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Review
5 stars!
“She was here, and she was stronger than this, harder than this. They could make her hate herself, make her doubt herself, but they couldn’t take away her deepest instinct. Not just the need to survive, but the need to survive long enough and strong enough to tell them to go fuck themselves.”
Chess is back in all of her badass, ghost-kicking, messed up, junkie glory. God, she’s a great heroine. So great, that you can forgive her questionable and downright stupid behaviour. I love being inside of her head, she’s fascinating!
This book takes place a couple of months after the events of Unholy Ghosts, and again we find Chess flicking between her legitimate work for the Church and an ‘on-the-side’ investigation into the deaths of hookers in Downside (at the request of Bump and the gorgeous Terrible.)
While the action was still definitely there, the romance storyline was more of a feature in this book than in the last. Yes, there is a love triangle, but it’s not a tricky one to figure out. We know who the ideal choice is, we just have to sit back and wait for it to happen. But mark my words – the wait is a.g.o.n.i.s.i.n.g!!!!!
Chess and Terrible have a great (friends-only) relationship at the start of the story, and he is beautifully protective of her.
“You ain’t know nothing,” a man scoffed. “How I’m supposed to trust some junkie Churchwitch-”
The words sliced through her like razor-sharp fangs. Her face flooded with shame, so hot she imagined it steamed in the icy air. At least it wasn’t difficult to identify the speaker. All she had to do was look for the man with Terrible’s fist locked around his neck.
You can see that Terrible has a thing for her, and she’s feeling it for him as well, but she’s oblivious to it all… and still sleeping with the enemy. This all changes when they share another truly epic kiss (the kisses these two have are hotter than full on sex scenes I’ve read in other books… seriously!). Chess finally starts to realise what’s going on, but when Terrible finally lays it all out on the line for her with his epic speech…
… she lets him walk away!!! I seriously wanted to smack her in the face… with my kindle. But I still sort of understood her reasoning. As the story progresses, we see more of Chess’ background, and it is truly horrific. She considers herself “broken and filthy” and is not ready for a relationship, and does everything she can to keep her life uncomplicated (yeah, good luck with that!). But then it really hits the fan when Terrible finally finds out Chess’ secret. And it all comes to a head with three little words – “How long Chess?” Oh God! Even now those words make my heart beat faster, before shattering into a million pieces. What an absolutely devastating scene! So incredibly written! In fact everything from that point on was incredible. I particularly loved the way we got to see Terrible’s anger. From his absolute indifference to his biting comments, and the very intense moment they had when he gave her payback. All of it was just devastating! Oh Terrible! How I love you!!! So yeah, while I’ve wailed on for quite a bit about the romance, it’s not all about that. There’s still lots of Downside darkness and scary ghosts (like, turn all the lights on scary), but it’s the characters that drive the story. So flawed, all of them a little dirty… well alright, A LOT dirty, but I love that! There are some really gritty scenes in this book (can you say ‘withdrawal’?), and again, the writing is brilliant. I absolutely love the world that Stacia Kane has created. And on that note… it’s almost 1am, but going I’m straight onto City of Ghosts. Please see our Downside Ghosts page for more series info – including reading order, review and buy links.