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A review by kblincoln
Deep Down by Deborah Coates
5.0
The spare, emotion-loaded beauty of Coates' terse dialogue and South Dakota rancher milieu started in "Wide Open" continues here in Deep Down.
Hallie Michaels is hanging around on her father's ranch, no longer able to return to her former life as a normal, army grunt in Afghanistan.
Her run in with the supernatural in the prior book has left her a bit at a loss for a life path. She's staying in town, but plans to leave both the town and her new romantic interest, boyish, strait-laced Boyd Davies.
She's not ready to commit to anything.
But then she goes to check on an elderly neighbor and finds black dogs, harbingers of Death, circling the property. At last, here's something Hallie has no problem committing to: figuring out how to solve both the puzzle of the dogs, as well as mysterious disappearances of solid citizens and mysterious reappearnces of victimless car crashes.
I am beginning to think of Deborah Coates and Alex Bledsoe's "Tufa" series along the same lines: something like urban fantasy set in rural American areas. There is wide open spaces, nature as a scene setter/mood influencer and sometimes character, as well as the rural sensibilities of people separated by space who yet have known eachother all their lives and who you can rely on in a pinch. Maybe "rural" fantasy? Whatever its called, I still love the way Hallie, Boyd, Death, and her father have that brusque, loaded-with-unsaid-things style of communication, as well as the details of ranch life.
As an added bonus, we not only get deeper into Boyd's backstory as his past holds clues to the current supernatural happenings in Prairie City , but also get the addition of a new character, Maker, who provides a perfect foil for Hallie as a source of irritation and information.
Hope to see more in this series.
This Book's Snack Rating: still Salt-and-Pepper Kettle chips for the no-nonsense flavor of Hallie's South Dakota world and the satisfying crunch of well-laid plot and fantastic elements
Hallie Michaels is hanging around on her father's ranch, no longer able to return to her former life as a normal, army grunt in Afghanistan.
Her run in with the supernatural in the prior book has left her a bit at a loss for a life path. She's staying in town, but plans to leave both the town and her new romantic interest, boyish, strait-laced Boyd Davies.
She's not ready to commit to anything.
But then she goes to check on an elderly neighbor and finds black dogs, harbingers of Death, circling the property. At last, here's something Hallie has no problem committing to: figuring out how to solve both the puzzle of the dogs, as well as mysterious disappearances of solid citizens and mysterious reappearnces of victimless car crashes.
I am beginning to think of Deborah Coates and Alex Bledsoe's "Tufa" series along the same lines: something like urban fantasy set in rural American areas. There is wide open spaces, nature as a scene setter/mood influencer and sometimes character, as well as the rural sensibilities of people separated by space who yet have known eachother all their lives and who you can rely on in a pinch. Maybe "rural" fantasy? Whatever its called, I still love the way Hallie, Boyd, Death, and her father have that brusque, loaded-with-unsaid-things style of communication, as well as the details of ranch life.
As an added bonus, we not only get deeper into Boyd's backstory as his past holds clues to the current supernatural happenings in Prairie City , but also get the addition of a new character, Maker, who provides a perfect foil for Hallie as a source of irritation and information.
Hope to see more in this series.
This Book's Snack Rating: still Salt-and-Pepper Kettle chips for the no-nonsense flavor of Hallie's South Dakota world and the satisfying crunch of well-laid plot and fantastic elements