A review by lynseyisreading
Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy
4.0
This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There were elements that I really liked that I thought were written exceptionally well, and then there were elements that were lacking and spoiled the journey.
I'll start with the positives since, as you can see from my rating, they slightly outweighed the negatives for me.
The biggest positive by far was the characters. Particularly secondary and ancillary characters. I fell almost immediately in love with one in particular: Gary the Cabbie. It's so unusual to find a character of his advanced years (he's 73) and I just thought he was wonderful. It just proves not everyone in an urban fantasy has to be young, beautiful and badass (although, he is pretty badass if you ask me) and Gary's character brought a real richness to the story and I really believed the friendship that was formed between him and the main protag, Joanne Walker. I found myself "aw"ing at him frequently. He's a peach.
Joanne herself took me slightly longer to warm up to . I found her "voice" seemed to change considerably over the course of the book and I enjoyed her much more in the second half.
Another character that I enjoyed, and whom I suspect may have a wee soft spot for Joanne, was her boss, Michael Morrison. He, again, isn't described in the usual tradition of potential love interests as a flawless alpha male type- I believe she describes him as a super hero that's just starting to go to seed. At 39 his greying hair and laughter lines give him flaws that just set to make him all the more interesting in a way, and I really enjoyed their scenes together. Theirs is a very combative, antagonistic relationship which is amusing to read. I don't know for sure if he's meant to be love interest potential, but that's the feeling I got. I'll have to wait for future books to be sure.
Another aspect I really enjoyed was the overall plot. This one features the Wild Hunt. How many miles to Babylon? Unfortunately, though I did enjoy it, I had experienced similar themes in my beloved October Daye series, where they were done much, much better.
Onto what I didn't like so much.
Basically, it was a combination of two things: One, being the story telling. The plot was hazy and seemed to meander a times. And two - and this was the main one- was the amount of stuff Joanne took in her stride. She experiences many life-altering things and learns much about herself in this book, and, not that I wanted her to fall apart or anything- it's good that she's strong- but she didn't ask one single question! Not one! There's taking things in your stride, and then there's completely unrealistic character behaviour, and Joanne fell on the wrong side of that fence. It almost would have been better if she had started out the book already knowing what she was and what she could do, because to start from nothing to where she ended up, with barely a raised eyebrow, just seemed incredible to me. And I didn't buy it.
So, as I said, a mixed bag, but I loved the characters so I will be giving book two a whirl to see how things go on from here. Hopefully the storytelling will have improved and, now that Joanne knows all of her abilities, the other issue won't matter as much either.
I'll start with the positives since, as you can see from my rating, they slightly outweighed the negatives for me.
The biggest positive by far was the characters. Particularly secondary and ancillary characters. I fell almost immediately in love with one in particular: Gary the Cabbie. It's so unusual to find a character of his advanced years (he's 73) and I just thought he was wonderful. It just proves not everyone in an urban fantasy has to be young, beautiful and badass (although, he is pretty badass if you ask me) and Gary's character brought a real richness to the story and I really believed the friendship that was formed between him and the main protag, Joanne Walker. I found myself "aw"ing at him frequently. He's a peach.
Joanne herself took me slightly longer to warm up to . I found her "voice" seemed to change considerably over the course of the book and I enjoyed her much more in the second half.
Another character that I enjoyed, and whom I suspect may have a wee soft spot for Joanne, was her boss, Michael Morrison. He, again, isn't described in the usual tradition of potential love interests as a flawless alpha male type- I believe she describes him as a super hero that's just starting to go to seed. At 39 his greying hair and laughter lines give him flaws that just set to make him all the more interesting in a way, and I really enjoyed their scenes together. Theirs is a very combative, antagonistic relationship which is amusing to read. I don't know for sure if he's meant to be love interest potential, but that's the feeling I got. I'll have to wait for future books to be sure.
Another aspect I really enjoyed was the overall plot. This one features the Wild Hunt. How many miles to Babylon? Unfortunately, though I did enjoy it, I had experienced similar themes in my beloved October Daye series, where they were done much, much better.
Onto what I didn't like so much.
Basically, it was a combination of two things: One, being the story telling. The plot was hazy and seemed to meander a times. And two - and this was the main one- was the amount of stuff Joanne took in her stride. She experiences many life-altering things and learns much about herself in this book, and, not that I wanted her to fall apart or anything- it's good that she's strong- but she didn't ask one single question! Not one! There's taking things in your stride, and then there's completely unrealistic character behaviour, and Joanne fell on the wrong side of that fence. It almost would have been better if she had started out the book already knowing what she was and what she could do, because to start from nothing to where she ended up, with barely a raised eyebrow, just seemed incredible to me. And I didn't buy it.
So, as I said, a mixed bag, but I loved the characters so I will be giving book two a whirl to see how things go on from here. Hopefully the storytelling will have improved and, now that Joanne knows all of her abilities, the other issue won't matter as much either.