Review: The Witch With No Name by Kim Harrison

Title: The Witch With No Name
Author: Kim Harrison
Release date: September 2014
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Series: The Hollows
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Description: Rachel Morgan has come a long way since her early days as an inexperienced bounty hunter. She’s faced vampires and werewolves, banshees, witches, and soul-eating demons. She’s crossed worlds, channelled gods, and accepted her place as a day-walking demon. She’s lost friends and lovers and family, and an old enemy has unexpectedly become something much more.

But power demands responsibility, and world-changers must always pay a price. Rachel knew that this day would come – and now it is here.

To save Ivy’s soul and the rest of the living vampires, to keep the demonic ever-after and our own world from destruction, Rachel Morgan will risk everything . . .

My thoughts: When you read a series over a number of years, there are always mixed feeling as you hold the last one in your hands. I had hopes, expectations, sadness that it would soon be done, and a little fear that it might not be a 'good' ending, tying things up well. Of course, this is Kim Harrison, and after reading this series for the past 10 years or so, I should know I can trust her.

The main conflict of this book is that Cormel, vampire leader of Cincinnati wants Rachel to solve the problem of vampires keeping their souls in their 'second life'. And he wants her to do it NOW. Rachel's learnt to stand up for herself, but Cormel knows her weak points: her friends.

Things quickly escalate, and soon there are elves and demons mixed up in the problem too. There is some lying, some double crossing, and some very cute moments. Even with all the rushing around in the books, Rachel gets some time alone with Trent and their relationship continues to grow and change.  You get to see pretty much all of Rachel's friends and family in this book, including the werewolves, the elf children, Jenks' family...

I don't want to talk too much about the plot, so let me focus instead on the questions I had before starting. Yes, this is a great final book of the series. It wraps up the big issues and it has a story of its own without being a book-long epilogue. There will be other issues for Rachel and her friends after the book finishes, but we don't see them, and I don't think we need to. This series for me has been a perfect example of excellent writing: characters who grow and change in a clear but gradual way over the series; an overarching plot connecting all the books; individual plots distinct to each book; an engaging romance element; well developed secondary characters; and now - a good, rounded off ending.

If for some reason you haven't read this series yet, feel confident that you can go straight from one book to the next with no waiting now, and that there's a good ending. If you've been holding off reading this last one: it's safe, I promise! Go out and buy it now! :)

I give this book, of course, ten out of ten.

~Ailsa

Review: Hollow Pike, by James Dawson

Title: Hollow Pike

Author: James Dawson

Publisher: Indigo (New YA imprint from Orion)

Release date: 2 February 2012

Source: ARC from publisher

Description: She thought she'd be safe in the country, but you can't escape your own nightmares, and Lis London dreams repeatedly that someone is trying to kill her.

Lis thinks she's being paranoid - after all who would want to murder her? She doesn't believe in the local legends of witchcraft. She doesn't believe that anything bad will really happen to her. You never do, do you?

Not until you're alone, in the woods, after dark - and a twig snaps...

My thoughts: From the moment I read the description of this book back in November/December, I wanted to read it. I can totally relate to the paranoia here - I come from the middle of nowhere, and when I'm walking the dogs on my own, I always get jumpy. You don't really think someone is there, but if you here a sudden noise, it puts you really on edge. I love how, in the few sentences on the back cover it captures that jumpiness, which is something that runs throughout the book.

Hollow Pike was... not quite what I was expecting, at first. It starts with Lis moving to the village of Hollow Pike to live with her grown-up sister Sarah, to start over at a new school because she was being bullied. Yes, someone starting at a new school is something we've seen before in YA novels (a lot), but I like it. It's a good way for the main character and the reader to learn things at the same time, gradually, without having an info dump to get the reader up to speed.

In many ways, Hollow Pike is a story about bullying. Having come for her fresh start, Lis falls in with the 'popular' crowd, and watches as they bully other people. I hated seeing Lis just standing watching what her new 'friends' were doing. Even though I could sort of see why she didn't want to end up being picked on again, I think if she'd done something when she first saw what kind of people the girls were, and left to find other friends, she would have been fine. However, after an incident where Lis is seen talking to Queen Bee Laura's crush, the posse turn on her, and she finds herself a victim once more. The only good thing about this is that it leads are to some new friends, who actually seem genuine.

Of course the other big part of Hollow Pike is the witchcraft. In the first chapter, before she arrives, Lis dreams about crawling along a stream in the woods, and someone drowning her. It's a nightmare she's had a lot, and when her mum drives through a 'shortcut' in the woods to get to Sarah's house, Lis is shocked to realise that it's the wood from her dream. Witches are tied in to the history of the village - everyone knows it, but no one really believes it. Then a girl is murdered in the woods, and Lis's dreams get worse. Although she keeps telling herself she doesn't believe it, creepy things keep happening. She feels like she's being watched. Birds go quiet when she walks past. A creepy shop owner tells her that her dreams are a warning.

I spent the whole book trying to work out who the bad guy was. I was fairly convinced that there was something witchy going on, but still found myself questioning if that was just because of the stories about witches in Hollow Pike. I kept changing who I thought was behind everything, every time Lis found something new that seemed to point in a different direction. I really didn't guess who it was until it was far too late, just like Lis.

Bullying, in various forms, remains a theme of the book all the way through. I think it's a very good look at how it affects people, why people get caught up in it, and different kinds of bullying and prejudice. Woven through that is the paranoia of the witches, and trying to work out what is going on, if Lis is just imagining things, and if not then who is targeting her and why. It really is an excellent read, one of the best young adult novels I've read in a long time. I can't wait to see what James Dawson comes up with next. Writing this review, I realise just how well certain things were slipped in to the novel to emphasise the themes - I wish I'd had this book when I was trying to write english essays in high school, because there would have been so much to write about!

I could go on, but before you all get bored of reading, I give this book 10 out of 10. A brilliant, gripping story that fans of slightly more realistic young adult books will love.

~Ailsa