Eldest

I'm not going to lie, it felt very, very good to cross a book off the List.  Eldest is the first book I've crossed off of it in a long, long time (I haven't crossed anything off since Sharon Shinn's Royal Airs last June!)

Alright. Eldest.  This book was quite the ride.  The first chapter starts off with some utter craziness: three days after the battle in Eragon, Eragon's back is still hurt from the shade Durza; it randomly shoots excruciating pain through him.  No one knows how or why this is happening because his back is otherwise fine.  Then Ajihad, the leader of the Varden, gets slain while returning from hunting Urgals (I had a really hard time with this point: why the heck did Ajihad go hunting them while his second in command stayed back with the rest of the Varden? And how the heck did Urgals sneak up on them in such large numbers when they were specifically HUNTING the Urgals????  It kind of gets explained at a later point in the book in a hand-wavey way, but really, this still seems super unbelievable to me).  In that same attack, the Twins (the Varden's best magicians) and Murtagh are kidnapped.  Arya chases the Urgals but cannot catch them (because sure?); all she finds is their blood soaked clothes.

Ajihad had not appointed a successor.  And so the Council of Elders decide to name his daughter, Nasuada, as the new leader.  The Council intends to use her as a puppet, and try to trap Eragon into swearing fealty to them; he instead swears fealty to Nasuada, thus cementing her own power, making her largely free of the Council's meddling.  From there, Eragon is sent to the elves in order to continue his training now that Brom has been slain.

Eragon is accompanied by Arya, the elf girl, and Orik, the dwarf who saved him from being killed by Urgals.  He is also offered membership into Orik's (and the dwarven king Hrothgar's) clan, an honour never before bestowed to a human (although Eragon and Saphira suspect it's to also lay claim to him as a rider); Eragon ultimately accepts this honour, and is so taught knowledge of the dwarves that no outsider has ever before learned.  Eragon, Saphira, and Orik make their way to Ellesmera, the capital of the Elves, where Eragon learns that Arya is an elven princess (because of course she is), and that there is a rider of old still alive: the elf Oromis, and the gold dragon Glaedr.  The pair were injured by the Forsworn when Galbatorix destroyed the Riders of old; while they can no longer fight, they have been in hiding waiting to teach the next Rider.

While Eragon and Saphira are learning from Oromis and Glaedr, the book jumps to Eragon's cousin, Roran.  The Ra'zac have returned to Carvahall, this time looking for Roran.  Most of the village refuses to give him up.  When it becomes clear the Ra'zac and their soldiers aren't leaving, Roran and some of the other villagers decide to fight back.  The village comes under siege, and the villagers give as good as they get.  Unfortunately, during this time, Roran asked Katrina, the love of his life, to marry him.  He didn't do the proper thing and ask her father for his blessing first though (not that Sloan probably would have given it - Sloan didn't like Eragon and Roran's family).  Sloan finds out when he discovers Katrina in the group of women, children, and elderly who were going to hide in the Spine (he forbade her to go, but Roran asked her to anyway because he didn't want anything to happen to her - she only agreed if he agrees to never again ask such a thing of her again because her place is with him).  After basically disowning her, the Ra'zac attack that night and kidnap her; Roran and the other villagers give chase (even though Roran was wounded) and find that Sloan betrayed them to the Ra'zac in order to get his daughter back.  The Ra'zac, Slaon, and Katrina then fly away on the Ra'zac's fierce mounts.  In the aftermath, Roran convinces the villagers to abandon Carvahall to go seek refuge with the Varden in the South (he wants to both protect them and find Katrina, but he cannot do both if the villagers remain, especially knowing that more soldiers are on their way).  The majority are convinced. And so they go on a perilous journey first through the Spine, then South along the coast.

I'm not going to lie, when the book first changed view points to Roran, I was a bit annoyed.  But honestly, the siege of Carvahall and their journey South was really cool, and far more interesting than anything Eragon was up to.

The book also periodically switched to Nasuada's viewpoint.  The Varden had relocated to Surda as planned.  While Surda had given them what it could, the Varden were in dire financial straits; Nasuada ended up solving this problem by getting her magicians to manufacture cheap lace.  By selling it (both in Surda and the Empire), the Varden were able to fund their war efforts!

Nasuada's story also dealt with the child Eragon and Saphira "blessed" in the last book.  Eragon's blessing was said erroneously, and the child is now cursed to take on the pain of everyone around her.  She actually made herself grow up faster because as a baby she could do nothing.  It was very strange, but also pretty interesting.

Like with Roran, I wasn't exactly thrilled to read about Nasuada at first.  But her story also proved more interesting than Eragon's.  I'll admit it here: pretty much everyone in the book except Eragon (and honestly at times, even Saphira....I did not like her as much in this book) was more interesting than Eragon.

So while all that's going on, Eragon and Saphira are training (and Eragon is mooning after Arya, even though she has told him she's not interested.  I don't know how many times she's told him no and he keeps trying anyway after promising he won't.  I really hope he doesn't end up with her in the end!  Like geeze dude, no means no).  The book doesn't go into what Saphira learns like at all, but Eragon learns much (including reading and writing in the old language, which opens him up to much philosophy, and through meditation he learns to feel the minds of every living thing around him).  But during all of this, his back still pains him (and might be getting worse? I don't know, I really didn't get it beyond "magic").  But at an elven celebration, the magic of the dragons heals him and transforms him basically into an elf; his back is healed, he is stronger and more powerful than a human, and even his features become elvish.

Around this time, Eragon discovers that the Varden are going to be attacked by a massive army from the Empire.  After agreeing to return to finish his training when time permits, Eragon, Orik, and Saphira fly South to meet the Varden.  During the massive battle (where Roran's ship shows up in time, like I figured it would, lol), it's revealed that the Empire has a second dragon and Rider.  Eragon and Saphira fight them but are overpowered.  Eragon realizes that the other Rider fights in a familiar way; he manages to get the Rider's helmet off and discovers that it is Murtagh (shock!)!  Murtagh had been kidnapped by the Twins (who used the Urgals to kidnap him and kill Ajihad) and brought to Galbatorix.  One of the dragon eggs hatched for him, and so both Murtagh and his dragon were forced to swear fealty to Galbatorix in the ancient language (which binds you).  Murtagh reveals that he is (as I guessed) Eragon's brother.  He is in fact, the Eldest brother (lol, I'm not going to lie, it took me a bit to get it, lol).  After overpowering Eragon and Saphira (he has apparently learned crazy things from Galbatorix), Murtagh reveals that Galbatorix wants Saphira (Galbatorix and Murtagh's dragons are both male, as is the last remaining egg), Murtagh leaves, but warns Eragon that he will probably not be able to let them go should they ever meet again.

The book ends with Eragon getting over his shock that he is related to Morzan (the leader of the Forsworn) and telling Arya, and Nasuada what happened, Eragon is reunited with Roran (oops, forgot to mention that Roran single-handedly killed the Twins, who were rampaging around the battlefield).  The two, who agree they are more family than Murtagh and Morzan, agree to go rescue Katrina and kill the Ra'zac, thus avenging their father, Garrow.

While reading Eldest, I was repeatedly struck by how it isn't exactly a "good" book.  The writing (like in Eragon) is often clunky, being full of instances where things are told (this is particularly bad when someone says something, then it is told to someone else.  It happens all the time and is honestly quite annoying to read - couldn't there have been some way to make this more interesting, at least some of the time?)  The book also felt pretty preachy at times (this was particularly bad first when Eragon decides not to eat meat (I can't remember the exact line, but it was a patronizing "I won't look down on others for eating meat."  Yes you will, Eragon, that's what you always do), and when Oromis was explaining how the elves don't believe in gods, man did it sound kind of propaganda-ish while also seeming like they look down on anyone who does believe in gods).  And I honestly kind of hate Eragon.  He's constantly looking down on people in this thinly disguised veneer of pity, which gets especially pronounced once he's got the strength and reflexes of an elf (ugh, how he looked down on the Varden's magicians and how they struggled with things he now finds easy - again, his arrogance was hidden under a weird thin pretense of sympathy for them.  He's so patronizing and criticizing to Saphira.  I hate him so much!)

But overall, I did enjoy the book (when talking to a friend who has read it, I called it "mind candy" - you kind of just shut your brain off and enjoy the ride).  As I already said, I especially liked the stuff from the other characters' perspectives.  How Roran became the respected leader of Carvahall (while also becoming a scary berserker) was very interesting to read; I wish there had been more of his journey through the Spine and down the coast. After my initial displeasure of having the narrative shift to him or Nasuada, I quite looked forward to their chapters to see either what was happening with Carvahall or with the Varden's war effort (I honestly wish there had been a bit more of Nasuada).  I liked Oromis and Glaedr (the idea of war vet dragon and rider is super cool); I just wish we had gotten some chapters from their perspective.  Oh, and the Ra'zac are even cooler than I could have imagined: the humanoid ones who talk are the larvae, and their "flying steeds" are actually their parents.  That's so cool!!!!!  Apparently the parents are as smart as any dragon, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they'll be like in action in the next book(s).

And while the stuff with Murtagh was largely predictable, I'm quite interested to see where it all leads; he's a fantastic character in a crazy position (being forced to join/serve the one person he absolutely hates) and I'm hoping he and his dragon, Thorn, can get free.

So now that Roran and Eragon are reunited, I'm honestly looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here!  I just hope the narrative doesn't stick with Eragon the entire time.

Good Omens

I first read Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett years ago (before I started this blog - I'm guessing the early 2000's).  I don't remember much about it except that I really enjoyed it (I was actually talking to my mom earlier today and she said I tried to get her to read it.  I don't remember that, but it's a testament to how much I liked the book if I tried to get her to read it, especially since it isn't remotely her kind of book).

So a friend of mine suggested that a group of us read it as a sort of book club book.  Since we're not able to see each other right now thanks to the pandemic, she thought a book club on Goodreads would be a great way to hang out, so to speak.  She suggested either Good Omens or another book; consensus was Good Omens (even by the people like me who would be rereading it).

So Good Omens is the story of the Antichrist, Adam Young.  He is mistakenly given to the wrong parents and grows up largely left alone in rural England (while the boy who Heaven and Hell thinks is the Antichrist grows up being tutored by their agents, who hope to sway him onto their sides).  It features a large and eclectic cast of characters, from the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, to the three kids in Adam's gang (Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale - the Them), the four horsemen of the apocalypse (War, Famine, Pollution and Death; Pollution replaced Pestilence, who retired when penicillin was invented), Anathema Device, the descendant of Agnes Nutter (a renowned witch who actually got the future right in her prophecies), a couple of witchhunters (Shadwell and Newton Pulsifer of the Witchfinder Army), and a medium (Madame Tracy - she's Shadwell's neighbour), who are almost all flailing about trying to stop the end of the world.

While I liked Good Omens the first time I read it....I honestly wasn't a huge fan this second time around.  It took me over 70 pages before I felt like things were actually getting interesting enough to continue.  I caught myself wondering around page 200 or so how there could possibly be another almost 200 pages in the story.  With the huge cast of characters, I found I only really enjoyed a few of them (mostly Aziraphale and Crowley, but more-so when they were together; there was a chunk in the middle of the book where they largely disappeared and that felt like a slog). 

With that being said though, I actually enjoyed the ending once I finally got there.  Having Adam's friends defeat the horsemen, and Newton halting nuclear Armageddon by attempting to "fix" the machine (because he breaks everything he tries to fix) was pretty great.

But overall, this felt like a book I should have left alone.  I would have preferred to have remembered Good Omens being great (even without actually remembering it in any detail), rather than now living with the fact that it isn't as good as I remember it being. :(

Oh, but one interesting side note on rereading it: when I first read it all those years ago, a friend of mine mentioned that it was really obvious whether Pratchett or Gaiman was writing a given part.  I hadn't yet read anything by Pratchett, so at that time I didn't notice this at all.  Going back to it now though, oh yeah, it seemed really obvious (particularly in the first half of the book - basically the really crazy stuff just felt more like Pratchett, as it were).

Writing Subtext: What Lies Beneath

So I started reading Eldest, but then decided to put it aside yesterday in favour of Writing Subtext: What Lies Beneath by Dr. Linda Seger. It's a writing book I've been meaning to get to for quite some time now, and I thought it would be particularly helpful for the RPG I'm currently working on too.

In scriptwriting, when characters say what they mean, that's considered "on the nose" - or the text.  Dr. Seger urges writers to go deeper, using the subtext (or the deeper meanings to what characters are saying - their words are not taken at face value). 

The main part of the book is split into 6 chapters (there's also another writer's perspective on subtext, and an afterword).  After exploring in detail what exactly she means by subtext, Dr. Seger then gives writers a number of ways to bring subtext into their own writing (through characters, words, gestures, similes/metaphors, and through genre).  It's a very thorough examination of the topic in such a small book (I read it in a day, although I did not do the exercises that were included at the end of every chapter).  Writing Subtext was a very good book that I'm glad I read - it's really given me a lot to think about in my own writing!

Eragon

I originally read Christopher Paolini's Eragon when it first came out, before the second book, Eldest, was even published.  At a guess, this was sometime in 2005, a few years before I started this blog.  So unfortunately I don't remember what exactly I thought of it (although I remember liking it well enough).  It was recommended to me at the time by a friend (we went to see the movie together, too).  I bought Eldest when it first came out, too, but decided not to read it because I knew the series was supposed to be a trilogy; at that time I decided I wanted to wait until book three came out before continuing on.  Then book three was split into two (much like what happened with Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles; that seemed to be a trend in books at the time).  And since the books are so big (book 1 is about 500 pages), it was really hard to get myself to go back to them, especially knowing that I had to reread Eragon before getting to the newer books.  But thanks to the global pandemic that's happening right now, this seemed like a good time to actually go back and reread it.

Eragon is the story of a farm boy (? it's a weird distinction because he's first portrayed as a hunter) who finds a dragon egg.  The egg hatches, and he finds himself suddenly thrust into the larger world with enemies everywhere fighting to control him.  His only help is the storyteller, Brom, an older man who lived in Eragon's little village but has many secrets of his own.  Together the two of them head out on a quest of vengeance, with Brom doing everything he can to prepare Eragon for the larger world in which he's suddenly part of.

In a lot of ways, Eragon is very much the typical "boy from nowhere is actually the chosen one" kind of tale.  I'd even go so far as to say Eragon himself is a Mary Sue kind of character (his sword fighting progresses over a couple of months so he's now one of the best human sword fighters around! He's the youngest Dragon Riders to start using magic!  He learns to read in a week! He's destined for a great romance!  That sort of thing - I suspect he's also of noble birth...my guess is actually the second and unknown son of the King's second in command.  We'll see if I'm right).  He's also one of the most whiny teenagers imaginable.  Through the first half of the book he's honestly pretty unlikable (although I don't blame him from some of his frustrations - Brom in particular doesn't tell him things pretty much "just because" and it's annoying from a reading standpoint).

While I don't remember my thoughts on the book the first time around, I'm pretty sure Eragon annoyed me back then, too. Thankfully he's surrounded by far more interesting characters.  Saphira, the dragon, is a lot of fun.  Although she is much younger than Eragon, she's infinitely more wiser; plus she has a great sense of humour.  I also really liked Brom (outside of his "not telling you things just because" thing); he's a fun character who has no problem with gently making fun of Eragon so he learns.  (Now I don't know if it's because I read the book years ago and kind of remembered Brom's story, or if the writing was just super predictable, but I did know a lot of what Brom was keeping hidden - but that didn't detract from the story at all).  Murtagh, the random swordsman who helps Eragon and Brom and later becomes close friends with Eragon, is likewise a very intriguing character with a great backstory (I also loved his reasoning for refusing to submit to anyone entering his mind: "My mind is the one sanctuary that has not been stolen from me. Men have tried to breach it before, but I've learned to defend it vigorously, for I am safe with my innermost thoughts. You have asked for the one thing I cannot give, least of all to those two" (405)).  I would love to follow his story far more than Eragon's!

The other character of note is the elf, Arya.  She's most likely the great love interest.  I don't have much of an opinion on her at this point though since she hasn't done much but be rescued by Eragon and company, test Eragon's battle prowess, and help in the final battle of the book (which honestly ended up a bit weird - she stayed to get Saphira's damaged armor off while Eragon ran ahead....shouldn't Eragon have helped HIS dragon while the super powerful elf goes ahead?  Also, he kind of steals her kill (the shade) - she demanded it because of what he did to her).  I'm hoping she'll prove to be more interesting in the later books...

I also found the books villain, the Shade Durza, rather interesting as well (although he's not in it all that much).  He actually goes hand in hand with the really cool worldbuilding Paolini did for this book: the villains.  The main world has the typical elves, dwarves, dragons and men.  But the bad guys have shades (sorcerers who accidentally let spirits take over their bodies and become evil), a Dragon Rider who went mad after his dragon died (and took down the whole Order, declaring himself King/Emperor), the Ra'zac (who make me think of Skeksis), and the Urgals (who I suspect are just Orcs, but it still gives the world its own flavour).  Some very cool stuff going on here.

So while the first half of the book is kind of hard to get into (again, thanks to Eragon being a whiny kid who's inexplicably good at everything), by the end I did enjoy the story (thanks in large part to all the other characters).  Hopefully the momentum built up in the second half of Eragon carries through to book 2!

Watcher of the Dark

Well here we are: Watcher of the Dark, the final Jeremiah Hunt book by Joseph Nassise.

This is going to have a lot of spoilers, so be warned.

Watcher of the Dark takes place a few weeks after King of the Dead.  Hunt is on the run, not only from the Boston Police Department and FBI, but also from Simon Gallagher's forces (in order to save Denise's life in King of the Dead, he had to stab her in the heart with an ancient dagger.  Gallagher walked in right at that moment and Hunt was automatically on the run with no chance to explain himself).  Hunt's made his way to Las Angeles and is lying low in an old motel, only to find himself kidnapped by unknown assailants.  They bring him to LA's marshall, Carlos Fuentes, who threatens Denise and Dmitri's lives unless Hunt agrees to work for him.  And so Hunt finds himself working with Fuentes lieutenants: Rivera, a very powerful mage, Ilyana, a half demon, Perkins, a man able to magically find anything, and Grady, a Mundane thief.  The five of them are tasked with tracking down a mysterious magical key that has been split into three pieces.  A key that the mysterious Preacher has just decided will be the perfect payment from Hunt for his help in saving Denise back in New Orleans.  All the while Hunt is trying to find a way to get out of his indentured servitude to Fuentes without his friends getting hurt.

A lot of the plot gets driven along by Hunt (and therefore the reader) not knowing what the heck is going on.  Fuentes' lieutenants won't tell Hunt anything about the missions he's on with them, leaving him to kind of figure it out as they go along (which seemed really stupid - shouldn't you at least tell him vaguely what everyone is looking for so he has some way to actually be helpful?  Or, I don't know, what to watch out for so he can actually be on the lookout and not trigger anything/warn people if he sees stuff?)  They're also not particularly likeable as a bunch, especially through the first half of the book, making me miss Denise and Dmitri.  Sure, some of them kind of grew on me as the book went along. I think Perkins would have been endearing had he lived longer.  While I never cared for Fuentes or Rivera (they kind of made me think of mustache-twirling villains), Ilyana was also starting to become a more interesting character when she started opening up to Hunt (although I don't know how much of that was truthful).  But when Denise and Dmitri finally do show up, I still felt relieved that we're back to the people I actually care about.

What made this even worse was that at the end of the book, when Hunt, Denise, and Dmitri come up with some sort of plan to get themselves out of this mess, they also don't actually say what it is (the exact line when Hunt comes up with the plan was: "And I told them how we were all going to get out of this mess."  That was it.  Then the plan slowly gets parceled out over the next fifty pages).  I feel like this has happened in the other books, too, but it was particularly infuriating since the entirety of Watcher of the Dark was built off of withholding information.

Another thing that I really didn't get was Ilyana.  I'm not entirely sure what her entire powers were.  And a lot of what she could do seemed to make Hunt's addition to the team completely irrelevant.  She could see ghosts.  She could eat ghosts.  She presumably could see other people working magic (like Hunt could with his ghostsight).  Oh yeah, plus she was super strong and super fast. So why was he here again?

But to make it all weirder, she (and no one else for that matter) didn't seem to notice that Hunt was possessed later in the book.  Like possessed Hunt had passionate sex with her one night.  Then normal Hunt woke up confused as to why he was naked in her bed and where his clothes were.  Shouldn't she have noticed something weird with his aura or something?  Or did she notice and just not care?  I have no idea.

I'm also not entirely sure what happened with her at the end either.  She betrayed Hunt to Rivera and Fuentes.  But then Fuentes and Rivera betrayed her for some reason.  It seemed like she was going along with them, so I don't know why they needed to betray her (especially since after they did, they only took a bit of her blood but didn't kill her or anything).  Maybe they needed her as a sacrifice for a later part in their ritual that got interrupted?  But it seemed like the Gate to Hell was open already, so wasn't the ritual completed?  I honestly don't know.

But the book ends and Hunt has once again stopped the world from ending with the help of his friends.  Unfortunately the story doesn't actually end here, even though it is the last published book in the series.  The way it ended, with the FBI still searching for them, the Preacher being mad at Hunt, Gallagher's men still presumably after Hunt, and Ilyana and Rivera still out there, it makes me think there were supposed to be more books following this one.  But it came out in 2013 and there seems to be no further books in the series seven years later...

Actually, that brings me to one more question about Watcher of the Dark: where WAS the FBI?  Hunt was driving around LA, both with Fuentes' lieutenants and by himself, often in broad daylight and not at all trying to hide.  And Fuentes even calls Agent Doherty, who was Agent Robertson's protoge in King of the Dead.  Since they all believe Hunt is the serial killer known as the Reaper, shouldn't they have been all over LA looking for him, like they were all over New Orleans in King of the Dead???

Needless to say, Watcher of the Dark wasn't my favourite book in the Jeremiah Hunt Chronicles.  It kind of felt like a stepping stone to help the larger Jeremiah Hunt story along.  Unfortunately there just hasn't been any more of that larger story released to give this book more meaning. :(

King of the Dead

Well, I did it!  I actually read the second book in Joseph Nassise's Jeremiah Hunt trilogy, King of the Dead!

King of the Dead picks up a few months after Eyes to See.  Jeremiah, Denise Clearwater, and Dmitri have been lying low now that Jeremiah is on the FBI's most wanted list, being framed as the serial killer known as the Reaper, plus blamed for the death of Detective Stanton (even though he is innocent of that, too).  But as time goes on, Denise starts getting visions about the apocalypse happening in New Orleans that she has to be there for according to Gaia.  So despite Hunt's trepidation, the three of them make the journey.  The arrive to find the city's magical community in shambles.  Denise's old friend and ex-coven mate, Simon Gallagher, is the new Lord Marshall because everyone else is either dead or in a coma.  Some sort of plague is targeting the magical community, and as much as Hunt would rather be ANYWHERE else, because Denise refuses to leave, he remains to help her figure it out.

King of the Dead was an interesting read.  I liked how the FBI agent tracking Hunt got his own chapters (I actually found myself wishing there were more!) It was also neat to see how the magical community worked (or at least functioned since many of its leaders were out of the picture).  I also really liked the mystery of the disease and how Hunt's ghostvision ended up key to helping everyone figure it out.

But I didn't really like the end of the book.  There was what I'm going to call a "final showdown" in New Orleans where the book felt like it was going to wrap up.  But then the story kept going for another fifty pages.  And those last fifty pages felt rushed.  This may have been on purpose, as Hunt himself then had a tight time frame, but it just didn't feel very satisfying at all (especially since there was only one chapter from Denise's perspective, where maybe a second one could have taken the time to flesh out what was happening a bit more - although again, this was probably deliberate that there wasn't a second Denise chapter so the reader could be more shocked by what happened when Hunt found her).  The very end is also rather abrupt so, I suspect, the story can continue in book 3 right where this leaves off.  This is all really unfortunate, as up until this rushed and kind of unsatisfying ending, I was really enjoying the book.

With that being said though, I'm still interested to see where Watcher of the Dark takes us....

Eyes to See (Reread)

This is a bit embarrassing (yet also somewhat par for the course for me, unfortunately) - years ago, I read (and loved) Eyes to See by Joseph Nassise.  At that time I couldn't wait to get my hands on book 2 in the trilogy.  But then for whatever reason, I just never actually read it.  I've taken the trilogy out periodically from the local library, but never read more than book 1.  I think as the years passed it was harder and harder to go back because I didn't really remember Eyes to See anymore. 

So a few days ago, I decided I was going to remedy that.  I once again took the trilogy out from the library (super glad they're all still available!) and actually started rereading Eyes to See.  A large part of this decision came from me feeling like reading something I actually want to read, not something I feel like I HAVE to read (which just seems to keep happening in life).

It was very interesting going back to it, six years later.  I only remembered some of the vague story beats.  I remembered Jeremiah Hunt, and how he had given up his eyesight to find his daughter, which ushered him into a supernatural world.  I remembered the ghostsm Scream and Whisper (but not necessarily their names).  And I vaguely remembered that Hunt found her by the end, and was on the run from something by the end of the book; that was about it.

What I didn't remember was the actual goings-on.  Hunt gets called in by Detective Stanton to investigate a murder scene.  Stanton thinks Hunt is a psychic, and Hunt has no intention of telling Stanton otherwise.  The murder is a gruesome one, and the murderer left writing in several dead languages on the walls.  As an ex-professor who specialized in dead languages, the writing in particular intrigues Hunt, but so does a familiar-seeming charm he finds at the crime scene.  When a second body is found with the same writing (and yet another charm, which Hunt realizes came from a charm bracelet that his daughter had), he realizes this may be the lead he has been searching for over these five long years to finally find her!

The world that Nassise built, especially around the ghosts, is still so interesting.  I liked the first encounter where Hunt is hired to exorcise a ghost from an apartment building, and Hunt goes through all the levels of ghosts that he's encountered (and how this particular ghost hid its true nature).  I actually would have liked to see a bit more of that sort of thing, but oh well, the story is still good without it.

This time around, I admit that I had a harder time getting into it though.  I'm not entirely sure why....but I suspect that it had to do with Hunt being on his own.  I know that the first time I read Eyes to See, I didn't really like some of the interactions between Hunt and the other characters; this time, I actually preferred those moments over Hunt being on his own.  I really liked Dimitri, and loved Stanton - he was the perfect foil to Hunt (and I loved how once he saw real evidence of the supernatural in terms of the fetch, he was all on board with stopping it because he knew it was dangerous).  I think I liked Denise more this time around too - the hedge witch was a very capable woman on her own.

I'm once again excited to read book 2; this time I'm actually going to read it, too! ;)