ARC REVIEW: Raven Calls by C.E. Murphy

 This title will be published on March 1st, according to Goodreads.com. FictFact has this title as being published on the 21st of February

Author: C.E. Murphy
Title: Raven Calls
Series: Walker Papers #7
Pages:  384
Source: Netgalley

Something wicked this way comes…

Suddenly, being bitten by a werewolf is the least of Joanne Walker’s problems.

Her personal life in turmoil, her job as a cop over, she’s been called to Ireland by the magic within her. And though Joanne’s skills have grown by leaps and bounds, Ireland’s magic is old and very powerful…

In fact, this is a case of unfinished business. Because the woman Joanne has come to Ireland to rescue is the
woman who sacrificed everything for Joanne—the woman who died a year ago. Now, through a slip in time, she’s in thrall to a dark power and Joanne must battle darkness, time and the gods themselves to save her.

I gave up after about 30% of the way through.

It's not bad, I was just patently uninterested in the plot.

Joanne, bitten by a werewolf in the previous book, heads off to Ireland to see if she can get a powerful shaman to reverse the effects of the bite, so she doesn't become a werewolf. Instead, she finds herself traveling back in time on a quest to save her mom's life.

Bo-ring.

After 6 books, there is very little character growth. Joanne is still the same old dimwit, same old rude, obnoxious, and infantile person she used to be. All of the growth from book 3 and 4 have been lost. And IMO, there is no excuse for that this far into a series.

Existing fans of this series will probably enjoy this installment, so I'd say "go for it." To someone who hasn't started I'd say "don't bother; it isn't worth it."

*I received this ebook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

★★★

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES:

1. Urban Shaman
2. Thunderbird Falls
3. Coyote Dreams
4. Walking Dead
5. Demon Hunts 
6. Spirit Dances

 

Demon Hunts by C.E. Murphy

Author: C.E. Murphy
Title: Demon Hunts
Series: Walker Paper #5
Pages: 361
Source: Library

Seattle police detective Joanne Walker started the year mostly dead, and she's ending it trying not to be consumed by evil. Literally.
She's proven she can handle the gods and the walking dead. But a cannibalistic serial killer? That's more than even she bargained for. What's worse, the brutal demon can only be tracked one way. If Joanne is to stop its campaign of terror, she'll have to hunt it where it lives: the Lower World, a shamanistic plane of magic and spirits.
Trouble is, Joanne's skills are no match for the dangers she's about to face--and her on-the-job training could prove fatal to the people she's sworn to protect

For the most part, this series leads me to think of what it might have been, instead of what it now is. It could easily have been a great series, but it isn't. Not by a long shot. I had thought the series was starting to look up when the author began to portray a different side of Joanne - a more likeable side. But alas, it seems like that was only a flash in the pan.

Dimwit Joanne seems to be making a comeback in full force: rude, obnoxious, and with very little to recommend her. In this book, this was not just Joanne, but every other female character. It made reading such a chore.

Unfortunately the plot was also uninteresting - the search for a cannibalistic serial killer...sounds interesting, but the execution was a failure.

Not recommended.

★★

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES:

1. Urban Shaman
2. Thunderbird Falls
3. Coyote Dreams
4. Walking Dead

 

Waiting on Wednesday #3

  Happy February!! Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Jill's blog, and showcases upcoming releases we're highly anticipating.

And my entry for today is somewhat special. I'll tell you why after the blurb, heh :) That's code for I'll be doing a lot of rambling, but it's worth it...I think.

 
Raven Calls, by C.E. Murphy. This baby is going to be the 7th book in the Walker Papers series. It is slated for release on February 21st

Description via amazon.com

 Something wicked this way comes…

Suddenly, being bitten by a werewolf is the least of Joanne Walker's problems.

Her personal life in turmoil, her job as a cop over, she's been called to Ireland by the magic within her. And though Joanne's skills have grown by leaps and bounds, Ireland's magic is old and very powerful….

In fact, this is a case of unfinished business. Because the woman Joanne has come to Ireland to rescue is the woman who sacrificed everything for Joanne—the woman who died a year ago. Now, through a slip in time, she's in thrall to a dark power and Joanne must battle darkness, time and the gods themselves to save her.

I say this book is special for two reasons, the most important being if you had asked me about this series even two weeks ago, I would have said fervently, "Heck no! I hate that series!" and probably proceeded to explain why this is one of those series that must die. The first two books were terrible because the heroine Joanne, frankly, was an insufferable dimwit and I wanted to smack her senseless. My less-than-charitable-reviews for books 1 and 2 can be found here:
 Book #1: Urban Shaman (Goodreads link)
 Book #2: Thunderbird Falls
 Book #3: Coyote Dreams

I read book three ...just Monday? - and all that changed. Ms. Murphy discarded the layers of Dimwit that coated Joanne and showed what lies beneath. She gave us a new Joanne, someone whose journey is worth reading about. And yes, it is as dramatic as I make it sound, at least for me it was. My very-charitable-aka-I-was-wrong-about-this-series review of book three is also linked above, just in case anyone cares. Coyote Dreams changed my view of this series so drastically that I am excited about it enough to power through book 4-6 in 3 weeks or less, just so I can read Raven Calls as soon as it comes out (or slightly before, thank you NetGalley ^_^). I am excited about Joanne and how much potential her character has for growth and I want to be there for the journey. I have no idea what the plots of the next books are, but now, instead of the dread of two weeks ago, I am going into this series with  a sense of enthusiasm and expectation.

Reason  #2: This is another mythology that you won't see too much of peppered along the landscape of fantasy (really bad sentence structure, but you know what I mean). It's basically a series about a half-Irish, half-Cherokee police-officer-who's-really-a-mechanic; it's about being a shaman. It's new. And it pretty much sticks to Native American mythology, which is kinda cool, and again not too common in the Urban Fantasy genre.

I am really excited about this release, for not-the-usual-reasons, and that gives me an extra thrill :)

Coyote Dreams by C. E. Murphy

Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy
My rating: ★★★★

You know how sometimes you take a test, and it's a breeze, and other times, you feel like you are slogging through it? When the results come back, both are A's, but for the first grade, you sailed effortlessly to it, while you had to work like mad for the second A? Well, this book is like the second paper - it had to work like mad for the four star rating.

I am very pleasantly surprised by this book. I've complained that in the previous books, Joanne's attitude was off-putting and she acted like a dimwit (been using that word quite often lately :/).

All of that changed in this book. This time around, we get Joanne the person - a hurt, broken person trying to finally acknowledge her mistakes, and her gift that has been thrust upon her, so that she can right some of the wrongs she has created, and actually use her gifts for the purpose for which they were meant.

The real Joanne, not the smart-alecky, annoying one we've been seeing the past books, is such a fun person to hang around. Her thoughts are interesting, and as I reader, I want to know more about her and the way she sees the world. I am interested and invested in her relationships, her life, her work. I want her to heal; I want her to be okay. (I wanted to smack the other Joanne). It was such a pleasure meeting the proper Joan in this book. Having our heroine be a better person made this book so much more of a joy to read than the previous two.

But I said this book had to work for it's four star rating...because there were still remnants of the dimwit Joanne, and I felt that didn't fit into the grand scheme of things. For example: Joanne has decided to stop putting her head in the sand. HOW then does she fail to notice that weird things are happening as soon as two new people enter her life? This wouldn't be too much of an issue if the previous disaster hadn't begun with weird things happening right after a new bunch of people were trying to enter her life. How can you miss the resemblance/significance? I noticed this right away and had drawn my conclusions. It took reading about 40% more of the book for Joanne to make this conclusion. I don't understand how this is possible, especially for someone who is actively trying to notice and connect the dots she'd refused to connect before? It was staring her right in the face. Of course if she had, we would have lost a lot of the story, but it might have made the book that much tighter.

Anyway - they say third time strikes the charm, and in the case of this series, they were so right, hehe! I am going to continue this series with much more enthusiasm about the characters and the incidents now :D

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Thunderbird Falls by C.E. Murphy

Thunderbird Falls by C.E. Murphy
My rating: ★★★

I rated this  3 stars because I felt it was much better written than the first one, and I liked it better. What kept me from liking it even more is that better writing notwithstanding, many of the same problems from the first book plague this one too.

The biggest problem is Joanne herself. In beginners' Spanish class, we learned a phrase: cabeza dura. Joanne tiene cabeza dura. That's the only explanation for how someone can be so dense, so incredibly stupid (her words, not mine. I just happen to fervently agree with her). Literally. Her denseness was not credible. At all. I saw this coming the moment it started! And I never see anything! So if I caught it and she missed it, she is truly, and irredeemably dense! But then if she had caught it ad refused to be a part of the whole coven foolishness, there wouldn't be story now, would there? It also doesn't help that I don't like Joanne. I liked her a bit better in this book, but her attitude, unfunny snark, rudeness, and general childishness, along with her incredible denseness (especially the last two) doesn't make her a likeable character at all. But she is much better in this book, so there is still hope.

The other big problem was the story. Where did Coyote disappear to? That made no sense whatsoever and was another indication that this story's plot was weak. The only way to progress this story as far as it went was to have Coyote, who used to be (and is supposed to be) a constant presence in Joanne's life, vanish for no reason so this farce could take place. Smh.

Even so, like I said, I enjoyed this one quite a bit more than I did the first one. On to book 3 for me.

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