White Witch, Black Curse (Hollows, #7)

by Kim Harrison

[tellemonstar]

Cross-posted at Book Review With the Blogmonstar

In White Witch, Black Curse Rachel is still trying to deal with the fact that Kisten’s murderer is an unknown entity. We are also introduced to a completely new antagonist, of the type we have yet to encounter.

Rachel also has to deal with some family drama – specifically her brother Robbie coming back home, and announcing he is getting married. He also tries his hardest to get in the way of Rachel going after the bad guys in this one. He thinks she needs to ‘grow-up and get a real job’. His words. He also told his fiancée all about Rachel and apparently she wants to do her research thesis on Rachel, which as you might imagine, freaks our girl out somewhat.

Our new breed of baddie in this one is a Banshee. On top of that there is a baby Banshee as well. White Witch, Black Curse has just about everything you could find in an urban fantasy, or so it seems. The past that is coming back to haunt her is the ghost of a shunned witch named Gordian Pierce, who no-one realises has been haunting the church for a year until Ford (the FBI psychiatrist/empath who we met a few books back) is sitting in the kitchen and realises he is there. Apparently he”s the one who has been changing Rachel’s phone ring-tones. Apparently Rachel tried to summon the ghost of her dad when she was 18, and got him instead. She’s pretty sure it’s where she got her taste in men from.

The whole storyline is a bit wobbly in parts, and some of characters’ decisions don’t make a whole lot of sense. Whilst that is pretty much the norm with Rachel, it’s not so true with many of the others. The whole ‘let’s find Kisten’s murderer and kick his butt’ plot got a bit stepped on by the whole Banshee thing, and the resolution to it seemed more like an afterthought than a true resolution.

All in all the best parts about this one were Jenks and Al, both of whom are very interesting and vivid characters, who always add something to the books. I was glad to pretty much see the back of Rachel’s brother, because he was annoying.