Friday, December 16, 2011

Review: Nightingale by Ashley Christman

Synopsis (Goodreads):
Being Sidhe is hard, but a Sidhe without a heartbeat?

Life is lucrative and easy for Dr. Grace Caldwell--daughter of vampire father and fey mother--until her ex-boyfriend, FBI agent Jack Montgomery, blackmails her into helping him solve a prostitute's murder. If only she wasn't as attracted to Jack as ever, she could concentrate on finding the murderer and get back to her regularly scheduled life. And then there's the vampire Constantine, seductive and powerful, a family friend she's supposed to marry...

Not much of a vampire, and clueless about her fey powers--if she has any--Grace must journey to the Sidhe and enlist the help of the fey to unravel the riddle of the murder. She and Jack might just get killed, but then, two worlds depend on her success. If she fails, both her worlds and all of humanity will descend into chaos of epic proportions.
My Thoughts: I had a tough time getting into this book.  And by "tough" I mean that it took me a chapter or two.  So I guess it wasn't really a tough time.  I just had a mental block over a woman who was a Doctor (not a medical doctor, mind you, but still...) being a courtesan.  It's one of those things.  Although the idea that the Sidhe aren't as bound by human sexual morality was presented and it made sense, I still had to wrap my head around it.  No worries, though.  I did get past it and it ended up working for both me and the story in a big way.

After that rocky start with Grace, I ended up really liking her.  She's a woman torn between two very different worlds who has made the decision to live life on her own terms.  She really is the only one who has the ability to help Jack solve the murder quickly because she's one of the few who can straddle the line between both Fey and vampire.

While the main storyline about the murders was tied up, there were plenty of questions left unanswered about what Grace's future holds.  Prophecy pulls her in two different directions and she has a whole passel of powers to learn to control.  Intriguing and well thought out, this is a world I wouldn't mind dipping into again.

More books by Ashley Christman

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Nightingale was provided for review.

3 comments:

  1. I don't remember. Biology. Anthropology. One of those -ologies.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anthropology would make sense. I could totally see an anthropologist being a courtesan. Or a sociologist.

    ReplyDelete