Customer Reviews

Draw One in the Dark

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book takes place in and a round a greasy spoon in Goldport Colorado. It follows the adventures of some tough minded night shifters working there that are just barely managing to keep their heads above water, right up until it rains.

I'm usually good at spotting plot twists and this book kept me guessing and disbelieving until the end. Kudos to the newest author on my must buy list.

It should also be noted that i read this book immediately after something by my favorite author and this book is still getting such a high rating.

This is a wonderful fast, funny book packaged in the worst cover I've ever seen. My copy, the cover has been removed and destroyed with prejudice.

What's inside the cover is a modern take on the ancient shape-shifting myths, wrapped around an adventure as a young man terrified of losing his soul to the dragon within fights to stay ahead of Triads, mysterious killers, and a lovely young woman who is also a panther and who attracts him much more than he wants to admit.

I couldn't put it down - it's a fantastic read. Just ignore the cover.

Kyrie Smith had been looking for a place to belong. She thought she'd found it in Goldport, Colorado. She had a job as a waitress in the Athens, a Greek diner. She'd even managed to rent a small house with a patch of yard for a garden. It may not seem like much to others but it meant stability and normalcy for Kyrie -- who occasionally turned into a panther. Life was pretty good for a change, that is until Tom Ormson missed his shift at the diner and Kyrie found him naked and covered with blood next to a body in the parking lot.

But that's not all, she'd seen Tom as he'd changed from Nordic dragon to man. And then there was the lion that also seemed to be strangely compelling and not what he seemed in the diner's parking lot. Kyrie went from believing herself the only shapeshifter in the world to meeting two. One accepted and loved by his parents and one who'd been tossed out onto the streets when he first changed forms. For Kyrie, who'd never known family she found that maybe she could at least have friends.

There are at least four plot threads that intersect in Draw One in the Dark. They are all deftly woven together with changing points of view. It's also not a straight narrative but the flashbacks and changing point of view are not confusing and seem to fill in information at just the right time. The characters are slowly revealed to be more than what they seemed at first. While shapeshifting is not a new trope, it is handled in a different manner showing the reader the drawbacks to shapeshipfting. It's impact on relationships, family bonds, livelihood, and love.

Over the many years I've been reading science fiction and fantasy, I've seen many attempts to integrate `shifters' (people who can change into another physical form) into a plausible part of the modern world. This is the first work that succeeds, and on many levels. It is a good mystery, with enough clues to keep you guessing. The explanation of `shifters', and `shifting' in general, is seamlessly integrated in the story, without distracting from the action. It is also a coming of age tale.
First-rate storytelling, characters you can see (and smell) and care about, a tale that starts off quickly and never slows down. So come into the diner, hang up your stuff, sit down and enjoy the ride.

I enjoyed this book because it's a new look at an old trick. The perspective of the shifted person is nicely modified; the shifting is more laborious and even painful. Life is gritty, the dialogue is realistic, and the people are solid characters. I could see the events unfolding almost as if it had been an X-Files episode (in the good years).

I'm looking forward to more of this author, and more of these characters. I plan to get a good seat in one of those booths by the window, along with a piece of pie and coffee, and just watch the story unfolding before my eyes.

The author was able to give a unique slant to the whole were-shifter concept. She has taken an old idea, and dragged it into the 21st century. I found the book to be a fast paced, exciting read. One difficult to put down, I found myself caring for the characters....
I heartily encourage everyone to invest in the purchase of this book, you won't be sorry. It is a great book!

Draw One in the Dark (2006) is the first fantasy novel in the Shifters series. It is set in Goldport, Colorado, a small mining town that has become the home of a major university.

In this novel, she calls herself Kyrie Grace Smith. As a newborn dropped off at the entrance of a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, she doesn't know her real name. She was placed in a foster home as a foundling and lived in many other foster homes until she became an adult.

But then she passed through Goldport and felt so comfortable and at ease that she stayed. She got a job waiting tables at the Athens -- a local greasy spoon -- on her first day in town and still works there. Now she lives in a tiny house that is her own personal home (as long as she pays the rent).

Tom Ormson also works as a waiter at the Athens. He has been on the road since being thrown out of his house at the age of sixteen. He had been a holy terror as a toddler and a delinquent as a teenager. Since leaving home, he has also been an addict -- heroin and many other drugs -- but quits after getting a job at the Athens.

Rafiel Trall is a Goldport cop. His father and grandfather were Goldport cops. He was named for a character in two Agatha Christie mystery novels. Rafiel has had little choice in his career path.

Keith Vorpal lives in the same apartment building as Tom. Since they both lose their keys a lot, they have an arrangement that each holds spare keys for the other. Keith figures that Tom is also a womanizer like himself.

Frank Skathari is the cook and owner of the Athens. He serves standard fare, but also a little souvlaki and other Greek cuisine. A gruff character with Neanderthal eyebrows, he has little trouble with the customers in this rundown section of town.

Edward Ormson is Tom's father. He has been divorced from Tom's mother for ten years. One day, Edward had threatened Tom with a pistol and forced him out of the home.

In this story, Kyrie hears a scream from the back parking lot and goes out to investigate. Stepping outside, she smells the scent of blood. Shifting into a black panther, she follows the smell.

She reaches a pool of blood and a body. Abruptly, she notices a shadow on the other side. It is a Nordic dragon with blood on its muzzle. Then it shifts back to its human form and becomes Tom. As Kyrie is taking the naked Tom to her car, a lion appears and follows them.

Kyrie and Tom find his apartment destroyed. A trio of Asian thugs threaten them and then turn to Oriental dragons. Kyrie shifts and starts to slash at them. Tom turns and carries the enraged panther out the broken window.

Fleeing the dragons, they reshift and drive away in the car. Reaching Kyrie's house, they treat each other's wounds. Then Rafiel shows up at her front door and asks to speak to her. He has eyes like the lion in the back parking lot.

Eventually, Rafiel tells Kyrie that shifters have been disappearing around Goldport. None on the force except himself are shifters, so they are not aware of the situation. Bodies have been recovered that were severed in two, so the police are looking for an oversize Komodo dragon. But the body in the parking lot does not match the others except that it too is a shifter.

The Great Sky Dragon -- a golden Oriental reptile with wings -- is responsible for the bodies bitten in half. He has punished a few members of the Triad of the Dragon for not finding the Pearl of Heaven that Tom has supposedly hidden. Naturally, the Great Sky Dragon is an ancient shifter.

The Great Sky Dragon also takes Edward to Goldport to recover the pearl. Edward meets Kyrie and tries to talk her into helping him, but Kyrie concludes that he is working for the Triad and runs away from him. Their discussion causes him to rethink his role in Tom's life.

Then Kyrie discovers the killers of the body in the parking lot. She tries to tell Rafiel and Tom, but they do not take any action. So she checks out the suspects herself and finds her life in danger. Enjoy!

This tale depicts the shifters as having very uncertain lives. They are subject to sudden shifts, ruining their clothing and losing their keys. They get in the habit of stashing spares in autos and elsewhere.

Note: the title of this work comes from diner slang. It means a cup of black coffee. The title of the next volume in the series -- Gentleman Takes a Chance -- is also diner slang meaning hash.

Highly recommended for Hoyt fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of preternatural creatures, murder mysteries, and a touch of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Length:: 2:12 Mins

Some thoughts on Draw One in the Dark by Sarah A. Hoyt.

One of the best shapeshifter novels I have ever read. And I read a lot. I reccomend this to any Fantasy reader. Kyrie is a great heroine and the story is very real to life. You will believe in dragons (and large cats) after you read the book.

This was a very good book! I noticed that the current link has it as only available used...I can only hope I didn't pay as much for my copy ($45 or more for a new quality one). It is a Baen imprint, so it is available as an e-book download--I guess Baen is keeping their back list in house for the e-book market.

I bought my paper copy at the end of 2009, and it finally made it to the top of my TBR pile, and I'm very glad! It's definitely a cut above the normal fare...I would maybe have given a 4.5, but was happy to err on the side of a 5 star review. There was nothing 'Mary Sue' about the characters--and even though one of the minor characters seems to think that being a shifter is akin to being a comic book hero, the very real problems of trying to cope is very refreshing compared to how many other UF series portray. It can't be easy to have uncontrolled changes, urges, periods of memory loss, trying to hold a job etc. This book takes a grittier look at the consequences of being a shifter in the modern world.

In any case, the title for this book refers to 'diner slang' for a cup of black coffee. The sequel is Gentleman Takes a Chance, slang for diner hash, and which happened to be the last order mentioned at the end of Draw One in the Dark. I'm about halfway through Gentleman, and I can only hope there is reference to a third title for this series!


JTG