Review for BWB: Embers

Embers by Laura Bickle

Product Description
Truth burns. Unemployment, despair, anger—visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit’s unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city. Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya—who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern—suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil’s Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya—with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team—can stop it.Anya’s accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she’s risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she’s ever faced.

Review
I read this book for Blog with Bite‘s April pick.  Again… I’m racing in, just having finished the book hours before the deadline.  Deadlines and me are not good friends, and I love to read under pressure; it gives me a goal.  *giggles*

Agh! I took me forever to get into this story.  I bought this book for my Kindle on 4/5/10 for $7.59, and started it, lost interest, and was about to give up on it until BWB announced that they had extended the review deadline.  Since I was kind of annoyed with myself that I had already bought the book for the purpose of reviewing and missed the first deadline, I decided to give it another go.

I’ve never read a story about a median, let alone a Lantern, and initially, I was excited about reading Embers.  But, getting started was not as easy as I thought it would be. I tried several times.  Something about the story just didn’t catch my interest, and I think it had a lot to do with Anya’s pet elemental, Sparky.  I get that Sparky was supposed to be a cute pet that protected Anya, but I didn’t notice him do much, except get in the way.      

As for Anya, the medium and heroine of the story, I just fail to care about her at all.  Without being able to connect to her, I didn’t find much interest in the story.  I couldn’t understand her actions (not wanting to be apart of the Detroit Area Ghost Researchers, sleeping with the enemy, accepting/not accepting what she is) even when they were explained.  She just seemed to odd, awkward, and unappealing…maybe that was the point, but it didn’t make for much of an entertaining read.

The most interesting character was Drake; the only other Lantern that Anya has ever met.  His future as an architect was bright until he was beaten up and left for dead by a gang of kids.  My heart really went out to him, even though he turned out the be the arsonist burning the city.  In his eyes, his actions were justified, as he had devoted himself to trying to restore the city, and ‘they’ took his sight, leaving him unable to continue his passion for drawing.  Well, he could see, but only out of one eye, the other was destroyed when he got jumped.

While Anya didn’t enjoy feeding on demons or spirits, she fulfilled her duties when it was necessary.  At one point, she consumed a ancient demon, Mimi, who I think was designed to add some comic relief to the story, but I was just plain annoyed by that whole story line.

Drake was a man on fire…literally! He called forth a powerful fire god, Sirrush; and in the end, Drake scarified himself for Anya… *tear*  To tell the truth, Drake and tie to Babylon mythology and Gods was interesting enough to keep me reading.       

1. So if you had the chance would you have a pet elemental, even with the inconvenience of broken microwaves?  I kind of already have an elemental pet.. his name is John Lucas and he is my Kindle.  He is very good to me, always in my purse or curled up with me in bed.  If I didn’t have JL then I’d want my elemental pet to be a Starbucks gift card, but other than that… NO, no salamander on a collar for me thankyouverymuch! Because, Anya, sweetie, sex is not overrated! LOL
2. What did you think about the relationship between, Brian, Anya and Drake? Brian = Boring! Now Drake…Well, just call me Mimi because I wanted to pounce on Drake, especially when he was on fire!  I didn’t think much about Anya’s relationship with either suitor.  But Drake did me in at the end with his “One thing. Her.” line!  *swoon* I didn’t want Drake to have to die or move into the spirit world, even though I knew it was coming. I cared for him more than I thought possible, and I was upset that it felt like Anya used him.    
3. Did the book make you want to visit Detroit or steer clear?  Yeah, nothing about this city seemed appealing.  Sorry.  Maybe if Drake had the chance to reconstruct the city like he envisioned…or maybe if he was still around. LOL
   
4. A big part of Embers surrounds paranormal activity and the whole Scooby style system….What do you think of shows like Ghost Hunter, Paranormal State and the such?  Currently, I don’t watch much T.V. and sadly, I’ve never seen any of these types of shows. But I did love me the Scoobies form BtVS!  
5. Do you believe in the paranormal world around us or chalk it up to complete fantasy and make believe? I do believe.  An aura or spirit is a powerful thing! And, if I were to have an afterlife, I would seriously want to end up like Felicity, the ghost librarian!  What an awesome afterlife…to be stuck with books and knowledge for all eternity, plus who doesn’t like to get busy in the stacks! It would be SWEET! 

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Posted at 3:18 am  •  Labels: 2010, 3 stars, Blog with Bite, Book Review, Kindle Edition, urban fantasy