So I have started to binge-read all of the Greywalker series by Kat Richardson based on a friend’s recommendation of the series. I am now on book 5 of it, so I figured I’d go back and go through my thoughts of the previous books as I keep going.
Fair warning, there’s not going to be a lot of recap in these so much as my thoughts about books and elements of the book. If you wanted to know more about what actually happens in them, I do suggest reading them. Or, you know, finding someone who reviews in a much more standard fashion.
The first book in the series has Harper Blaine, our heroine, dying and coming back changed. Now she can see into the Grey and not only can she spot a ghost, they can see her. Also there’s vampires, which is much more important to one of the cases at hand.
This was messy. It’s the first book in the series and there’s a lot to set up, but it’s really messy. Harper is working on two cases that I knew would eventually tie into one another because I have read a novel before, but that connection doesn’t happen until the last 10% of the novel. Up until then, it feels like there’s two separate cases, one of which ends up with its very own romantic subplot spin off that isn’t even related to the case.
The three plots running through this were: Trying to find an old antique for a mysterious client, finding a runaway college student that turns out to be a vampire, and a romance with Will Novak. Besides Will Novak being the least important,1 I’m not sure which takes precedent in this book. The vampire plot line has more to do with the long term arc, but the antique is also given a lot of weight. Like, much more weight than necessary, despite its involvement in the conclusion.
Most of the events are presented as things that happened as opposed to things that lead into one another as well. Because there are two completely separate cases tied together by individual characters, there’s a lot of jumping back and forth between all the plots and there’s never any real parallel between them. One doesn’t present a lead for the other, and there are some scenes that seem to just come out of nowhere, happen, then never get touched on again.2
Harper’s newfound abilities with the Grey are all right. She is pointed to a witch who can help her understand what’s happening to her by a medical doctor, because you know medical doctors are totally into explaining things away with witchcraft, and she doesn’t go through a long process of denying it, which is good. She is frustrated by it frequently, but that doesn’t stop her from believing it’s happening, which is a nice change from some other stories where the protagonist will deny it until they are forced to accept it.
It is nice that the story takes place in a real time and place, though. Seattle feels vivid and like it probably really is.3 I do wonder if that’s hammered in a little too much because she drinks coffee as her only beverage ever,4 but after a while I figured it was a character trait. Harper also uses a pager and has no cell phone, so you know this story probably happens in the early to mid-nineties, which I can still kind of remember.
Overall, it was on the low end of okay. The biggest problem was that it was messy and the twist at the end seemed like it was pulled out of nowhere despite the fact that I know there was build up to it throughout the novel. Everything just felt so disjointed that I couldn’t really put the pieces of the story together until I thought of them as entirely separate stories.
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