![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Book 5, 2018
Just polished off Flame in the Dark, which is the third installment in Faith Hunter's "Soulwood" series, featuring non-human, special agent Nell Ingram.
PsyLED, the agency that polices paranormals, has sent Nell's unit to the scene of a mass shooting, because one of the guests was a vampire, which puts the case in their jurisdiction. Another guest was a Senator, and it's assumed he was the target of an assassination attempt. Nell uses her ability to read the land, enabling her to discover that the path the shooter took has left dead vegetation in its wake. Before anything can be resolved, further assassination attempts take place, with the only common denominator being fire at each site. Unit 18 knows that a non-human is responsible, but they can't figure out the species.
In the meantime, Nell is being carefully courted by her teammate, Occam, and her family is pushing a man from the church at her. Nell's young sister is now attracting the attention of the men in the church, and Nell knows that Mindy is just like her, a non-human of indeterminate origin. She wants to protect her sister, nurture her land, Soulwood, deal with the odd vampire-like tree she unwittingly created on the church compound, and remove the blight on her own land.
As the case becomes ever more dire, it becomes apparent that this is no simple assassination attempt, but a family situation that goes back generations.
Again, a fabulous story. I like Nell's pluck, as well as her reluctant attraction to Occam. It's heartening to watch her progress from a cowed, abused churchwoman into a self-assured agent. My only regret about this book is that I should have been caught up on the Jane Yellowrock series before reading it, as it included spoilers for one of those books. My bad.
Favorite line: But I was tired of making allowances for cats.
Story of my life!
Excellent, five stars:
*****
PsyLED, the agency that polices paranormals, has sent Nell's unit to the scene of a mass shooting, because one of the guests was a vampire, which puts the case in their jurisdiction. Another guest was a Senator, and it's assumed he was the target of an assassination attempt. Nell uses her ability to read the land, enabling her to discover that the path the shooter took has left dead vegetation in its wake. Before anything can be resolved, further assassination attempts take place, with the only common denominator being fire at each site. Unit 18 knows that a non-human is responsible, but they can't figure out the species.
In the meantime, Nell is being carefully courted by her teammate, Occam, and her family is pushing a man from the church at her. Nell's young sister is now attracting the attention of the men in the church, and Nell knows that Mindy is just like her, a non-human of indeterminate origin. She wants to protect her sister, nurture her land, Soulwood, deal with the odd vampire-like tree she unwittingly created on the church compound, and remove the blight on her own land.
As the case becomes ever more dire, it becomes apparent that this is no simple assassination attempt, but a family situation that goes back generations.
Again, a fabulous story. I like Nell's pluck, as well as her reluctant attraction to Occam. It's heartening to watch her progress from a cowed, abused churchwoman into a self-assured agent. My only regret about this book is that I should have been caught up on the Jane Yellowrock series before reading it, as it included spoilers for one of those books. My bad.
Favorite line: But I was tired of making allowances for cats.
Story of my life!
Excellent, five stars:
*****