Unclean Spirits (The Black Sun's Daughter, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Sep 27, 2010 Thenia rated it liked it

Shelves: 2013, reviewed, paranormal, series

Original paranormal world, where Unclean spirits (aka demons, vampires, you-name-it) from the Next Door (aka the demon world/other dimension) can enter the heroine's world and inhabit human bodies after ridding them of their original owners.

The plot and the secondary characters were interesting, but I did not like the main lead, from her name, Jayné, that everyone pronounced wrong, to her childish attitude and decisions. The situation is hard, since she's dropped into a world she has no idea how ...more

Like · see review

Dec 27, 2011 Marsha rated it liked it

Jayne - pronounced Zhanay (or something like that) is shunned by her parents and many of her "friend", she's a college drop out and now she learns that the one family member who has always been there and understood her (for the most part) has died leaving her everything. Including a life of magic, fear, and riders.

I enjoyed the world that Hanover created in this novel. It was just enough different to catch my attention and imagination. And, I enjoyed the characters for the most part. Every once Jayne - pronounced Zhanay (or something like that) is shunned by her parents and many of her "friend", she's a college drop out and now she learns that the one family member who has always been there and understood her (for the most part) has died leaving her everything. Including a life of magic, fear, and riders.

I enjoyed the world that Hanover created in this novel. It was just enough different to catch my attention and imagination. And, I enjoyed the characters for the most part. Every once in a while I would feel as though there was some lack in character development because the reasons certain characters behaved x, y, or z didn't really make sense. The action and drama were well paced and the story never really felt like it bogged down or was going too fast. That I enjoyed. But, I did have some problems with some of Hanover's word choices (so much so that I found my reading distracted). For example - she repeatedly used a variation of the following phrase: Plus which, .... or Besides which, ...... What does that even mean? Why didn't the editor take that out or request a word change? And sometimes her metaphors and similes just sounded like she was trying too hard to find something different and it didn't always sound right. The last problem I had with the story was that Hanover would tell rather than show quite a bit. Oh, and repeat herself. Jayne constantly spoon fed us the breakdown of her thoughts and feelings when we just read a passage where the author was showing us rather than telling us. Then she'd tell us. Stop that!

One question that I kept coming back to was - can all humans do magic? It seems that with a little training they all can? The author never explains that. For example - Aubrey and Kim were scientists without any magical ability when Eric contacts them. But then Eric teaches them to do magic. How is that possible? This was just never clear.

Okay, sounds like I didn't like this book. I really liked the story. I really liked the concept of riders. I just had a few problems with the way the story was told. I actually read this book in 2 days. So, I obviously enjoyed it. But, not 4 stars enjoyed it. All said - I will being purchasing the next book in the series. Maybe there won't be anymore 'Plus which....' phrases. ...more

Like · see review