Journeys

Journeys

Monday, October 31, 2011

Its Halloween and All Is Paranormal

It is a dark and stormy night…well, not really.  At the moment the sky is blue and it is a beautiful sunny day.  Though, this being the Northwest, that’s not for long as we quickly move into our gloomy season.  Perhaps that’s the reason so many paranormal novels are set here; lots of darkness this time of year.  But it does make one wonder what all those vampires do once we hit the late spring/early summer with our very abundant daylight? Just saying. 

However, it is the perfect time of year to talk about the Greywalker series by Kat Richardson.  Apparently there is a lot of shadowy paranormal stuff going on in the Emerald City.  The first book, Greywalker, is where we meet Harper Blaine, a private investigator who is brutally attacked in the opening pages.  While in the ER, she dies for a couple of minutes before being brought back to life.  As Harper recovers, she realizes that she’s seeing things that nobody else is seeing, like ghosts and other supernaturals walking around an old section of Seattle; unfortunately, they're seeing her as well.  What she comes to know is that she is seeing the Grey, the world between our world and the next and that she is now a Greywalker, one who can move between this world and the Grey. 

Once the supernatural world realizes she is aware of them, they look to her for help.  Harper has to quickly learn not only how to deal with this unasked for ability, she has to learn how to deal with clients who aren’t necessarily alive, like perhaps an angry ghost or a newly minted vampire, who was until recently, a student at the U.  Assisting are some pretty interesting characters which include, among others, a scary necromancer, a powerful witch and a few ambitious vampires.  Oh, and this being Seattle, there is also one very talented computer geek; he has a few secrets of his own.  

This series has a little more depth than some of the others in the same genre.  The author has done some extensive research.  Though Seattle is new compared to the East Coast, it still does have quite a bit of history with lots of fodder for a good storyteller.  Some of the details are a bit massaged or stretched to fit the story, but there’s enough that is true to make for an interesting history lesson.   

After reading the third book, Underground, I even felt inclined to learn a little more about the history of the Seattle underground as well as some other tidbits she mentions, like a particular unsavory character during Prohibition.  Plus, since this book was actually set locally in a recent year, it almost made the story feel a little more real because I remembered the extreme cold of that particular winter referenced.

Harper Blaine is a reluctant and sometimes flawed heroine, but she is a heroine all the same.  Her magic and that of her helpers is all that is between us and the monsters that go bump in the night.  So far she’s been successful in her battles.  Yet you wonder if she will continue to be, and if so, at what cost?

Tonight being Halloween makes for the perfect setting to start the sixth book in the series, Downpour.  Who knows who or what will show up at my door tonight…Then again, will my front door keep them out?

Ella

1 comment:

  1. I love to read your post,and tonight was exceptionally fun...very interesting about the Greywalker Series...I look forward to curling up and enjoying them~! I love books set in local lore~!!! And the paranormal,as well~!
    Your post had me 'hungry' for more information~!!!

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