Whitley’s review of Blood of the Wicked (Dark Mission #1) by Karina Cooper
When the world went straight to hell, humanity needed a scapegoat to judge, to blame . . . to burn.
As an independent witch living off the grid, Jessie Leigh has spent her life running, trying to blend in among the faceless drudges in the rebuilt city. She thought she was finally safe, but now she’s been found in a New Seattle strip club—by a hard-eyed man on a mission to destroy her kind.
A soldier of the Holy Order, Silas Smith believes in the cause: trawling the fringes of society for the murderous witches who threaten what’s left of the world. Forced into a twisting web of half-truths and lies, he has to stay close to the most sensuous and electrifying woman he has ever seen and manipulate her into leading him to the he witch he has to kill: her brother. Silas doesn’t know that Jessie’s his enemy, only that he wants her, needs her, even as he lies to her… and must protect her until his final breath.
I was attracted to this book because of the setting, and wow this book delivered. I have an unabashed love for out-in-the-open urban fantasies, and this book mixed it with a kind of dystopia/quasi-apocalypse feel. Everything was dirty and gritty and dangerous and falling apart, but the book toed the line of making it hard without going so overboard that it went into melodramatic. I loved a lot of the details in here, and their society makes sense.
Our two main leads were fun, as we got to watch them muddle through attempts at mutual lying and secret-keeping. Each of them has a hidden agenda, and that made for some good tension in the relationship. Again, without going completely over-the-top with it, though. Kudos. I thought Silas was a bit bland, with really nothing to set him apart from all the other muscle-y, brooding guys in this genre. On the other hand, if that’s your type, he does fill it out rather nicely. Jessie had the more interesting conflict, and I did greatly reading the chapters that were focused on her. The two of them had decent chemistry together, but…the sex scenes really put me off. Not because they weren’t hot, but rather because they kept bumping uglies at the most inappropriate times possible. Why have a sex scene in the middle of a murderous chase when five pages later they’re back in a safe house? Why not just have sex there? Maybe it’s just me, but that level of self-destructive lust always feels disingenuous.
The plot had a lot of action to keep it moving along, with the romance tucked in here and there but rarely slowing things down. Although I can’t say I was very invested in the mystery. The whole thing was so fantastical that there was no way for me to even try to figure it out. Usually with mysteries the thing keeping me going is seeing if I guessed right, but in this book, that wasn’t an option. Dead bodies all around? Well, it was something magic that we haven’t explained yet, so your only option is to wait in the dark.
Overall a good start to what promises to be an interesting series.
Rating: 4 out of 5
This title is available from Avon. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.
