Haunted

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Supernatural, Canadian
Type: Trade Paperback
Source: Own
Pages: 448
Series: #5 in the Women of the Underworld series
Publisher: Vintage Canada
First Published: 2005
First Line: "France, 1666 - Marie-Madeline lit the flame under the bowl."

Book Description from GoodReads: Eve Levine—half-demon, black witch and devoted mother—has been dead for three years. She has a great house, an interesting love life and can’t be killed again — which comes in handy when you’ve made as many enemies as Eve. Yes, the afterlife isn’t too bad — all she needs to do is find a way to communicate with her daughter, Savannah, and she’ll be happy.

But fate—or more exactly, the Fates—have other plans. Eve owes them a favor, and they’ve just called it in. An evil spirit called the Nix has escaped from hell. She feeds on chaos and death, and is very good at persuading people to kill for her. The Fates want Eve to hunt her down before she does any more damage, but the Nix is a dangerous enemy—previous hunters have been driven insane in the process. As if that’s not problem enough, the only way to stop her is with an angel’s sword. And Eve is no angel....

My Review: One of my goals in 2016 is to finish Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Underworld series so I'm re-reading the first 6 books that I originally read years ago.  Going into Haunted, I knew that it was my least favourite book in the series so far but I was re-reading it to A) remember what had transpired in the book so future books would make sense and B) hopefully get a better connection with Eve.  

For the first third of the book I really enjoyed it and found it fast-paced.  I started to wonder why I hadn't loved it the first time around.  But then the pace got really bogged down and for the remainder of the book it was a struggle to finish ... again.

I had two big issues with this book both times I read it.  First, the story hinges on the reader understanding Armstrong's description of the afterlife.  I found her descriptions quite convoluted with various afterlife dimensions including ghost/demon hell and even an island of ghost pirates.  Wha?  There's also the confusing issue of ghosts being able to harm each other in the Afterworld.  How does one land a punch with a ghost if you're also a ghost?  Angels also make an appearance into the melee but the angel that Eve deals with is no avenging angel.  He comes off as kind of a wuss who is constantly making mistakes and leaving Eve and Kristoff to pick up the pieces so it was really hard to like him.

The other issue is that I never felt like I really got to know Eve.  When she was mentioned in previous books she was a hell raiser but in this book she felt like a different person.  Not as tough.  I liked seeing her maternal side but thought she'd bring more energy and sass to the story.

I hate to give a book in this series a low rating but this one missed the target (twice) for me.  That said, I'm really looking forward to moving on in the series with my favourites, Elena and Clay, in Broken.

My Rating: 2.5/5 stars