsider---a woman who takes help from no man and has difficulty making friends. Well, except for the two men who saved her life a couple of years ago. And the lesbian witch she met a few months back. And the two tall, muscular, mysterious men who find her inexplicably alluring. Did I mention that she rides a motorcycle?
The plot I'm going to leave alone. Let's just say it's a mishmash of mystery elements, with an uninspired and clunky mix of clues, false trails, and innocents to protect. There's a jumble of multiple mythologies and supernatural traditions. Oh, and a note to the authors in case they ever read this: the correct Hindu god for vengeance would be Kali, not Shiva. And Tibet is not, nor has it ever been, part of the Middle East. Now you know.
The fact that there are two authors may have contributed to the train wreck that is the pacing for this book. There's more suspense in an episode of Scooby Doo, and some passages are duplicated in odd places. I wonder what kind of communication they had during the writing process, because this book is borderline schizophrenic at times.
Having two authors does not, however, excuse the hilariously bad prose. At times Evalle feels that "the dice were always stacked against" her. And when lifting a rusty gate with her mental abilities [revealed fortuitously just in time to be useful, a couple of chapters into the book], she "wished she had WD-40 for her telekinesis." Really? Sometimes I wish for a book that has three-dimensional characters and a plot that doesn't read like an adolescent's D&D session, but we can't always get what we want.
I had the added pleasure of experiencing this book as audio. The reader, to be fair, had a challenge with this book. Her odd pauses in the middle of sentences and bizarre accents, though, added an additional level of awfulness to a text that didn't really need the extra help.
Enough with picking on this book. I finished it and enjoyed it, even though my pleasure was derived from my own malicious spite. I love this book like I love the Star Wars Holiday Special and watching MST3K. If you also love having bad movie marathons, if you enjoy picking something apart until it lies flayed before you, then try this book.