Unholy Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, #1) (Chess Putnam, #3)

by Stacia Kane

[celinenyx]

Chess makes an unlikely urban fantasy heroine: addicted to drugs, orphaned, and an exorcist of the totalitarian Church that has taken over the power after ghosts came back to kill the living. While Unholy Ghosts felt like an interesting departure from the stock and trade vampire/werewolf contemporary settings of other urban fantasy books, it didn't completely deliver either.

If I had to describe Unholy Ghosts in one word, it would be 'grim'. Everything from the setting, after an apocalyptic event that killed off half the world's population, to the main character's outlook is pretty damn grimy and bleak. It's a violent world, and it doesn't help that Chess routinely consorts with the underworld due to her drug addiction. For me, if a setting is dark like this, you need pinpoints of light and hope to hold on to, to keep reading. These were too far and few in between - the only minor relief if brought by a mild sexual tension with the drug dealer's enforcer, Terrible. Chess's characterisation was lacking - I am perfectly willing to read about a person's battle with their demons, but it seemed like Chess didn't actually have any. Apart from her orphanhood, there seems to be no deeper layer to her personality, no darkness that explains why she is so heavily reliant on the (largely fictional) pills she keeps popping throughout the book. Although I didn't necessarily need the story to have a redemption/recovery arc, there should be some digging into a certain trauma or foundational events. As it is, Chess is bland and uninteresting.

A lot is going on in this book: a family is being haunted, Chess becomes embroiled with a drug dealer who wants her to check out an airfield, and someone is out to kill her. Yet because Chess's drug-addled and emotionally bland state is our lens into the world, all events become rather bland themselves as well. Despite the plot chugging along, the book felt boring, and I kept putting it down to read other books instead. Witchcraft is usually my cup of tea, but not even some witchy rituals held my attention for long, because the magic system felt elusive and unsubstantiated.

Unholy Ghosts has an interesting premise and setting, but the story drags and falls into pointless bleakness.

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Trigger warnings: strong violence and gore. The main character's love interest graphically beats up someone who assaulted her. Death, ghosts, imprisonment, and a long sequence set in (claustrophobic) underground tunnels. Untreated drug addiction.