Charlie Madigan books 1-3, Kelly Gay
Jan. 22nd, 2012 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitout_Better Part of Darkness_: Charlie Madigan is a nominally human cop with the Integrated Task Force in Atlanta after Titus Mott has opened portals to Charbydon and Elysia. Her partner is a Siren from Elysia. Some months ago, Charlie found out that her husband had been secretly engaged in "black crafting" after he fessed up to cheating on her after being coerced by a fellow practitioner when he bragged that he was so good no one could possibly control him. Charlie smacked the fellow practitioner, who had her killed by a ghoul. Titus brought her back from the dead and that's more or less the backstory to Charlie figuring out how Not Human she is and why and then trying to rescue her kid from Very, Very Bad People.
_Darkest Edge of Dawn_: takes place pretty soon after the events of Book 1. The Ash production operation is shut down, and there's some reason to believe that the Darkness isn't actually going to actually spread or even last forever. However, just because Charlie dealt with one bad guy does not mean the evil from book one is completely dealt with. This outing deals with what the drug operation was really intended to accomplish, there's an Elysian serial killer on the loose, etc. The Dragon is Super Cool.
_The Hour of Dust and Ashes_: In this outing, Charlie has something new tailing her whenever she tries to use her power. It's pretty scary but not obviously damaging. To her. Charlie goes back to the Oracle who puts her in touch with the Sylphs to try to figure out who is controlling the Ash victims. When Charlie oopses and lets one of the victims know they've got a plan to actually figure out who/what is controlling them, antics ensue: Charlie, Hank, Rex and Brim all go to Charbydon to deal with a Situation, barely ahead of a kidnap squad looking for Hank because of involved-backstory-making-me-worry-a-little-about-the-author-and-child-abuse-themes.
Characters do grow and change over the course of the books. The world building is not bad. Gay is having a ton of fun building sexual tension between Charlie and Hank. The development of the Sian character is tortuously slow, but I'm really hoping that will pay off at some point. I will continue to buy more books in this series; they are Candy.
ETA: If you've read the Elantra chronicles, some of the themes (female protagonist slowly turning into a divine being, writing on her body) are going to seem kinda familiar.
_Darkest Edge of Dawn_: takes place pretty soon after the events of Book 1. The Ash production operation is shut down, and there's some reason to believe that the Darkness isn't actually going to actually spread or even last forever. However, just because Charlie dealt with one bad guy does not mean the evil from book one is completely dealt with. This outing deals with what the drug operation was really intended to accomplish, there's an Elysian serial killer on the loose, etc. The Dragon is Super Cool.
_The Hour of Dust and Ashes_: In this outing, Charlie has something new tailing her whenever she tries to use her power. It's pretty scary but not obviously damaging. To her. Charlie goes back to the Oracle who puts her in touch with the Sylphs to try to figure out who is controlling the Ash victims. When Charlie oopses and lets one of the victims know they've got a plan to actually figure out who/what is controlling them, antics ensue: Charlie, Hank, Rex and Brim all go to Charbydon to deal with a Situation, barely ahead of a kidnap squad looking for Hank because of involved-backstory-making-me-worry-a-little-about-the-author-and-child-abuse-themes.
Characters do grow and change over the course of the books. The world building is not bad. Gay is having a ton of fun building sexual tension between Charlie and Hank. The development of the Sian character is tortuously slow, but I'm really hoping that will pay off at some point. I will continue to buy more books in this series; they are Candy.
ETA: If you've read the Elantra chronicles, some of the themes (female protagonist slowly turning into a divine being, writing on her body) are going to seem kinda familiar.