Just Finished Reading: Witchling by Yasmine Galenorn

Three sisters, all half-elf, one half-witch, one half-shapeshifter and one half-vampire are employed by the Otherworld Intelligence Agency (I kid you not) to keep an eye on things Earthside. Humanity is still getting used to having real, live supernatural creatures walk amongst them and things could get all too easily out of hand. Already several anti-otherworld organisations have sprung up and are causing trouble. But deep in the Under-realm things are stirring. There’s a new demon in town who is fast becoming top dog in that most deadly of environments. He’s out for ultimate power and intends to join all three realms together as his personal playground. To do this he needs nine keys to open the portals between the worlds letting the army he has amassed wreak havoc – unless the sisters can stop him.

So, is anyone else channelling ‘Charmed’ here? Apart from the author that is. For a while I was definitely cutting her some slack. It’s her first novel I thought (it wasn’t) or she’s writing it for a young teen audience (presumably not from the several fairly explicit sex scenes). By about the half way mark I’d pretty much given up hope that things would improve – and hopefully not get any worse. They didn’t – either way. This was cliché piled on cliché, poor characterisation, terrible dialogue and a barely rational plot. Just about the only reason I finished it at all was that it was so vacuous that it required almost no effort to read. Unfortunately I already have the next two books in the series (I think they were a birthday present from my Amazon Wish List – that’ll teach me!). I have doubts that I’ll get around to the next two but never say never and all that. If you want a fun, light and fast urban fantasy read I’d really pick something else. Avoid.