I guess this is my year for reviewing non-Georgian/Regency novels. Recently I finished Kerry Blaisdell's third novel in her series featuring Hyacinth Finch, who is sort-of-dead illicit antiquities dealer on a mission from the Archangel Michael.
Do I need to say I read the third because I really enjoyed the preceding books? If you haven't read Debriefing the Dead and Waking the Dead, do that before Damning the Dead.
Kerry Blaisdell’s Damning the Dead is the third in her Dead series. You might have thought Hyacinth Finch’s life—half-life? Non-life?—couldn’t get more complicated. You would be mistaken. She started out as an inoffensive buyer and seller of stolen antiquities. Now in the third book, she’s up to her neck in demons, Nazis, ghosts, and two boyfriends, one of them dead, the other half-demon. Then there’s her part-time job for Michael, the Archangel, and her guardianship of her nephew. They’re all bound to conflict at some point.
There’s a peculiar realism to these novels. Hyacinth is no superhero and neither are her allies. In spite of supernatural dangers, the characters still have to eat (if they’re even half alive), find transportation, and deal with sneaky and/or jealous boyfriends. Hyacinth remains ethically challenged in some respects.
That grounded-in-reality feeling and the fact I’ve never yet foreseen all the twists and turns in Ms. Blaisdell’s novels keeps me reading. Also they’re page-turners.
I received an ARC for my unbiased review.
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