Review: Sacrificial Magic by Stacia Kane

Author: Stacia Kane
Title: Sacrificial Magic
Series: Downside Ghosts #4
Pages: 403
Source: Owned

When Chess Putnam is ordered by an infamous crime boss—who also happens to be her drug dealer—to use her powers as a witch to solve a grisly murder involving dark magic, she knows she must rise to the challenge. Adding to the intensity: Chess’s boyfriend, Terrible, doesn’t trust her, and Lex, the son of a rival crime lord, is trying to reignite the sparks between him and Chess.

Plus there’s the little matter of Chess’s real job as a ghost hunter for the Church of Real Truth, investigating reports of a haunting at a school in the heart of Downside. Someone seems to be taking a crash course in summoning the dead—and if Chess doesn’t watch her back, she may soon be joining their ranks.

As Chess is drawn into a shadowy world of twisted secrets and dark violence, it soon becomes clear that she’s not going to emerge from its depths without making the ultimate sacrifice.

Chess and Terrible, now that they have admitted their love for each other, are in a relationship. Chess knows that Terrible loves her, but given the events of the previous books, she's walking around feeling like this relationship is hanging over her head like the Sword of Damocles, waiting to crash upon her should she make the tiniest mistake. Amid all of that, she has a new case from the church, which is tied to the ritual murders going on in both Slobag and Bump's sides of town.

Wow. My thoughts are kinda jumbled right now. I truly enjoyed the story. I liked seeing Chess work. One of my favorite scenes was where she looked down her nose at the officious people by the school. She doesn't play and can give as good as she gets :).

Most of the book was like watching a learning curve for Chess; you can see her character growing, becoming empowered. She learns very slowly to accept a friendship offered (Beulah), and to choose her friends (Lex) - for herself, and not because it suits Terrible or no. Seeing her like that felt so good her drug use didn't overshadow everything for me like it does in the previous books. She's still a junkie, but it's now no longer the center of her life - she has Terrible, other things and people are beginning to creep in.

There is not much to say for Terrible except that he is BEYOND AWESOME and that I am not entirely sure Chess deserves him. I truly like Chess but I want to beat her up sometimes because she hurts Terrible and that is in no way acceptable, for any reason :)


The final scenes in the book, from the climax to the resolution, are so heartfelt and beautiful.

In the end, I loved the story, but I am very, very, very ready for Chess to begin to actually take charge of her life. I like Chess and I am glad she is beginning to envision a new life for herself, a better life. However I feel a lot of the epiphanies she came to are long overdue, especially given her life's trajectory. I'm trying to say - it's not as if her life has only been bad, compared with say Terrible's life - she's had tremendous good too: she's educated, she has a steady job, has been around more than just Downside and crime, more than just screwed up people around her; she's found love and a new reason to live. She's had time to let it all sink in. It shoulda sunk in long before then. The curve for her has been too slow, is what I'm tryina say. But now that realization has come, I am very ready for her to stop regressing, build some self-esteem, stop waiting for the other shoe to drop for every little thing, stop hurting Terrible because she is afraid of getting hurt first, get off the damn drugs! I am ready for it all to happen. Much as I love the series and Terrible, I am not sure I will continue reading if she doesn't at least begin doing that.

So I guess Chasing Magic might be a game-changer for me.

★★★★

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES:

1. Unholy Ghosts - 3/5
2. Unholy Magic - 4/5
3. City of Ghosts - 4.5/5

REVIEW: Unholy Magic by Stacia Kane

Author: Stacia Kane
Title: Unholy Magic
Series: Downside Ghosts #2
Pages: 346
Source: Owned

The second book in this edgy urban fantasy trilogy. Chess is a fiercely independent witch and talented Debunker - working for the Church of Real Truth to exorcise ghosts and expose human liars. But she has a dark little secret that is causing her a lot of problems! a drug addiction. Trying to catch a spectral serial killer with a fondness for his victims' eyes is distracting Chess from her day job, and her growing attraction to Terrible is making things worse. Life is getting too complicated and Chess must break the rules to keep her head above water.

Much of the reason I am rating this four stars is Terrible.

Okay. Here are my thoughts:

1.  I am fascinated by the world Ms. Kane has created. Oh I am still confused by a lot of it, but it's still rather unique in terms of UF worlds. It's dystopian (which is commonplace in UF), but the part of the world we see/spend time is not common: the underworld. It's dark, raw, gritty, and an unpleasant place to be. The books are about a high functioning druggie who lives smack in the inner city, who deals with drug lords who run prostitution rings, sell drugs, have their henchmen brutalize people, where street fights kill people, and where most people are victims of circumstances. It isn't a pretty world. The characters are not people you should be rooting for: a drug addict who realizes that her drugs are ruining her life but who still makes no move to try and stop, and an enforcer who, as Mimi puts it, "is a professional bully" for a drug baron. But that is the genius of Stacia Kane. Like Regina says, "[Ms Kane] is able to surprise us with our feelings about Terrible."

2. Terrible is awesome. And Ms. Kane did one of the best jobs in any UF anywhere when she came up with this guy. He's not someone we should root for. He's not your normal hero; or anti-hero. He brutalizes people for a living (never mind that he was a victim of circumstances, the truth is still the truth), he also oversees his drug lord's prostitution business. Seeing him in action as th thug was...harrowing. I hated it. But he still manages to be kid, sweet, considerate..... in some ways he is more than the usual heroes we have in UF: not many people can live the life he has, in the circumstances he has and still be an honorable person through and through. Yet Terrible manages to be believably so. A very big part of what keeps me coming back to this series is Terrible.

3. Chess: again, to quote Mimi, she is not so TSTL as she is TUTL (too unstable to live). She is supposedly a high-functioning drug addict. She is always high and can still solve mysteries while high. If she can do that, I don't see why she can't exercise some of that good sense and NOT hurt Terrible; and NOT make bad decision after bad decision; and NOT decide she needs to get her life together and wean herself off drugs. You see glimmers of growth here and there, but for the most part....oh Chess - get it together, girl!!

4. I still don't get a lot of the ghost mythology and stuff. For example, how the heck big is this so-called City of Ghosts? The spirit of every person who ever lived is kept there? Don't they run out of space? These ghosts are supposed to b incorporeal, but thy act like zombies half the time. Pyschopomps? Huh?!!

5. I am not amused with the way things ended.

★★★★

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES:

1. Unholy Ghosts.

 

REVIEW: Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane

Author: Stacia Kane
Title: Unholy Ghosts
Series: Downside Ghosts #1
Pages: 339
Source: Library

The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased.

Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch, freewheeling Debunker, and ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing human liars and banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that’s landed her in hot and dangerous water.

Chess owes a lot of money to a murderous drug lord named Bump. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust for a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it.

Hell, yeah.

In hindsight, I must say that Terrible was a very big part of the reason I enjoyed this book. He's drawn with consummate finesse and is one of the most unique and endearing male characters I've ever had the pleasure to meet in any fiction. 

I was confused almost the whole time I was reading this novel. The whole time. The world Stacia Kane has created is soooooo blurry to me. It seems that some time back, ghosts exploded on the scene, and were out with a vengeance to kill the living. One organization who called themselves 'the Church' (nothing to do with religion, since all religion is outlawed) banished the ghosts - to some city? I wasn't too clear on that - and now runs the world - or is it the immediate area? - with an iron fist. Part of their mandate is to protect the living from ghosts. So if you find your house haunted, it means they failed, so they'll compensate you after carrying out an investigation and an exorcism (if your claim is true). Woe betide you if your claim is false.

Chess is a DeBunker (person who banishes ghosts and checks claims) for the church. She is also a drug addict on the side (if the church found out, she'd be toast), and her unscrupulous drug dealer has forced her to do something for him.  In the course of her routine investigations, she discovers a dangerous plot, which is also somehow intertwined with what her drug dealer wants her to do. To make it even more complicated a rival drug dealer doesn't want her to go through with the job for the regular drug dealer.....and oh yes, she has the hots for the rival drug dealer's henchman, as well as the hots for the regular drug dealer's enforcer, called Terrible.

Like I said, I spent a goodly amount of time confused. It seems ghosts are incorporeal when they want and corporeal when they want too. It was very confusing. At some point in time I was wondering whether or not I was reading about zombies instead of ghosts. Woulda made much more sense that way, I think. And the plotting as well confused me. We'd be somewhere, and I'd be following okay, and then all of  sudden I had no idea what was going on, who we were talking to,where we were. I can't get a sense of the world Chess lives in.

I ended up liking Chess and Terrible quite a bit. (I still don't know why Chess is a drug addict, though, or when she began her habit). But my favorite was Terrible, all huge, and ugly, and a drug dealer's head thug but underneath surprisingly sweet and kind and considerate. I am surprised to say I was rooting for a thug, haha. I wish Chess had gotten with him instead of Lex (the other drug dealer's henchman). Btw Terrible is such a bad name for a thug :D but I still love him.

So um yes, recommended. You might have better luck understanding the worldbuilding dynamics than I did, and Chess and Terrible are worth it :D

★★★

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES: