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Blood, Smoke and Mirrors

Description

Reviews

Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2010-08-23
Summary: "Not very interesting lead"

I'm not sure if I was reading a different book but I thought this story was pretty terrible. The basic premise was kind of interesting but there was no real character development. The lead character was so naive and kept going along with pretty much everything that was required of her. Besides mouthing off to the villains, she doesn't really seem to have any real backbone and I found myself losing interest half way throughout the book. Plus there's really two different stories in one - the first storyline comes to a logical conclusion with her killing the vampire dad and then midway there are other characters who start taking a major role in the book. It's just very frustrating. I read tons of fantasy books and this has been one of my least favorite.

Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2010-07-27
Summary: "It's not bad, but it's very naïve"

"Blood, Smoke and Mirrors" biggest issue is that the fantasy part of the story is less about magic and more about the characters.

Catherine "Cat" Morrow/Baker gets screwed by the hippy witches. She's cast out of their order - not that anyone intelligent should want to belong to it anyway. Then her ex-boyfriend and her boss at the cafe where she works decide that she should be Titania. Titania is basically the ambassador to the Realm of Faerie. So far it's your standard Urban fantasy plot. Not bad, but nothing spectacular. I'm not sure why her ex-beau and her cafe owner boss get to decide who'll be Titania for the whole of the mid-west, but it's early in the story so you cut the author some slack.

It's not ever explained. Lex the boyfriend is a sort of magical cop, but I don't get why the FBI would get to pick the ambassador to China. That sort of thing is pretty much par for the course with the novel.

Cat is a chain-smoking waitress who never used the college degree she worked hard to pay for. She's not a terrible character, but at times I found her just this side of white trash. She's not disciplined. She's neither smart nor stupid. She's very naive mostly. She gets picked to be this important position because none of the other good guys are stupid enough to take the job. If she doesn't get the position then the evil necromancers will get control of things by putting her dad in the position.

Dad's basically a Darth Vader wannabe without the nifty costume. He twirls his metaphorical mustache for the first part of the book. This is the best part of the book. In part two Cat is the heir apparent to the position of Titania along with her now soul mate, Lex.

I didn't hate Lex, but I did find him to be a sad sample of masculinity. He is very two dimensional. His role in the story is to be be undecided about Cat and to show up and be macho when the story needs him. I never could figure out why Lex was in love with Cat, and neither can she.

There is a sort of romantic tension in the second part of the book that doesn't work as the head nasty vampire tries his darndest to seduce Cat to the dark side of magic. Naturally, he fails, because he is the greasiest, most manipulative bastard on the planet. If Cat had even a modicum of the sense she possessed in the first part of the novel the second part of the story wouldn't happen. Which would have been great, because the second part is pretty awful.

The reader is forced to suffer through page after page of Cat being retarded and illustrating why leaders aren't picked by chance. The bad guy is not particularly clever and yet Cat falls for some really simple manipulations. The baddie keeps using refinements on a technique until Cat succumbs to his devilish charms (that aren't that charming). I kept rooting for him to win because Cat is so stupid in this part of the book. At least then it would have been over.

The pacing is off. The ending creeps up on you. There are two parts to the book and the climax in the middle is more climactic then the ending climax.

All in all it is some interesting writing paired with some poor storytelling.

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-07-24
Summary: "Looking forward to the Next"

Came across this book by chance and like another reviewer, didn't expect much. Very pleasantly surprised! Really enjoyed the author's world-building and characters. Her perspective on some usual paranormal components is different enough to keep it fresh. Looking forward to further adventures.

Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2010-07-20
Summary: "I Liked It...But With Caveats"

Catherine Baker was harshly sentenced by the witch's council after defending herself from a vicious attack by turning the attacker's evil back on him. It broke his mind. Her actions offended the witch's "An harm it none" creed. She was ostracized from the witches, cast out, and she's still bitter about it. The fact that her boyfriend at the time, the Guardian Lex, was the one that turned her in after she'd confided in him in confidence not only put the kibosh on their relationship, but it shattered all of Cat's dreams of a future with love and family. Needless to say, when Lex shows up years later at the coffee shop where she works, telling her she's going to have to try to become the new Titania (sort of the arcane's answer to a one-witch united nations for the Midwestern US region), Cat quite succinctly tells Lex exactly where to stick his suggestion. Various powers and magical races have a vested interest, however, and soon it becomes clear that refusal is not an option. Especially when Cat finds out that her murderous father Dorian is the only other potential candidate, for the male title of Oberon, left alive and as he's the necromancer responsible for her mother's brutal slaying, Cat's motivations become very pointed.

With a smattering of vampire politics and witchcraft, faerie fashion makeovers, and a life-or-death battle or ten, Robyn Bachar's book, Blood, Smoke and Mirrors is a fun, easy read with a heroine in Cat Baker (true name Morrow, but it's rude to mention that in mixed company) that has enough wit and self deprecating charm to provide some solid tongue-in-cheek humor. Not to mention she slings insults even better than she wields sun spells. For me, Cat was the highlight of the book. There were a few other characters that I enjoyed, Cat's faerie cousins Portia and Tybalt and the very powerful and obscenely rich vampire Zachary Harrison. I can't say, though, that I was overly fond of Lex, who seemed very two dimensional and lacked a lot in charm.

The "romance" between him and Cat never worked for me because I just flat out didn't like him, and there were scenes and issues all the way through to the last page of the book that made me wonder how successful a romance those two characters could really have, despite them being "soul-mates." Cat hasn't ever, and still doesn't feel comfortable in his HOME, for goodness sake...and she's going to live there? That's not usually a good indicator of snugglebunny love, and I found it so odd (especially considering where that information is given in the book storyline) that I had to reread that passage to make sure I'd read it right.

And actually, that point segues right into those caveats I mentioned. For all that I enjoyed the characters (most of them) and thought Bachar's narrative was smooth and enjoyable, I had some major issues with the actual story part of the...well...story. I thought the world building was very thin and sketchy and the mythos and explanation of different races bare boned to the extreme. I'm still not sure what the difference is between a necromancer and a vampire in Bachar's world, as everyone seemed to differentiate the two but Harrison indicated that vampires find that term offensive and prefer to be called master necromancers. I thought there were several odd transitions in the book, and the first half, centered around Cat's trials for the Titania position was almost a different story altogether from the later half, where she's being coerced into staying with Harrison, and those two parts seemed so disparate that the overall arc of the book didn't totally gel for me.

There were also a few too-quick resolutions and several cases where character action and/or reaction didn't seem organic to the situation, or were too quickly glossed over, and in those cases there was a serious lack of emotional impact. Some of those scenes could've yielded the author a significant payoff in reader emotional response and the opportunity was passed by more than once. I thought the "trial" was surprisingly lacking in challenge and substance considering the position the trial was for, and I have no clearer an grasp on what Harrison's motivations were for doing what he did to and with Cat beyond those he stated, but even that he seemed willing, at one point, to negotiate.

Above and beyond all that, however, the paramount issue is that the idea of Cat as Titania bugs the hell out of me. I have a serious peeve with stories that offer up the least learned, least powerful, least able to defend him/herself person for a sacred position of ultimate value and power. I've read it before in other books, an it annoys me every time, because not only does it call that person's abilities into question, it makes everyone around the poor shlub seem ridiculous, ineffectual, and stupid to want that person in power to begin with, and from a reader's perspective it does a serious number on my ability to suspend disbelief.

Despite all that, though, I do still like Cat and think her story is far from over. At least, I hope it's far from over, because there were sure a lot of unanswered questions and unresolved issues in Cat's life by the end. I'd read a sequel if there's one published, though it'll be the characters more than the plot that draws me back if there's another. I would like to caution potential readers on one thing: this book has been tagged as a paranormal romance, but while there is a romance involved in the story, it's by no means a central part, and I'd place the genre far closer to urban fantasy. Hardcore paranormal romance fans may be disappointed.

Originally reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-07-11
Summary: "Surprisingly Good Read"

I didn't expect much from this book & was pleasantly surprised.

Briefly, Cat is an outcast witch, scorned b/c Lex, the man she loved, turned her in to the authorities after she used her powers on an attacker. After the liason to the Fae is killed, Cat becomes the only witch in the midwest able to take her place. Lex, the Guardian (magical police), re-enters her life to protect her as she competes for the position against her deadbeat, murderous dad. Added to the mix are some evil (and not-so-evil) vampires.

The big plus for this book is the characters. I cared about them & couldn't put the book down b/c I needed to know what happened to them. Harrison, the rich vampire playboy, as the wrench thrown into the works was great - is he good...is he bad??? Really well done. The only weak characters were Cat's dad and his female vampire, who were a little too stereotypical "bad guy."

The plot was interesting, with a few surprises, and wasn't over-powered by the romance. The author did a good job weaving details about her world in the story. Some things that happened, however, felt a bit contrived. I don't get the overly harsh punishment for Cat defending herself against someone who was going to kill her, and while Lex seems sorry she was dealt with unfairly, he doesn't seem sorry he turned her in when she confided in him. Would he have preferred the alternative - that the woman he loved be murdered? I also think she entertained taking him back too easily after such a huge betrayal. The adherence to the witches code (don't harm others, even if you're about to be murdered) felt artificial - just a way to make Cat the candidate. And even though the witches code depleted their numbers, I can't believe the pariah of the witch world is the only one available for the liason position.

Overall, despite the minor issues, this was a really entertaining book and defintely worth a read.