jadedmusings | A half-assed review (not to be taken seriously).

I finally got around to reading and finishing Witchling by Yasmine Galenorn. I had high hopes when I picked up the book, but they were all crushed pretty quickly.

Camille D'Artigo is a half-human faerie/Sidhe living earthside in Seattle, Washington, with her two sisters. All three of them work for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency (OIA) after having been assigned earthside because, as Camille puts it, the OIA thinks the sisters will do the least amount of damage there. Being only half-faerie, the sisters' powers are rather strange when compared to that of their fae relatives. Delilah, the middle sister, is a werecat whose were-form is that of a orange tabby housecat. In addition to that, when she's stressed or frightened, she can't always control herself and will shift to catform. Menolly, the youngest of the three, is a relatively newly turned vampire, which comes with its sets of problems assorted with bloodlust and figuring out how to survive without killing innocent people. Finally, Camille is a witch, but her human side interferes with her magic in unpredictable ways, often to her detriment (just don't ask her about the time she tried to make herself invisible and instead only managed to make her clothes disappear).

Now, I actually liked the set-up and found it interesting right away. I liked that Camille had a sense of humor about the whole situation, and that it didn't stop her or her sisters from doing their job. In one way, their job is to help investigate and handle crimes involving fae that are earthside, and in another way, it seems that they also serve as a sort of public relations for the Otherworld. (The faerie have only revealed themselves to humans within the past few years, and the portals between earth and Otherworld have been reopened.) Camille's "cover" is as a bookshop owner. Most of her days at the store are fielding questions from curious Full Blooded Humans (or FBHs), while at other times she and her sisters work with Chase, an FBH who works with the OIA as a detective. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm quickly wore off due to a few problems.

One of the problems early on was that I didn't feel a sense of urgency. Right off the bat, we're told there's been a murder, and according to the narrator, she knew the victim and considered him a friend. Well, then we spend a couple of pages where it seems the murder is temporarily forgotten in favor of explaining the setting, and also for Chase and Camille to spend a bit of time getting under each other's skin. It's a good thing to establish the world, but I think it would have been better suited to coming in before we learn of the murder, or maybe after it's discussed. Eventually the characters remember they have a crime to investigate, and then we learn that the murder weapon has a demon scent/energy signature/whatever you want to call it. We also learn that demons are banned in Otherworld and they aren't supposed to be able to cross over earthside. Bad news, right? According to Camille it is, and she resolves to gather her sisters together to discuss the case along with Chase. Only, she waits until nightfall to talk about it, which is understandable I guess because Menolly is a vampire. Yet, even once the sisters are informed, there's nothing that's done right away. In fact, we have time to go to a Vamps Anonymous meeting that Camille drags Menolly to. Again, I had this feeling of "Oh wow the shit is about to hit the fan!" and then everyone carried on as if nothing was happening. The stop and go of the plot early on made it very hard to stay interested, and by the third chapter I knew I was going to finish reading the book not because I wanted to see how it turned out, but because I hate leaving books unfinished.

Other problems I had were more in the realm of personal taste/opinion. I hated the dialogue. To be fair to Galenorn, I did read her book after finishing Issola by Stephen Brust, and, well, Brust has a knack for great dialogue. Some of the conversations with the sisters seemed unrealistic, and now that I've read the whole book, I think the sisters seemed to have the same "voice" as one another. It was more like one person with three different aspects instead of three individuals. I hesitate to say this was a writing issue. In this area I acknowledge it could be a matter of personal taste and there isn't much Galenorn can do about it. (Actually, the writing itself wasn't bad, just...not what I like.) I had a hard time liking Camille because her narration drove me up the wall at times, and I loathed the way she talked to Delilah. I understand she was the mothering type, but I felt sorry for Delilah for having a sister talk to her like she was a three year-old instead of an adult.

I think overall my biggest issue was that this book shared too many similarities with Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry series. (Yeah, yeah, I'm well aware that LKH is hardly the best writer, but her books are crack to me and I enjoy them, so stuff it.) It was just unique enough not to be a complete rip-off, but I saw enough to make me roll my eyes. Crazy and sadistic faerie queens, a dark-skinned lover with silver hair (hello, Doyle and Frost), working as detectives, and war being threatened in the faerie courts due to corruption. Oh, and the whole non-monogamy thing that allows Camille to have more than one lover who will probably end up battling for her affections. (Not that I'm saying non-monogamous characters are unique to LKH or, well, anyone, just that when added in with the other similarities, it's something that becomes obvious.) There were other things, but I don't want to be here all day. That, and I don't want people to get the impression that I think there's any sort of plagiarism or anything like that. Like I said, Galenorn's idea is unique enough to stand on its own, but I feel like she borrowed a bit much from LKH, or that maybe she was trying to be another LKH (seriously, one is enough, and she's not even that great as I said; she just knows how to write some good brain junk food). Maybe the later books fix this, but I'm not impressed enough to spend money on another one.

Speaking of lovers, the two sex scenes were...well, they weren't bad so much as kind of flat. I don't expect (or even want) the chapter-long sex and orgies you find in Hamilton's books, but I think there could have been a bit more description to them, or they could have been skipped altogether. Yes, I, a smut connoisseur of sorts, just said a book might have read better without the smut. Well, at least the first bit of sex could have been glossed over, not so sure how you'd fade to black on the second one. And as for the second one, I know they were under some sort of glamour, but that whole scenario had me looking at the book going "What the fuck just happened?" and not in a good way like I did with Stephen Brust's Yendi. (Okay, I'll stop fangirling Brust, but seriously, if you knew that book you'd agree with me.)

The plot did eventually pick up and become a little interesting again without anymore stop and go, only it was more than halfway through the book that this happened. The climatic fight was a bit confusing, but it managed to be somewhat exciting. I might have liked it better had I not already been so turned off by everything else. I also might have enjoyed the book a little more had I not read the Merry Gentry series (again, the similarities were too much for me to enjoy).

I read the excerpt for the next book in the series, Changeling, and right away I had the same issue with the dialogue and the narration. I wouldn't enjoy reading it, and I can't think of a reason to give the series another chance. I have many other books on my shelf to read anyway.