Monday 23 November 2015

BOOK REVIEW: Close To You by Stacia Kane


Churchwitch Chess Putnam has seen, and banished, her share of ghosts, but not of the Christmas Past variety—the holiday has been illegal since the Church of Real Truth defeated the undead and took control of the world in 1997.

Yet when she and her boyfriend, Terrible, make a trip to an abandoned auto junkyard, they find more than the rusted auto parts and spare tires they’d bargained for. They also run across a creepy Miss Havisham-type hell-bent on reuniting with her long-dead husband just in time for Christmas—even if it means taking Chess and Terrible down with her into the City of Eternity…

If Chess and Terrible don't manage to keep these ghosts in the past, they won't have a future…
 
Quite a few years ago I read a book called Unholy Ghosts, the first book in Stacia Kane's Downside Ghosts series and I absolutely loved it. It was dark, gritty and at times plain gross which is everything I love in an Urban Fantasy book. Yet despite falling in love with it I never carried on with this series. Other books just seemed to fall in my lap and despite wanting too I never got round to buying the second book.

I probably should not have read Close to you considering that it is book number 5.5 in the series and I have only read number one but when I was offered a chance to get my hands on this book I just couldn't stop myself.

For me Stacia Kane has to be one of the finest romance authors of our generation. I am constantly astonished by the depth of emotion she manages to get into her books. No-one else writes romance like this. She makes it feel real in a way that no over romance author has managed for me. It isn't over done or cheesy. It feels genuine and I wish there were more authors out there that could make me feel the same.

Stacia Kane's talent for writing doesn't stop at the romance. Her plots, world building and characters are also spot on. She isn't afraid to take her books to dark places and have characters who are far from perfect.

Close to you, despite being short had all of that. It was spooky, festive, dark, romantic and touching which is pretty amazing considering that this novella is under 100 pages long. The characters were just as great as when I first came across them. Chess is my kind of girl, a tom boy with a bad attitude and some questionable habits. And then there is Terrible. If there is some real life Terrible out there please send him my way because that is a man I would definitely want to meet.
In short, I loved this book and I have seriously got to invest more time into this series in the future.  

4 stars

Find out more:

 
Close to you by Stacia Kane book 5.5 in the Downside Ghost series.  Published October 8th 2013 by St. Martin's Paperbacks
 
Image courtesy of Goodreads.


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