Hanover, M.L.N.: Vicious Grace
Vicious Grace (2010)
Written by: M.L.N. Hanover
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 367 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: Book Three (ongoing)
M.L.N. Hanover (pseudonym for Daniel Abraham) has a must-have series for me. The instant a new book is released, I've got to get my grubby paws on it. In truth, it took me longer to get around to reading this than I would've liked, but I was reading the epic beast that was our December challenge, so I figure I have an excuse. And, for a lovely bit of trivia that no one cares about: my review on 12/27/09, last year? Was M.L.N. Hanover's Darker Angels. Isn't that fun?
The premise: ganked from BN.com: For the first time in forever, Jayné Heller’s life is making sense. Even if she routinely risks her life to destroy demonic parasites that prey on mortals, she now has friends, colleagues, a trusted lover, and newfound confidence in the mission she inherited from her wealthy, mysterious uncle. Her next job might just rob her of all of them. At Grace Memorial Hospital in Chicago, something is stirring. Patients are going AWOL and research subjects share the same sinister dreams. Half a century ago, something was buried under Grace in a terrible ritual, and it’s straining to be free. Jayné is primed to take on whatever’s about to be let loose. Yet the greatest danger now may not be the huge, unseen force lurking below, but the evil that has been hiding in plain sight all along-taking her ever closer to losing her body, her mind, and her soul. . . .
Review style: Hanover has a way of presenting readers will a typical urban fantasy situation and then turning said situation on its head. Conventions be damned, and I want to talk about some of those damned conventions and the risks Hanover takes with this third installment in the series, and talk about what it means to have an answer to one of my ongoing theories about this series. SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Please skip to "My Rating" if you'd like to remain unspoiled; otherwise, onward!
How bad is it that I'd forgotten all about Aubrey's ex by time I picked up this book? I read the prologue rather blindly, thinking I didn't know any of these characters, only to learn in the first chapter that the Kim referred to was Kim the ex-wife, and I'd completely forgotten about her! Well, that's not entirely true: I didn't forget the fact that Aubrey was divorced. I just forgot the name of the ex, so obviously, she didn't make that much of an impression. That or I've slept since then. Probably the latter. At any rate, I was quickly brought up to speed with the story, the characters, and what they've been up to so far in such a way that didn't require any info-dumping, and that I appreciate. Jayné is still a character who's really not comfortable in her own skin. She doesn't understand the skills she has, and she would do anything to protect this group of people she considers her family. She also, in an effort to prove (to herself? to others?) that she's the real deal, tends to rush into danger headfirst without thinking of the consequences. Does that come back to bite her in the ass later? Kind of, but what really sticks out about this book really isn't the current mystery of the spooky hospital where patients are all dreaming of the same demon trying to crawl out of a coffin. Rather, it's the personal revelations that pop up and what they mean to the heroine, and how those revelations turn the typical urban fantasy conventions on their head.
For example: love interests: we knew, thanks to Unclean Spirits, that Aubrey's an older man (not the older vampire/werewolf kind of man, but the human sort of ten years or so), and that when he and Jayné first slept together, he was still married to his estranged wife. Talk about blowing my mind. Now that he's divorced, and Aubrey and Jayné seem to have settled into a routine, with only one thing hanging over Jayné's head: Kim told her that she'd cheated on Aubrey, and the man she'd slept with was Eric, Jayné's uncle. Jayné hasn't told Eric (after all, it's not her secret to tell), but rather than take the traditional, melodramatic route of Aubrey discovering the secret and having a hissy fit and breaking him and Jayné apart until he sees reason, something darker happens.
Oh, don't get me wrong, the revelation of the secret still drives them apart, but for a much more important reason than simple secret-keeping.
Turns out, Kim was never in love with Eric, Jayné's bad-ass, demon-hunting uncle. She didn't enjoy the sex, wasn't sure why she kept coming to him, and finally left because she hated what it was doing to herself and her marriage. She divorced Aubrey out of guilt, not because she no longer loved him.
And thanks to the current mystery of the same demon popping up in patients' dreams, Jayné, Kim, Aubrey, and the rest of the team learn WHY Kim was having an affair with Eric.
In a word, he targeted her and Aubrey, insinuated himself between them, molded them to work in places HE needed them, and seduced Kim in order drive the final nail in the coffin.
And by seduced, I mean he used magic. And when I say he used magic, I mean what he did essentially amounted to rape.
It was pretty shocking to realize that it wasn't really Kim and Aubrey's fault that their marriage fell apart. Shocking still was seeing Eric's POV from his journals as to how he did it and how he viewed Kim in the process. Worse was realizing that yes, what happened was rape, and it wasn't until Kim was given the word that she could look at the entire experience in the right context. Heartbreaking was the realization that Jayné's decision to fire Aubrey from the group and break up with him had to be done: there was no way they could've moved forward, and Aubrey needs the chance to be away from all things related to Eric and to get his life back on track, to figure out if he wants to rediscover his marriage before Eric wrecked.
It's realistic and it's painful, because as the reader, we want Jayné to be happy. Other authors wouldn't do this, or if they did, it'd be done in such a way that there'd be no question that the romantic interest would stick with the heroine, you know? I'm shocked to see the route this book took, but by the end, it was the right choice. Jayné's growing up, and making this decision proves what kind of stuff she's really made of.
Of course, this discovery leads Jayné and her team to reconsider everything Eric did in a new light. They're realizing that Eric may have been the bad guy, which really twists my perception of what happened in earlier books. Instead of a good thing, Jayné bringing down the Invisible College may have been a BAD thing. Or maybe not. Maybe it really is as Jayné suspects: Eric was the better of two evils, but still, evil. And now she has to worry about who she is and what she is becoming.
Because the last line of the book (and indeed, several portions of dialogue with the demon, as well as a clue to the series' title of The Black Sun's Daughter) has confirmed my suspicion that Jayné has a rider, and I'll be shocked if it wasn't Eric who put it there. And given the few clues we get in the book, I'm better her rider is The Black Sun's Daughter. Seriously, we get some juicy world-building stuff, and now that the team is down to Jayné, Ex, and Chogyi Jake, I can't wait for the next book in the series to take off. And hell, I'm just glad Chogyi Jake survived to BE in the next book! After breaking it off with Aubrey, the author really had me worried Chogyi Jake was going to bite the dust. He almost did. Dang if Hanover didn't have me completely worked up!
My Rating
Must Have: There's a lot this book has to offer: serious growth for the heroine, and it's painful growth at that. Jayné and the readers learn a lot of painful truths about other characters and their motivations, and these truths tie into the plot in a necessary way. It's a good read and an excellent use of title (because it's so accurate), but I'll be damned if Hanover didn't have me scared to death, because after one punch, you're convinced that the whole world's going to fall apart around our heroine. And in a way, it does. The last line of the book is a killer, even though I knew it was coming eventually, but it leaves me salivating for the next installment, Killing Rites. Now that Jayné has a new way of looking at the supernatural world around her, what will it reveal? And how is she going to handle it? You learn a lot in this book about Eric and his ties to his team and why Jayné has the magical protections that she does, and trust me, it's good stuff. Hanover's The Black Sun's Daughter has easily become one of my favorite urban fantasy series, and I can't wait to read more.
Cover Commentary: Love it. Yeah, it's the typical kick-ass heroine in tattoos and leather, and while Jayné would never dress like this, there's something to the tattoos that hasn't been revealed yet, so I'm good. But I love the reds and the background images. Short of the very first cover, in which I wanted to feed Jayné a sandwich, I've been pleased with the overall design and art of the series so far.
Next up: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay