Ilona Andrews, Bayou Moon (Ace Books, 2010)
Think Twilight crossed with Bordertown. If that thought makes you wince, you're starting to get the picture.
Welcome to the Edge. To the right, our world -- "The Broken". To the left, a world of magic -- "The Weird" -- which, although it's apparently existed alongside our world for ages, has made no perceptible impact on our legends of the fey: aside from our werewolf hero, hardly a creature or type of magic in here has a close parallel with any tradition I'm familiar with. (No wonder we're called the Broken: we don't seem to be very bright, if we came up with kelpies and nixies and the like to populate our Otherworld, instead of these creature-feature beasties.) It would appear that modern comic-book monsters are closer to the mark than anything our ancestors may have believed in.
In the Edge, government spies are magically mutated into tentacle-sprouting or armour-plated living weapons (how they manage to be inconspicuous enough to spy on much of anything is an unanswered question). Gators big enough to swallow whole boats haunt the Mire, which is one reason it's dangerous to use motors there. So instead, hey, let's harness some giant otter-like rolpies to our boats, lovable and stupid, animals which we're terrified will be eaten by the gators . . . except when we've got them towing us through the swamp. The gators attack the boat before they try for the aquatic morsels wiggling just in front of it -- go figure. I guess predators respect a sense of duty. They even give us a chance to cut the harness after they've attacked the boat, so the rolpies can make their break for safety. . . . And even then, they'd rather attack the boat than the live prey.
And who have we got in this boat?
They're both deadly beyond description. Fast beyond belief. Drop-dead gorgeous and charmingly unaware of it. They just happen to share a common enemy. And they just happen to be crossing over from the Broken to the Edge at the same time, both of them in disguise.
William's a werewolf -- called a changeling here, for reasons best known to the authors; raised in a military orphanage, he's an ex-soldier passionately committed to child welfare. Cerise is the magic-wielding heiress to a poor but proud Mire family involved in a deadly feud. William's worst enemy has just happened to get allied with Cerise's hereditary enemies, and the vile man in fact is torturing her mother for information.
And Spider is vile, too -- he's vicious, sadistic, sarcastic, and he likes to kill things. His temper blazes hot one moment and goes deadly cool the next; he's an espionage mastermind who for some reason employs a phenomenally stupid lieutenant, a big brute whom he feels obliged to keep in line with a studied display of intimidation (just to show us how scary Spider really is) after the lieutenant has (say) sent a psychotic cannibal out to capture someone he's likelier to eat. (Only that's okay, because that gives our hero and heroine a chance to see just how deadly each other can really be when they cut loose.)
You will be shocked to learn that William and Cerise are compelled to join forces, and that they fight their passionate attraction to one another through most of the book. This is achieved in part by the cunning insertion of several somewhat artificial conflicts that keep them from voicing or acting on their True Feelings until the ideal moment in the plot structure.
The bad guys are ugly inside and out; the good guys are attractive and can manage to be witty even at moments of intense crisis, and only act unpleasant occasionally, which is okay too, because we know it's on account of the Awful Wounds they carry from their Personal Tragedies. Of course they feel the need to posture and threaten each other a little from time to time, each sensing the dangerous power the other holds in check . . . just in case we missed it before.
Don't get me wrong: it's not that I don't like these characters -- even if I'm a little embarrassed to admit it. A sexy, perky babe who's lightning -- almost literally -- with a sword? A werewolf in black leather who's death on two legs or four? Hey, what's not to like?
It's just that I don't believe them for more than a minute and a half at a time; and it's so painfully clear that everything about them is designed to make the story come out a certain way. Look up “plot-driven novel” in your handy dictionary of literary terms, and you may find this book listed in the definition.
The dialogue is uneven, though it's not without some decent points, and most of the major conflicts unravel like magic (as it were) when they finally come to light. The pace is fast -- probably the best-handled aspect of the novel, in fact -- so fast that you can almost overlook the predictability of the storyline, the inconsistencies of the characters' actions, and the logical flaws that pop up whenever the plot demands them.
Caveat: in the interests of strict honesty, I have to tell you I may have misremembered a few minor plot details. (Was it a gator that attacked the boat that time, for instance, or was that the giant eel with legs and a brand on its forehead, indicating it belonged to the Necromancers' Guild?) I regret to report that I really don't have the stomach to go back and check.
A stock romance, tough but engagingly vulnerable warrior protagonists, creature-feature monsters, and a high body count . . . mostly composed of bad guys. All in all, it adds up to a marketing idea whose time, alas, has probably come. Welcome to the Edge. In fact, so far as I'm concerned . . . you're more than welcome to it.
