Cainsville by Kelley Armstrong

Cainsville by Kelley Armstrong

by | Jun 23, 2019 | Book Review, Canadian writers, urban fantasy

I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been binge-reading Kelley Armstrong’s Cainsville series. I’m impressed. I decided to try it, as I love her Rockton series and I had the chance to meet her at Creative Ink in March. This series is exciting and devilish and very clever. It’s also the closest series I’ve read to my own Hollystone Mysteries. Elements are similar. We’re definitely in the realm of sexy urban fantasy with a twist of murder. It’s also mythic and arises from Celtic folklore. Faeries. Where I write of the Irish Sidhe (shee), Kelley writes of the Welsh Tylwyth Teg, the Cŵn Annwn, and something called the Sluagh. Same powerful and mysterious Celtic beings. Two different islands. 

Right off the top, let me say that the one thing lacking is a Pronunciation Guide. It’s frustrating having to guess at the proper way to say a Gaelic word, even in your mind. Welsh is as tricksy as the fae. The author mentions that Cŵn Annwn is sounded as Coon Anoon, but as for the others, I know my inner voice is mispronouncing. In Book 5, when the Sluagh appear, I thought it could have been pronounced slow or slew with a silent gh, but no. The word is apparently spoken as sloo-ah. (I had to google it.) I’ve been pronouncing Tylwyth Teg as till-oo-ith teg. I know that w creates an oo sound. But that might be wrong too. Thus, the need for a guide.

Two of these fae factions have their own kings. For the Cŵn Annwn, it’s Arawn, King of the Underworld. He presides over spectral hounds and directs The Wild Hunt. Gwynn ap Nudd is King of the Tylwyth Teg AKA King of Faerie. These are creatures associated with the Welsh Mabinogion tales and early Arthurian legends. 

The spooky town is brilliant. Cainsville. Located just outside Chicago, Illinois, it’s in seemingly sleepy small town America. Most people know the biblical story of Cain and Abel, who were the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the farmer, and Abel, the shepherd, both made sacrifices. God favored Abel’s and rejected Cain’s. Jealous and bitter, Cain killed his brother and was then cast out. Apparently, he made it as far as Cainsville. If you’ve read Beowulf, you’ll know that Cain is the father of all monsters, including Grendel, the beast our Anglo-Saxon superhero comes to slay. Since the Beowulf poet was Christian, those monsters involved anything pagan, including faeries. In Irish myth, the fey have been called “fallen angels”—they who fell from God’s grace along with Satan. Knowing this, opens up the series and the town to all kinds of shenanigans.

In Book 1 (Omens) we are introduced to Olivia Taylor-Jones (born as Eden Larsen.) She’s a heroic misfit like all of Kelley Armstrong’s leads. A strong woman with mystical skills because, of course, she has fey blood. Almost all the characters are fey in some way. Liv sees and interprets omens. As Liv, it’s hard to sympathize with her. She’s grown up pampered and proud in a wealthy Chicago family, studied Ivy League Victorian literature, specializing in Sherlock Holmes, and has a mansion and a mother to return to when she’s done slumming it in Cainsville. The twist is, Olivia began life as Eden Larsen. When her serial-killer parents were convicted for ritually murdering four couples, little Eden was adopted by the Taylor-Jones. In Omens, Liv’s secret is exposed and she becomes fixated on learning the truth. Are my parents really serial killers or were they framed? This thread weaves through all five books.

To uncover the truth, Liv connects with the handsome attorney who defended her parents. If he wasn’t so emotionally stunted, she’d be sleeping with him in Book 1. Like his namesake, Gabriel Walsh, is indeed Olivia’s angel. And, one can only hope, her someday lover. Walsh (which is Irish for those fellas from Wales) is an intellectual white-collar bad boy and self-made man, whose mother was an abusive drug addict. 

Just to stir the pot, in Omens, Kelley throws in two other potential mates for Olivia. Young Ricky Gallagher, heir to the Satan’s Saints motorcycle gang, and James Morgan. James is a man of Olivia’s class, a politician who has her life as a senate wife all mapped out. Fortunately, she’s far too edgy for that life and knows it. She’s more interested in the blond, leathered biker.

Omens is tame. In Visions, Olivia takes a ride on Ricky’s motorcycle and … Well, it’s “grass, gas, or ass.” The sex scenes are inventive. When I met Kelley Armstrong, I thought, “Wow. She wrote those sex scenes!” Then I look at myself and wonder how many people think the same thing about me. Sex is an expectation of the Urban Fantasy genre and Kelley writes it well. Very well.

I liked the story in Book 2 (Visions) but I’ll be honest. I skimmed the descriptions of Olivia’s visions. Not because the writing was bad. It’s not. Kelley Armstrong is a fantastic writer. But the visions are so horrific and vivid—reminiscent of Stephen King—I didn’t want them in my head, especially at bedtime.

In Book 3 (Deceptions) the story deepens as the old Welsh rivalry between raven-haired Gwynn ap Nudd and the golden boy Arawn is revealed. They both love Mathilda. But who will she choose? This question forms one of the major series questions. Arawn is Ricky Gallagher, thundering the highways on his motorcycle rather than through the fields on his horse. Still he’s on the hunt. Naturally, Gabriel is Gwynn—dark, mysterious, grave. Both are willing to do anything for Mathilda, our Olivia. The author clearly explains that these characters are not reincarnations. They do not follow a fated pattern, and they have free will.

SPOILER: In the myth, Mathilda chooses Gwynn and the couple betray Arawn. But not so here. In Visions, Olivia chooses Ricky Gallagher and by Deceptions, she is officially his girlfriend, having been to the clubhouse and been somewhat accepted by Ricky’s father. Still, she has moments where she dreams of being with Gabriel. Ah, the old love triangle arises.

A second major story question revolves around Olivia’s birth parents: Todd and Pamela Larsen. Did they really ritually kill four couples, and if so, why? In Omens, Gabriel and Olivia solve one of the crimes. So that leaves six murders still unaccounted for. In Deceptions, we discover more about Todd and Pamela, possible motives, triggers, and liaisons, and a new story emerges about Eden Larsen AKA Olivia Taylor-Jones.

This series is addictive because of all the unanswered questions. Kelley Armstrong is clever with the cliffhangers and even more clever at weaving action and emotion.

The fourth book is Betrayals. This one really stopped me in my tracks. More horrific visions involving the savage murder of young fae girls. I couldn’t handle it. I wanted to read every word but I just couldn’t do it. I’m very visual and I found it too graphic. I ended up skimming most of this book because I just wanted to know who Olivia chose … Ricky or Gabriel? Because by then I’d decided who I wanted her to choose. It’s a hard choice for the reader. Ricky and Gabriel are two very different men from two very different worlds, but both are handsome knights who’d give their life for their beloved.

I read every word of Book 5 (Rituals). Kelley does an amazing job of tying everything up in this, the final book. The addition of the third fey strain—the horrid unforgiveable Sluagh, who steal souls and turn them into blood-crazed birds—really ups the stakes.

Was I satisfied with the ending? Yes. Was everything explained? Yes. This is an epic series: part horror, part romance, and all thriller. I hope it gets optioned for the screen. 

The Witch’s Daughter

The Witch’s Daughter

by | Dec 26, 2018 | Book Review, urban fantasy

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An enthralling urban fantasy spanning 380 years, in this tale the witch’s daughter becomes a witch herself. Naturally. And also rather unnaturally.

The tale begins in the village of Matravers, Wales in 2007, when Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith meets a fifteen-year-old girl named Tegan and the two become friends. Living a quiet life in her comfy cottage behind a holly hedge (for protection); Elizabeth is a herbalist, a healer, and sells her crafted wares at farmer’s markets. This is a life I would conjure for myself. There is peace here, and yet she is lonely. So, when Tegan takes an interest in witchcraft, Elizabeth begins to share her Book of Shadows—the journal of her lives.

The novel is structured around sabbats and written as a diary, yet the description is rich and detailed. Born in Bathcombe, Wessex, in the 1620s, Elizabeth, or Bess, as she is known then, lives an idyllic country life with her loving mother, father, brother, and baby sister. This life calls to me, this hedge witchery, this living in the Shire. But then, the romance ends with the arrival of the Black Death. And we meet the sinister, Gideon Masters, a warlock who Bess’s mother appeals to for help when all seems lost. A life in exchange for a life. Making a deal with the devil is never wise. It is Gideon who gives Bess her tools, teaches her the chants, and helps her come into her power. And though she escapes the witchfinder who threatens to burn her, Bess cannot escape Gideon, who pursues her for the next 380 years using various disguises.

Paula Brackston is a master with language and she’s done her research. One of the things I like about this cleverly plotted book is how she spices it with well-known historical characters and settings. In London, 1888, Jack the Ripper is killing prostitutes at Whitechapel, and Bess, now Eliza, suspects it’s because of her. Now a doctor, she’s opened a clinic for prostitutes. Could the ripper really be Gideon Masters? Then, almost thirty years later, we find Bess working as a nurse at Passchendaele using her power to ease the suffering of men wounded at the front. Her visceral descriptions leave us feeling raw. Elizabeth has fallen in love, but is it safe? Who among this sea of soldiers is Gideon Masters?

Meanwhile, back in Wales 2007, her naïve new friend, Tegan, has fallen in love herself. Has Gideon found her again?

Part urban fantasy, part historical romance, there is much Wicca lore woven into this book, and with it, a darker tale, that of the cloven-footed mesmerizer who leaves nothing in his wake but death and destruction.

“This stops now,” says Elizabeth.

But how can she defeat the devil?

 

The Mystery of Grace. Charles de Lint

The Mystery of Grace. Charles de Lint

by | May 26, 2018 | Book Review, Canadian writers, urban fantasy

Grace is blessed with multiple meanings in Charles de Lint’s 2009 urban fantasy novel, The Mystery of Grace. She is an idea and also a woman. This strong beautiful tattooed deva is at once kind, charming, thoughtful, and at ease around a classic car. (She grew up rebuilding hotrods with her Abuelo and works wonders at Sanchez Motors). She loves rockabilly and surf guitar. She is virtuous in her own way and both gives and receives divine assistance. She is also dead and therefore, seeking grace early in the story.

In this 2010 interview with Charles de Lint, the author says that the book is about appreciating the moment, not waiting and missing opportunities. For life is short. You never know when you will vanish from this world and reappear in another unknown place. I agree with the author, but I also found this book to be about Faith (with a capital F). And Fear. The fear of what happens after we die permeates this book and it is only through Faith that the characters can stop waiting and walk through the mist into the unknown. Grace Quintero wears her life tattooed on her body. On her shoulder is Grace’s namesake, Our Lady of Altagracia. It is her faith in love and los santos that sees her through the limbo state (about two years in human time). But how does she end up there?

This story is set in the American Southwest. Ironically, Grace goes to buy cigarettes at Luna’s and gets shot twice in the chest by a junkie. “It’s not the cough that carries you off, it’s the coffin they carry you off in,” my mother, Grace, used to quip. Grace Quintero dies and wakes up in a parallel world. Her apartment at the Alverson Arms, in the small desert town of Santo del Vado Viejo still exists, but she is imprisoned with several other lost souls within a two-three block radius. Some have been there for decades as this limbo world seems to have been created in August 1965, and everyone who dies in proximity to the Alverson Arms lands here.

After making friends with the locals, Grace learns the rules. They don’t need to eat or sleep, but they can. Some end up comatose (sleepers). Henry, who lives at the Solina Library says: “if you don’t keep yourself busy, it all goes away. First your memories, then the desire to do anything, finally whatever it is that makes you who you are” (65). Going into the misty boundaries at the edges of the Alverson world also affects memories, and going back to the real world can be traumatic. Yes. Grace can go back to her home, but only twice a year, on Samhain and Beltane. And no one will recognize her.

On her first visit home, Grace meets artist John Burns and it’s love at first sight. They spend the night together but at dawn, she disappears, leaving John lonely and confused. Their relationship is only a flutter of what this book is about, so I won’t call it paranormal romance (though John is human and Grace a ghost.) This book, like all de Lint’s books, runs deep, crosses genres, and defies labels.
Norm, a distant cousin of shaman Ramon Morago, is the only one who can see Grace when she returns twice a year and he keeps telling her to “find her path.” Norm is Kikimi, and a kind of funky spiritual advisor to the lost girl caught in limbo. Morago and the Kikimi people are the subject of de Lint’s latest novel, The Wind in his Heart—my review here). Norm sees dead people and must use prayers and sacred smudge (sage) to keep the spirits at bay. Once they know you can see them, they keep harassing you. They’re lonely and want to talk. A shaman can choose but Norm doesn’t have a filter. He must pretend not to see them; otherwise, they drive him to drink.

What happens when we die? Will we be reunited with our ancestors? With those we love? Do heaven and hell exist? Or do we go into a kind of limbo to await our next incarnation? The Mystery of Grace inspires us to question our belief in God and the afterlife.

As always, de Lint, weaves a sensual tapestry of landscape, music, love, and culture. I am dazzled by his creativity, his brilliance, and his daring. Into this story, de Lint pours the tale of Juan—Juan can capture a bruja (witch) and turn her magic back on her “because the priest Juan Diego was the first to see Our Lady of Guadalupe” (197). Why does Grace needs to know about Juan? That is a question best left unanswered.

I leave you with a quote by Alice Hoffman.

Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint’s vivid, original world.