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A review by book_grinch
Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore
5.0
WOW!!
Review to come!
I think I've come out with the perfect title for this review, on my BL page. I believe I will call it: Jackals and Jackasses...
And yes, there is a perfectly good reason for it! ;)
It has been quite some time now _ a few weeks at least...which in the bookish world, translates to AGES! _ since I've loved a story this much!
Although the last part of Texas Gothic (the first in this series ) was amazing in showing the author's talent, _for me _ Spirit and Dust is so far, the real gem in the Goodnight Family series...
Of course I am partial to snark... and this book has it in spades! ;)
Daisy Goodnight which first appears in Texas Gothic, as the "Gothic" rebel teenage psychic that arrives to provide some paranormal insight during her cousins Phinn's and Amy's adventure; has in this story a most deserved spotlight.
And, boy, does she shine!
The girl is a natural in the position of leading character. She's one of the most realistic almost eighteen year old', that I've read about in the fantasy world.
Daisy may talk to the dead, but just like the rest of her extended number of relatives...(you may be dead, but you're still a Goodnight! ), the girl takes her obligations in a extremely serious way.
In this story, during another assignment in which she's helping the FBI, she founds herself in the middle of a terrifying situation: She's forced to help a notorious criminal element under the threat that something bad will happen to her family if she doesn't do...as asked.
One of the things in which I find that the author excels, is in her capacity of almost downsizing the magical part of the tale to something that just feels realistic. In here you won't find no hocus pocus or jarring mixes of the fantastical element with the contemporary.
People talk about ghosts, geas, witches, but it's as if that's the normal thing in the world.
I loved it. I loved it by it's simplicity, fluidity, and basic denial of anything cliché!
This was such an engaging read. Part adventure, part fantasy, but all of it, a pleasure to read!
There's so may things to gush over, but one of the main things, has to be the fact that for the second time in a row, the author made sure to give us, intelligent, capable teenagers, who are so much more than an amount of brainless, bubbling hormones!
YES!!
From this day forward, Carson will join my short and exclusive (lol) list of favourite bookish male teenage characters. In there he will join characters such as Derek from Kelley Armstrong Darkest Powers series, Jupiter (Jupe) from Jenn Bennett series "Arcadia Bell", and Sarah Rees Brennan "Jared" from the Lynburn Legacy...although Jared is a little insane o_O for his own sake.
Carson starts out in a somewhat disadvantageous position, but soon enough _due to the "amazingness" of the character development! _ he was winning cookie points! ;)
Daisy on the other hand, the way her character was build, is the reason why I keep reading YA books:
"Sweet Saint Gertrude, what was I doing? I couldn’t flirt with him. I didn’t even know if Carson was his first or last name. It didn’t matter, because he was an employee of a criminal enterprise and I was an FBI consultant and, oh yeah, technically kidnapped and probably in the throes of some kind of Stockholm syndrome."
There's danger aplenty, an intriguing mystery that will probably leave you clueless until the very end, (it involves the jackal part) and a simmering romance in the background...(there the jackasses references ;) just to keep things a little more interesting.
IT WAS GREAT!!
So, bottom line, if you love adventure stories with amazing well developed characters, nosy ghosts, some electricity floating around from all the romantic tension going around, mummies on the lose, and a bad guy determined to arrange minions to achieve world domination (don't they all?), this is just the right book for you!
Oh, and honestly I really hope that one of the reasons the Goodnights are such a numerous family, is that we are going to see more from them....hopefully in a near future?
Yes?
Review to come!
I think I've come out with the perfect title for this review, on my BL page. I believe I will call it: Jackals and Jackasses...
And yes, there is a perfectly good reason for it! ;)
It has been quite some time now _ a few weeks at least...which in the bookish world, translates to AGES! _ since I've loved a story this much!
Although the last part of Texas Gothic (the first in this series ) was amazing in showing the author's talent, _for me _ Spirit and Dust is so far, the real gem in the Goodnight Family series...
Of course I am partial to snark... and this book has it in spades! ;)
Daisy Goodnight which first appears in Texas Gothic, as the "Gothic" rebel teenage psychic that arrives to provide some paranormal insight during her cousins Phinn's and Amy's adventure; has in this story a most deserved spotlight.
And, boy, does she shine!
The girl is a natural in the position of leading character. She's one of the most realistic almost eighteen year old', that I've read about in the fantasy world.
Daisy may talk to the dead, but just like the rest of her extended number of relatives...(you may be dead, but you're still a Goodnight! ), the girl takes her obligations in a extremely serious way.
In this story, during another assignment in which she's helping the FBI, she founds herself in the middle of a terrifying situation: She's forced to help a notorious criminal element under the threat that something bad will happen to her family if she doesn't do...as asked.
One of the things in which I find that the author excels, is in her capacity of almost downsizing the magical part of the tale to something that just feels realistic. In here you won't find no hocus pocus or jarring mixes of the fantastical element with the contemporary.
People talk about ghosts, geas, witches, but it's as if that's the normal thing in the world.
I loved it. I loved it by it's simplicity, fluidity, and basic denial of anything cliché!
This was such an engaging read. Part adventure, part fantasy, but all of it, a pleasure to read!
There's so may things to gush over, but one of the main things, has to be the fact that for the second time in a row, the author made sure to give us, intelligent, capable teenagers, who are so much more than an amount of brainless, bubbling hormones!
YES!!
From this day forward, Carson will join my short and exclusive (lol) list of favourite bookish male teenage characters. In there he will join characters such as Derek from Kelley Armstrong Darkest Powers series, Jupiter (Jupe) from Jenn Bennett series "Arcadia Bell", and Sarah Rees Brennan "Jared" from the Lynburn Legacy...although Jared is a little insane o_O for his own sake.
Carson starts out in a somewhat disadvantageous position, but soon enough _due to the "amazingness" of the character development! _ he was winning cookie points! ;)
Daisy on the other hand, the way her character was build, is the reason why I keep reading YA books:
"Sweet Saint Gertrude, what was I doing? I couldn’t flirt with him. I didn’t even know if Carson was his first or last name. It didn’t matter, because he was an employee of a criminal enterprise and I was an FBI consultant and, oh yeah, technically kidnapped and probably in the throes of some kind of Stockholm syndrome."
There's danger aplenty, an intriguing mystery that will probably leave you clueless until the very end, (it involves the jackal part) and a simmering romance in the background...(there the jackasses references ;) just to keep things a little more interesting.
IT WAS GREAT!!
So, bottom line, if you love adventure stories with amazing well developed characters, nosy ghosts, some electricity floating around from all the romantic tension going around, mummies on the lose, and a bad guy determined to arrange minions to achieve world domination (don't they all?), this is just the right book for you!
Oh, and honestly I really hope that one of the reasons the Goodnights are such a numerous family, is that we are going to see more from them....hopefully in a near future?
Yes?