Review--Outcast Season: Undone

Once she was a powerful Djinn. Then Cassiel defiled her ruler, Ashan, who tore her vey essence away and reshaped her in human flesh as punishment. Forced to live among mortals, Cassiel has found refuge among the Weather Wardens--whose power she must tap into regularly, or she will die.

Cassiel earns her keep by assisting Earth Warden, Manny Rocha on his missions--which she finds much easier than coping with the emotions and frailities of her human condition, especially her growing affections for Manny's brother, Luis. But when Cassiel encounters a malevolent force that threatens the Rocha family, she discovers that her perceived human weaknesses may be her greatest strengths...

Rachel Caine's new series is absolute must read. For anyone who has not read her current Weather Warden series, which is another series that I highly recommend and will discuss in a bit, this new series is set in the same world! We even get to see familiar faces in the first chapter! Again, I don't want to give away anything from the book other than what the description says, but what I can say is that there is not stop action and so many mysteries to solve, just like in Weather Wardens. You never know who you can trust.

And like Weather Wardens, the end leaves you craving for more. There was so much action taking place and we were finally learning new things about Cassiel, for she is a mysterious character as the novel is from her point of view. We don't always get the full details on why she acts the way she does, other than the fact that she was once a Djinn.

For those who don't know Djinn are like genies, but not with the whole 3 wishes thing like in Aladdin. Djinn were once servants to the Weather Wardens and were forced to do things for them. In short they were treated like slaves, but not all Wardens were cruel to the Djinn. Very few were cruel, others even thought that the Djinn should be free to come and go as they please and help whenever they can and if they could. Djinn are powerful beings that can do many things such as manipulating the weather along with Wardens and manipulating the structure of almost anything. Hate that red jacket, well with just a touch a Djinn can turn it into a black jacket. Don't want the jacket at all, the Djinn can remove it from you with just a look!

I have to give kudos to Rachel for incorporating my favorite line from one of my favorites movies within the novel. It has nothing to do with ruining the plot of the novel so I am just going to say what it is anyway. Chapter 14, page 261: "We're going to need a bigger boat"!! Major kudos to you Rachel! For those who may not know and if you don't, shame on you!!, this line comes from the movie Jaws. The original one, not any of the sequels which did not hold up to the original! Great movie by the way that I highly recommend. Steven Spielberg worked really hard and long on this movie and had many difficulties with the mechanical shark and that is why he never worked on any of the sequels.

The Weather Warden series, currently at book 7 with book 8 to come out later in August 2009, stars Joanne Baldwin a Weather Warden, she controls the weather, there are also Earth and Fire Wardens who control said properties. The Weather Warden series must be read in order to fully understand the story and the story is very long, to explain one novel and then go to the next would give stuff away that I really do not want to do if anyone is interested in reading the series. This is a really great series that is sadly coming to an end next year with the last book. So if you feel like reading up on it this would be the time for there is not much time left for new books to keep you back.