Review--Unholy Ghosts

THE DEPARTED HAVE ARRIVED.

The world is not the way it was. The dead have rise, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully tattooed witch and freewheeling ghost hunter. She's got a real talent for banishing the wicked dead. But Chess is keeping a dark secret: She owes a lot of money to a murderous drug lord named Bump, who wants immediate payback in the form of a dangerous job that involved black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust for a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump's ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.

Finished Stacia Kane's Unholy Ghosts today, her debut in her new series and it was seriously a wild ride! It was dark, gritty, edgy and enthralling from the first chapter!

The world is not what it seems, like the BOC talks about. There was an event called Haunted Week that changed everything, all this gets explained in the book. Basically this is kind of like an alternate reality, but not really alternate. This is the way things are. It's complicated for me to put into words, but it's not an overly futuristic event. Haunted Week actually took place in '97 if I recall correctly.

Anyway, it was really good. There were some cringe moments when you read them. If you can handle bloody moments they aren't too bad. I mean when reading I can handle anything, because I can tone down on how bloody "bloody" is. But still very entertaining.

Chess is asked to look into a typical haunting and pay off her debt with a heaping amount of interest tacked on, from her drug dealer Bump. She thinks it should be relatively easy since it's what she does for a living, but she soon finds out how very wrong she is.

Like the BOC says a rival gang and sort of drug dealer enters the picture, and he is one of the guys Chess is attracted to. The other is Bump's right-hand man, and Chess is sort of torn between the two. She doesn't do any leading on, she's attracted to both of them in different ways. Personally I'm rooting for Trouble, Bump's right-hand man. Lovely name! Although it could be because we didn't see enough of Lex, Chess' other interest. Hopefully he'll appear more next time. We saw a lot of Trouble, which is probably why I'm leaning towards him.

But the romance wasn't the focal point of the story, which was a thing I enjoyed, being the urban fantasy reader. It was there and then it was put aside while Chess dealt with other things.

The language was done remarkably well! A lot of the characters in the book had a rough, or slang to their language and you can literally hear their accent and how they would pronounce the words. Most of the characters were drug dealers and likely users so obviously they lost a few brain cells along the way. But their characters are still rather intelligent in their own way.

I cannot wait for the next book in this series either! It was very good and leaves you satisfied with just a few things to ponder about. I cannot wait to see where the series takes Chess. Unholy Magic is the next book in the series and releases July 6.