Yes, two urban fantasy’s in a row. I promise I’ve been reading other stuff too – it’s just these are so quick and the reviews are so easy.
Didn’t like this as much as She Wolf, but it was still decent. It’s the story of triplet sisters who are all witches with different skills. The story focusses on Karin, who is seen as the practical, less-magically-inclined one. Facing the impending death of her aunt and guardian, and the arrest of her sister on suspicion of murder, Karin doesn’t need to fall in love right now, but who could say no to the handsome, charismatic and DEFINITELY interested lawyer, Nick? But there’s strange things happening all around her – murders, visions, runs of bad luck – and they only get more intense when her aunt admits to binding her powers and sets Karin free to use all of her magic.
If the story sounds like it’s a little all over the place, it is. There are so many threads that it’s hard to keep track of what is relevant and some of the threads go nowhere except a very obviously pending sequel. It’s like a cliffhanger, but more boring. The sisters, Nick and Ellen (the aunt) aren’t well developed characters, but they are likable nonetheless. The magical references are pretty vague, but I’d rather that than exact spells/recipes being interwoven (no one does that well).
I honestly think Weiss would have done better to put all three books together as just a single larger novel – I’m pretty sure she wrote the whole thing and then cut it into 3, but the cuts/edits after the cuts to attempt to tie up an ending are clunky. The dialogue is nice, the writing is ok, it’s just the overall structure and story that fall a bit flat.
2/5