5 bat! Review: City of Ghosts by Stacia Kane

 

Book Description

IT’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN ALIVE AND UNDEAD.

Chess Putnam has a lot on her plate. Mangled human corpses have started to show up on the streets of Downside, and Chess’s bosses at the Church of Real Truth have ordered her to team up with the ultra-powerful Black Squad agency to crack the grisly case.

Chess is under a binding spell that threatens death if she talks about the investigation, but the city’s most notorious crime boss—and Chess’s drug dealer—gets wind of her new assignment and insists on being kept informed. If that isn’t bad enough, a sinister street vendor appears to have information Chess needs. Only he’s not telling what he knows, or what it all has to do with the vast underground City of Eternity.

Now Chess will have to navigate killer wraiths, First Elders, and a lot of seriously nasty magic—all while coping with some not-so-small issues of her own. And the only man Chess can trust to help her through it all has every reason to want her dead.

 Review

Book 3 in The Downside Ghosts Series

After devouring the first two Downside Ghost books in all their addictive, screwed up goodness, I had crazy, impossibly high hopes for CITY OF GHOSTS. And Stacia Kane didn’t disappoint in this action packed, scary cool, emotionally naked urban fantasy that I can still feel racing through my veins.

By far, CITY OF GHOSTS is the most emotionally rich story in the series so far.  By the end of Unholy Magic, Chess had spiraled into a pit of shame, guilt, and drug-induced regret culminating in gut wrenching ending where the guy she probably loved caught her about to screw the guy she definitely didn’t before he died and she risked her life to bring him back. 

When CITY OF GHOSTS begins, the rage and disgust that exudes from Terrible when he is near Chess is only surpassed by her own self loathing.  In her eyes, Chess is valueless and deserving of every drop of animosity that Terrible flings at her.  In his eyes, Terrible is what his name says he is.  He can’t process the pain she caused him, so he lashes out instead.  I’ve never seen two people hurt one another as deeply as these two do, and at the same time empathize with their bone deep hurt so that I understand why.  Their love is pitiful and painful enough to steal your breath. 

And if that emotional hell ride wasn’t enough, Chess is beaten, burned, cursed, magically Bound, and nearly raped in CITY OF GHOSTS all while having to face a threat that is seeking to undue the very thread that have held her life together: The Church.

The Downside Ghosts series is in turn scary and shocking.  The characters live daily in a personal hell that most people can’t fathom. Yes, Chess is a junkie who makes Rachel Morgan’s relationship decisions look healthy, but in CITY OF GHOSTS, she is more vulnerable and more honest with herself that I ever thought possible.  I imagine that she still has further down to go before she picks herself up, but I have no doubt that she will.  On her website, Stacia Kane says, "The fourth and fifth books in the series will probably be released in Fall 2011/Spring 2012.” I just hate that I’ll have to wait so long for my next Chess/Terrible fix. 

Sexual Content: References to sex.  References to rape.  Attempted rape.  Two graphic sex scenes.

My Rating (out of 5):
Near Perfect - Buy two copies: one for you and one for a friend.

Click HERE to read an excerpt from CITY OF GHOSTS

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (July 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345515595
• ISBN-13: 978-0345515599
• Cover Art: Juliana Kolesova

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