Review--Dark Oracle

TARA SHERIDAN HAS A GIFT...AND IT ALMOST KILLED HER.

As a criminal profiler, Tara used science and her intuitive skill at Tarot card divination to track down the dangerous and depraved, including the serial killer who left her scarred from head to toe. Since that savage attack, Tara has been a recluse. But now an ancient secret society known as Delphi's Daughters has asked for her help in locating a missing scientist Lowell Magnusson. And Tara, armed with her Tarot deck, her .38, and a stack of misgivings agrees to try.

Tara immediately senses there is far more at stake then one man's life. At his government lab in the New Mexico desert, Magnusson had developed groundbreaking technology with terrifying potential. Working alongside the brusque but charismatic agent Harry Li, Tara discovers that Magnusson's daughter, Cassie, has knowledge that makes her a target too. The more Tara sees into the future, the more there is to fear. She knows she has to protect Cassie. But there may be no way to protect herself--from the enemies circling around her, or from the long-buried powers stirring to life within...

Finished Dark Oracle by Alayna Williams today, also know as Laura Bickle. I had won this book in a contest awhile back and finally got around to reading it and I wasn't disappointed.

It was rather interesting having the use of Tarot in the novel, there were detailed explanation of the cards and their meaning and how Tara attributed them to the situation at hand.

Tara was a great character, she wasn't the total kick-butt heroine we usually see, but she still kicks some butt in the end of course. There was an event in the past that left her scarred, literally and it damaged her, physically and mentally and she has had to cope with it on her own for a long time. She disengaged herself from her friends and her family was already long gone, she lived a quiet life until an old "friend" from Delphi's Daughters comes to her door in the middle of the night, Tara used to be a member of this group before leaving shortly after her mother's death and the incident.

Tara reluctantly agrees to take a look at a missing person's case that becomes much bigger than she thought it would. Working alongside Harry Li, Tara can't help but feel like she's being judged by him by her appearance and her methods for the case, her use of Tarot to begin with. They have a rocky start in the beginning of the case.

This was told in multiple third person p.o.v. so we get to see a lot of the characters and get to know their motives. Which kind of pointed out the bad guy a little earlier than I would've liked, but it still made for great reading because we don't really know why these characters make their choices, we may know the ultimate goal but not the reasons behind it.

There was also some science-y talk in the book, dealing with physics, matter and some other stuff that I didn't really understand, science along with chemistry, biology, and physics were not my best subjects in school. But it wasn't really important to understand this science talk, you only had to know that it dealt with certain characters, they knew what it was for and they tell the others, it was just a little hard for me to comprehend. So basically I just rolled with it.

There was a bit of romance in the book which you can see coming, but it took a few turns that I wasn't expecting. Overall it was nice, it had a nice buildup instead of just throwing it out at you.

The action was definitely well paced, there is more going on than just trying to find the missing scientist and locate his daughter. Quite a bit more actually. It was amazing how far this case went, just when you think something is close to be solved, it's not!

The ending was good, decent. It wrapped up the events, but left you with just enough dangling to wonder what will happen to Tara down the line in the next book.

Overall, I decided to start giving an actual rating system instead of just saying the book was GREAT, I'd give the book 4/5 stars!

And since my copy of Waking the Witch has not arrived, yet, still hoping for the weekend instead of Monday like my tracking device invoice says, I will have to pick up something else to read. But there are sooo many choices still on my shelf. This may take awhile!