Twisted Kingdom

As Kailana said earlier this week, although "Kelley Armstrong" month is over, we still have reviews of her books in store! So here is the review of Haunted from Rhinoa from Rhinoa's Ramblings. You've pretty much figured out that we, gals at TK, were fans of Kelley Armstrong, so I thought it'd be nice to have an outsider's opinion! :D



Haunted - Kelley Armstrong
published by Orbit (2005)

Series: Women of the Otherworld series, Book 5

Genre - Horror, Fantasy
Rating - 4/5

Eve Levine - half-demon, black witch and devoted mother - has been dead for three years. She has a great house, an interesting love life and can't be killed again - which comes in handy when you've made as many enemies as Eve. Yes, the afterlife isn't too bad - all she needs to do is find a way to communicate with her daughter Savannah and she'll be happy.

But fate - or more exactly, the Fates - have other plans. Eve owes them a favour, and they're just called it in. An evil spirit called the Nix has escaped from hell. She feeds on chaos and death, and is very good at persuading people to kill for her. The Fates want Eve to hunt her down before she does anymore damage, but the Nix is a dangerous enemy - previous hunters have been sent mad in the process. As if that's not problem enough, it turns out that the only way to stop her is with an angel's sword. And Eve's no angel...

The fifth in the series which has Eve Levine (Savannah's mother) as the heroine despite the small issue of her being dead! Eve is called in to help the Fates capture the Nix, a viscious being that helps give people the confidence to commit rape, murder and torture. Three have already failed in the quest before Eve gets roped in.

This was possibly my favourite so far. There is lots of information about Eve (who seems to have been slightly misunderstood and misrepresented in the previous books...) and the whostworld (where apparently you can still enjoy physical relationships with other ghosts!). Eve is a great character, the ones with a dodge past always seem to make for more interesting lead roles, and she really contrasts with the horrible things that the Nix has been involved in. I liked using the Nix to explain how people were pushed over the edge to become serial killers and rapists. The addition of the angels, especially Trsiel worked really well in the scheme of the story as well.

Disturbingly good humour!