Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane
The Blurb On The Back:
The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of haunting from those hoping to profit.
Enter Chess Putnam, witch and freewheeling ghost hunter, with a real talent for nailing the liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret: a little drug problem.
Chess owes a murderous drug lord a lot of money. And he wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is clear undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, and a nefarious demonic creature. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to her dealer’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it.
Hell, yeah.
Chess Putnam lives in an alternate future, where ghosts came back to Earth in the 1990s. Established religion crumbled under the ghosts’ onslaught and society rebuilt itself around the Church of Real Truth, which trains and uses of exorcists and witches and pays compensation to people who find themselves subject to unwanted hauntings.
Chess is a Church exorcist who investigates haunting claims and earns a bonus for each claim she debunks. She also has a big drug problem. When her dealer, Bump, calls in her debt he gives her a choice - either his henchman, Terrible, can punish her with his fists, or she can exorcise the ghosts currently haunting a local airport that Bump wants to use to bring in his merchandise.
In agreeing to help, Chess finds that she’s taken on more than she bargained for. The airport ghosts have been drawn by black magic, which is forbidden by the Church. Unable to turn to her Church colleagues for fear of revealing her drug problem, she has to find out who’s responsible for the black magic to drive the ghosts away. Her task is complicated by rival dealer, Lex, who wants to pay her not to help Bump and by the fact that Bump has sent Terrible to make sure that she does what she’s supposed to.
Stacia Kane’s novel is a dark and gritty read set in a dystopian world still recovering from and dealing with the rise of the dead. Chess Putnam is a very different type of fantasy heroine - her drug use is a serious flaw but not one that she apologises for and whose hard upbringing and the things that she’s seen explains her reliance on pills without justifying it. Even so, she’s smart, determined and resourceful enough to hold the interest.
The men in the book are not typical romantic leads. Terrible is a brutal looking man who beats people up and issues threats on behalf of Bump but as Chess gets to know him, she finds a more thoughtful, gentler side. Lex is an alpha male in an unsavoury line of business - sexy and articulate he’s the ultimate bad boy who still makes Chess spark.
The mystery plays out well and there’s plenty of scope with the world building, which has a new twist on ghosts and centralised authority. I’m interested enough to read the next in this series.
The Verdict:
A dark and gritty urban fantasy with a flawed, drug-taking heroine who’s nevertheless gutsy and determined in her own way. There’s a good twist on the all-too-common these days romance element, with Chess faced with love interests not cut from the usual mould. I look forward to reading the next in the series.
UNHOLY GHOSTS was published in the UK on 8th July.
Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC.
Cross-posted to bookish and fantasywithbite.
The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of haunting from those hoping to profit.
Enter Chess Putnam, witch and freewheeling ghost hunter, with a real talent for nailing the liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret: a little drug problem.
Chess owes a murderous drug lord a lot of money. And he wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is clear undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, and a nefarious demonic creature. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to her dealer’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it.
Hell, yeah.
Chess Putnam lives in an alternate future, where ghosts came back to Earth in the 1990s. Established religion crumbled under the ghosts’ onslaught and society rebuilt itself around the Church of Real Truth, which trains and uses of exorcists and witches and pays compensation to people who find themselves subject to unwanted hauntings.
Chess is a Church exorcist who investigates haunting claims and earns a bonus for each claim she debunks. She also has a big drug problem. When her dealer, Bump, calls in her debt he gives her a choice - either his henchman, Terrible, can punish her with his fists, or she can exorcise the ghosts currently haunting a local airport that Bump wants to use to bring in his merchandise.
In agreeing to help, Chess finds that she’s taken on more than she bargained for. The airport ghosts have been drawn by black magic, which is forbidden by the Church. Unable to turn to her Church colleagues for fear of revealing her drug problem, she has to find out who’s responsible for the black magic to drive the ghosts away. Her task is complicated by rival dealer, Lex, who wants to pay her not to help Bump and by the fact that Bump has sent Terrible to make sure that she does what she’s supposed to.
Stacia Kane’s novel is a dark and gritty read set in a dystopian world still recovering from and dealing with the rise of the dead. Chess Putnam is a very different type of fantasy heroine - her drug use is a serious flaw but not one that she apologises for and whose hard upbringing and the things that she’s seen explains her reliance on pills without justifying it. Even so, she’s smart, determined and resourceful enough to hold the interest.
The men in the book are not typical romantic leads. Terrible is a brutal looking man who beats people up and issues threats on behalf of Bump but as Chess gets to know him, she finds a more thoughtful, gentler side. Lex is an alpha male in an unsavoury line of business - sexy and articulate he’s the ultimate bad boy who still makes Chess spark.
The mystery plays out well and there’s plenty of scope with the world building, which has a new twist on ghosts and centralised authority. I’m interested enough to read the next in this series.
The Verdict:
A dark and gritty urban fantasy with a flawed, drug-taking heroine who’s nevertheless gutsy and determined in her own way. There’s a good twist on the all-too-common these days romance element, with Chess faced with love interests not cut from the usual mould. I look forward to reading the next in the series.
UNHOLY GHOSTS was published in the UK on 8th July.
Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC.
Cross-posted to bookish and fantasywithbite.