Alright, time for review number one!
Broken Souls came out on Tuesday, and was bought Tuesday night. I read part of it Thursday morning, and just literally finished the book about an hour ago. I read this thing in 2 sittings.
This, is a damned good book. Seriously, they say you can't judge a book by it's cover, but that cover art is SWEET.
On a scale of "HOLY SHIT" to "WHAT THE FUCK MAN" this rates a solid "SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS" (hah! Necromancy pun!) from me, because I love this man's work.
This is urban fantasy, but GOOD urban fantasy.
I'm going to go off on a tangent for a moment, but I feel like I need to explain why I love this genre and hate it at the same time. I like the genre because I enjoy the real world settings (seems just, better than some imaginary forest populated by one race of elves, or a barren wasteland populated by one race of ghouls, you get my drift), but it has a few horrible failings, mostly of the "let's write porn and call it urban fantasy, cause my main character love getting gangbanged by werewolves or dragons", or the "My character is totally not a Gary Stu, but yes he is my height and coloring and has my hairstyle but he is like, way cooler and has all the sex with the chicks because he is AWESOME" variety. You either end up with a sex crazed lead who's banging anything with 2 or more legs, or you end up with some random author's version of themselves as Goku or Superman.
Looking for a good Urban Fantasy novel is HARD. Finding it is damned near impossible. You luck out, find a good author, and latch onto that bastard's work like a remora onto a shark. Blackmoore is one of the people I have on my instant "BUY WHEN THIS GUY HAS NEW SHIT" list, which is probably the best kind of shitlist for an author to be on.
Enough of the tangent, ONWARDS AND UPWARDS TO THE REVIEW! Or, you know, downwards and below, to the review...
It's a damned good book.
HOWEVER, and this is NOT a slam against the book whatsoever, This is NOT a good starting point for the series. I would strongly recommend picking up Dead Things first, or you will be wondering why some things are the way they are. Besides, Dead Things was another amazing book by him.
So, with spoilers ahead (minor ones at least), we can get the review on the road.
Eric Carter opens the book trying to find a way to get out of his deal with Santa Muerte, and from the literal start of the book we encounter crazy shit, and it keeps on running strong through the book. This theme of "What the fuck?" keeps up through the book and is done so in a very interesting and (to me) nifty way.
I won't spoil more of the book, but I will say that I am still a big fan of Sharpie Magic, and the fun of it carries over to this new book, and it works just as well in this book as it did in the first.
The plot carries itself very well, and there will be emotional gut punches, and to me, and ending that I completely did not see coming.
I enjoy his "universe" that he has built, and seeing characters from other novels of his that I enjoyed works in a way that doesn't seem to be heavy handed or in an over "wink wink nudge nudge isn't this cool" sort of way. They fit in the story where needed, and then go pop off to live their own little virtual lives. It gives the story a very organic feel, and that is one of the best qualities I look for.
It's a great read, and one I highly recommend. I rated it 5 stars on Amazon, and I'll rank it 5 here as well. Go read this man's work. You will encounter wonders like ghosts that eat people, psychotic midgets that are basically gollum on PCP, and the wonders of Sharpie Magic.
Link to the goodreads profile so you can find online or local versions of this book to own:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20579053-broken-souls
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