Customer Reviews

Ghosts & Echoes

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

 

 

I usually don't write reviews, but I just had to mention somewhere how much I like this series and how I recommend it to others. I even had to email the writer to tell her how I like her work because it literally felt like a breath of fresh air to read. I also asked about the status of the third book (as I can't wait, despite this one being just released) and she mentioned that her publisher already has a copy of the third's manuscript. Crossing fingers in the hopes that it'll be out sooner than later because waiting until next spring feels like forever and a day at this point.

The lead, Sylvie, is direct and hard-edged just the way I like `em. And with the author's ingenuity and consistency, each chapter is filled with new bits of information to traverse as Sylvie runs from location to location trying to put a clean stop to all types of dark madness and mystery. Lucky for us, between Sylvie's many stops, she isn't running around sleeping with vampires and werewolves - which I found TRULY delightful. And to add to that point, Sylvie isn't imbued with any sort of special abilities that are desired by any preternatural counter parts. Nope. Sylvie is all human (one of her best qualities), but she's made her place within the world she operates in.

This series is just a good, solid, hard-boiled/urban fantasy series with a creative mythological twist around every corner. I only see the series getting better and more complex as it moves along, with Sylvie`s walls crumbling also. And the ending to the second edition here made sure of this belief of mines, considering the final results surprised me enough to understand that no one is safe in the world Benedict has created. There will be loses, and there will be consequences in this series, and I'm going to enjoy watching them pan out book after book.

As a mystery, this book was very well done. As urban fantasy, I found it harder to appreciate. My difficulty is likely personal, since many reviewers seem to appreciate this dark story. For me to appreciate a story, I have to either admire the hero's qualities/skills, or at least, believe that the hero is improving. By the time that I got to the end of this story, I was no longer certain that the heros were morally superior to the their antagonists.

The first book in this series to really transcend the supernatural genre, it's well worth a read. Nor will you be cheated if you start the series here; the allusions to past events do a reasonable job of catching you up.

Basically, the Sylvie Shadows novels are a mashup of two genres: the hard-boiled female detective with the long-suffering assistant and diverse group of consultants, and the dark fantasy world where magic and immortality exist, but mostly under the public's radar and with often dire consequences for those who become aware otherwise. In other words, the supernatural creatures are usually out to do you harm, not give you your heart's desire.

So, as a detective familiar with the magical world, Sylvie takes cases with and without supernatural participants. However, even when magic is involved, she uses old-fashioned research and deductive reasoning to reach accurate conclusions. Like the better fictional detectives, Sylvie also has to make moral choices in which there is no perfect answer or outcome.

I am not a fan of the magical shootout novel, where the rules change according to the properties of the ghost, demon, witch, whoever and I can have no idea what those rules are in advance. This author does fairly well in laying out the rules under which the characters operate here, and relating the consequences of those rules. The characterizations are more complex than I have seen previously from her, and she juggles two plot lines that converge (appropriately) at the end, which bodes well for Sylvie's future.

So if you like strong female characters and/or mystery, and don't shy away from the supernatural, settle in for a good read.

I've never met a Lyn Benedict/Lane Robins book I didn't like, but Ghosts & Echoes is the best of her work to date. There's a ton of urban fantasy out there, ranging from the stellar to the egregious, but this is the kind of book I like to wave at people and say, "This is what urban fantasy *can* be."

Sylvie "Shadows" Lightner is back in Miami, recovering from the events that took place in the previous novel, Sins & Shadows. Two new cases fall into her lap: a string of magically-enhanced burglaries, and a shell-shocked Chicago cop who carries the ghost of a dead man within him. Neither is as straightforward as it sounds, of course. The burglars' trail leads Sylvie to some sinister magical transactions that threaten the life of someone close to Sylvie. And the cop's "hitchhiker" isn't just any dead man, but someone who knew Sylvie in life.

There are two conclusions that an attentive reader can draw pretty early on. I was briefly worried that this would be one of those books where the protagonist lets the clues fly over her head for 400 pages. Happily, this is not the case; Sylvie comes to the same two realizations pretty quickly and moves along to trying to deduce the how and the why. In the burglary-ring plot, the early revelations are just the tip of the iceberg, with a much nastier scheme lying beneath. In the ghost plot, the real issue is a moral one. Sylvie's ethics come into conflict with her heart and with the dark voice inside her that exhorts her to look out for number one.

These two plot strands are braided together skillfully. As Sylvie investigates the thefts, she makes some discoveries about ghosts and resurrections and how they work, discoveries that raise the question of whether a satisfactory outcome is even possible in the cop's case. Sometimes her ruminations on the haunting seem a little drawn-out, but I think that's the point. She's putting that case on the back burner, and the more she procrastinates, the worse it gets.

The story is wonderfully creepy. There's plenty of action and some gore, but the psychological horror is also kept at a fever pitch throughout. The scariest thing, in the end, is just how cold some of the characters are -- what depraved lengths they will go to in pursuit of their selfish desires.

Along the way, Sylvie grows as a character. She tries -- with varying degrees of success -- to tame her temper, to figure out when her defiant streak will serve her well and when it'll just get in the way of her goals. And she, too, faces the question of how far she will go for what she wants.

Benedict asks the same question, to an extent, of the reader. Sins & Shadows left many fans wishing for certain plot developments. In Ghosts and Echoes, we get something from our "wish list," but in a twisted sort of way.

With her usual beautiful prose, a clever new take on an old piece of folklore, and a plot that keeps us feverishly turning pages to learn what new revelation waits ahead, Lyn Benedict has written one of the best urban fantasies I've read in some time. I enthusiastically recommend Ghosts and Echoes.

A strong second book in a new supernatural themed series that's gives you more than your money's worth. Professional (but unlicensed) private investigator Sylvie is trying to lay off the cases that involve witches, werewolves, and other woo woo magical stuff. She's taken time off since her last big case where she saved the world but sacrificed her lover in the process. Sylvie's a strong person, but her latest casualties have made her gun shy and she's looking for boring and mundane cases. However her latest job looking into a string of heists targeting small businesses including those of her professional neighbors, which seemed to be ordinary small time crime, not only leads her into a case riddled with serious black magic mojo, but involves her own flesh blood. Family ties that bind and gag and might ultimately kill, as the teenage baby sister Sylvie wants to protect from any awareness of the clandestine magical elements that are part of their world, and their shared family legacy as the human heirs of the legendary Lilith, turns out to be anything but innocent.

However necromancers, murderers, soul eating ghosts, rebel witchling sisters, and a gang of rich teenagers out for illegal and possibly fatal thrills aren't the worst of it all, because Sylvie's dead lover is reaching out to her from beyond the grave, in the all too warm and touchable flesh of a good and decent man with a life, a wife, and a child all his own. What do you do when your heart's desire is only a heart beat away, but the price is stealing everything away from an innocent you've sworn to protect?

An exciting, smart, high intensity series that pulls no punches. Can I have the next book now? *^_^*

I really enjoyed the first book in this series (sins and shadows), and was dying to see what happened next! Nothing comes easy for the heroine in this story...but I love the humor and the action. I also love the romance part of this...nothing heavy, but glad to see it continue from the first book! Can't wait to see what happens with Demalion in the 3rd book Gods & Monsters!

If you liked Sylvia in the first book of this series, you'll love this sequal.

Miami based private investigator Sylvie Lightner continues to grieve deaths she caused like that of Michael even if she simply saved the world (see Sins and Shadows). She knows she needs to get back to work handling paranormal cases, but that is easier said than done when you are responsible for the death of others.

Still she goes to her South Beach store Shadows Inquiries to see what havoc her partner Alexandra Figueroa-Smith caused even as her backbrain snipes at her. Sylvie rejects as clients witches, werewolves, demons and others as she has pissed off enough of them for several lifetimes. However, she reluctantly agrees to handle the case of Chicago police officer Adam Wright who shows up while she is doing surveillance. A husband and father of a six years old son, he says he is either possessed or crazy as he died but came back with an otherworld hitchhiker. She explains not her thing as she is good at breaking and destroying not surgically removing parasites from a host as her approach is kill the host and the parasite is gone. Still she agrees to help him after he mentions Anna D the succubus who hates her referred him.

The key to this terrific urban fantasy is the world of Benedict seems genuine as the heroine works the Magicus Mundi cases. Fast-paced, fans will relish Sylvie's efforts to send that other soul back to the beyond. Readers will enjoy this fine paranormal private investigate thriller with a great late twist as the tough detective works the abnormal beat.

Harriet Klausner

I am so sorry I ordered this. I cant finish it I am so bored. I am so bored with the "it's all my fault. I am the center of the Universe and it all happens because of me" attitude of the "main girl". I will never purchase this author again.