DARKLANDS
by Nancy Holzner
Book #4 in the Deadtown series
Genre: Urban fantasy
Publisher: Ace
★★★★
They call it Deadtown: the city’s quarantined section for its inhuman and undead residents. Most humans stay far from its border—but Victory Vaughn, Boston’s only professional demon slayer, isn’t exactly human…
Boston’s demons have been disappearing, and Vicky’s clients are canceling left and right. While fewer demons might seem like a good thing, Vicky suspects foul play. A missing Celtic cauldron from Harvard’s Peabody museum leads her to an unwelcome conclusion: Pryce, her demi-demon cousin and bitter enemy, is trying to regain his full powers.
But Pryce isn't alone. He’s conjured another, darker villain from Vicky’s past. To stop them from destroying everything she loves, she’ll have to face her own worst fear—in the realm of the dead itself.
REVIEW:
Please do not let the cover turn you off of reading Darklands. I hate it when a great book gets a not so great cover. I’ve read books with really pretty covers where the cover was the only thing the book had going for it. So like the old saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.
Darklands picks up about a month after Bloodstone and we start off by seeing Vicky getting suckered into going to Tina’s school for Career Night. Of course the popular speaker in the all zombie class is a fry cook that brought coupons for free food. (If you’ve not read this series, Zombies eat more than Shaggy and Scooby Doo)
Vicky has the luck of being the last speaker and during her speech and Harpy comes in through the classroom window. Tina being the clueless teenager she can be thinks that Vicky has brought the Harpy along to do a demonstration along with her speech about being a demon slayer. So she has a running monologue while Vicky is fighting for her life against the Harpy. (Tina is always great for some comic relief.)
Vicky is later attacked during a job where she is in a client’s dreamscape and sees Pryce, her evil “cousin” that went missing in Bloodstone. So here she goes again with trying to save the world from Pryce. This time she has to follow him to the Darklands, where people go when they die. It’s kind of like limbo. Some people are only there for a short time where others can hang around for years. And Vicky gets some help from someone that she never thought she would see again while she is in the Darklands.
Vicky also has to deal with some relationship issues with Kane. Kane has agreed to run a sexy female werewolf’s political campaign and Vicky is seeing green when it comes to her. Vicky is not use to feeling jealously and can’t stop thinking that maybe Kane is waiting to start his own pack and that the female werewolf might be what is really right for him. So what does Vicky do? She yet again pushes Kane away and tries to put her personal feelings aside so that she can work on trying to save the world, again. But I think by the end of Darklands she is 100% sure of her feelings for Kane and I think they are finally on the road to a HEA.
Even though the plot for Darklands has some déjà vu moments, we are getting a little closer to the truth about the prophecy that talks about her. But it’s slowly spoon feed to us so that we hang on wanting more. Each book in the series really reads like a chapters in a bigger story.
If you are a fan of the series you won’t want to skip reading Darklands. It was a great addition and I look forward to reading the next book.
Part of:
"Please do not let the cover turn you off of reading Darklands." I love that the cover is addressed first and foremost in this review. I am GUILTY of falling for covers so even though the Deadtown series sounds really interesting, I probably wouldn't even pick it up off the shelf. *sigh* And I would have missed another potentially great series! Great review. I'll definitely be checking this series out!
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