Monday, August 4, 2014

Dead Witch Walking

Rating: 5 Stars
Author: Kim Harrison
Version: eBook

GoodReads:
All the creatures of the night gather in "the Hollows" of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party ... and to feed.
Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining -- and it's Rachel Morgan's job to keep that world civilized.

A bounty hunter and witch with serious sex appeal and an attitude, she'll bring 'em back alive, dead ... or undead.

Review:
I was very skeptical about starting Dead Witch Walking after first viewing the cover - Yes, I do judge books by their covers. However, after seeing that over 71,000 people gave the book a combined rating of over 4 stars I decided to give it a shot.

Now I've said it before, but I love books with witches and magic. With this restated, I was a little disappointed in the type of magic Rachel practices. To give some background, there are three categories of witches in this book:

  1. White Earth - Witches who use plants to make potions and amulets. The theory is that the plants dilute and store ley line magic. Requires a small amount of blood (finger prick).
  2. Black Earth - Witches who use animals/people as sacrifices. 
  3. Ley Line - Witches who tap directly into the "ever after", which is where demons are believed to live. This type of magic doesn't use blood, but instead feeds off the user's/victim's soul. 
Rachel is a white earth witch, so she relies primarily on charms, potions, and amulets as source of magic. One thing that irked me was the difficulty level assigned to creating potions and spells, despite some only having a few simple instructions (referencing Rachel's mink transmutation spell). In fact, most witches in this book have to rely on purchasing their charms, which was a little lame. However, towards the end of the story, Rachel has to rely on making her own charms and the lameness started to fade away. 

In terms of action and suspense, this book is packed full of it!  A death threat was placed on Rachel by her former boss and he goes to the extreme in an attempt to kill her. So, much of the book involves fighting off/eluding hired Vampire, Were, and Fairy assassins. There were honestly times that I just couldn't put the book down. 

I also found Dead Witch Walking to contain quite a bit of humor. The banter between Jinx (an awesome pixy), Ivy (Rachel's partner and living vampire), and Rachel had me literally laughing out loud. One particular instance I can recall was when Rachel suffered major blood loss and became delusional. Some of the things said were not unlike the videos you see on YouTube of people after being released from Dental surgery (example)

This book seems to be fairly well known, but if you haven't given it a chance yet, I recommend doing so. 

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