70 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Avid Reviewer and Reader, June 1, 2005
Haunted by Kelley Armstrong, is another fantastic adventure in the Women of the Otherworld series. Haunted has a very unusual main character - Eve Levine, Savannah's mother and a ghost. Eve was a black witch and a half-demon when alive. She believed witch magic had been corrupted and diluted, as Paige discovers in Dime Store Magic. Eve has done many murky things to gain sorcerer and witch spells that she was able to use. This quest for greater power made Eve careless, which lead to her death before the events of Stolen occurred. While her death was a peripheral plot line in the series, the consequences where far reaching for Savannah. Much of Dime Store Magic was the result of Savannah coming to terms with her mother's death.
Haunted gives a great deal of insight into how Eve and Savannah are so much alike. Eve will not let go of Savannah and spends a great of her time in the afterlife checking up on her. Eve has been reunited with Kristof, Savannah's father, but will not allow him to be more then a friend. Kristoff is not your average Cabal sorcerer. He has regretted not pursing Eve and Savannah for 15 years and is determined not to make the same mistake a second time.
The Fates, overseers of the supernatural afterlife, have decided to call in the favor that Eve garnered at the conclusion of Industrial Magic. Eve is being sent on a mission to track a Nix, a Germanic demi-demon nymph who feeds off chaos. This particular Nix has been jumping from woman to woman giving them the necessary drive to murder. The Nix feeds off the chaos and anguish these murders create. Eventually she grows weary of her partner and devises a way for them to be caught and create even more chaos. The Fates have sent three previous hunters to catch the Nix and return her to hell. Each has failed leaving the Nix to continue her reign of terror.
The Fates hope Eve, with her unusual talents will be successful is catching the Nix. With the help of Kirstof, an angel named Trsiel, and the infamous necromancer Jamie Vegas, Eve sets out on a course that changes everything.
Haunted starts out slow and is hard to relate to at first since all the main characters are not corporal beings. Once the plot with the Nix begins to unfold, the characters transcend death and the afterlife they live in begins to make sense. Kelley Armstrong is author to be lauded. Instead of cranking out another adventure using werewolves, witches, or sorcerers, she has created an entire mythological inspired afterlife that exists as another layer to the series. The world Eve and Kristoff inhabit is fascinating to read about. The living and the afterlife are connected, but the dead cannot touch, feel, or communicate directly (except through a necromancer) with the living. Eve has been desperately searching for a way to influence and protect Savannah - at the cost of her sense of purpose. The afterlife is supposed to be a nice retirement of the worries of the living. Eve is definitely not ready for any sort of retirement.
Haunted is well worth reading. Kelley Armstrong has created an entertaining novel and stretched her wings. Many writers in her position simply rest on their laurels, but Kelley has instead decided to create something entirely different. And it works as an entreating piece of fiction.
Kelley Armstrong currently resides in Ontario, Canada with her family. She has published five books in the Women of the Otherworld series; Bitten, Stolen, Dime Store Magic, Industrial Magic, and Haunted. The sixth in the series, Broken, will revisit Elena, Clay, and the werewolves and is to be released in May 2006. A mainstream novel titled Exit Strategy is forthcoming in 2006. She has an extensive website at http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/ Her website contains original novellas and short stories from the Women of the Otherworld series.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Armstrong -Better and Better!, June 6, 2005
I have loved all of the 5 books in this series. I like this one the very best. Contrary to what some reviewers have said, I like the familiarity with the characters and I also like the growth and development of the characters. This book was interesting with unexpected plotlines. Usually by the 5th book in a series, plots tend to become a rehash of the same old thing. However, with this Armstrong's books, it goes beyond what has gone before in new and surprising ways. The development of the supernatural worlds is always enjoyable. I dont expect Faulkner or Hemmingway when I read an Armstrong book, I expect fun and pleasure and that is what I find always.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Armstrong's best work since Bitten, June 14, 2005
I was skeptical at first, wondering how on earth I was going to identify with a main character who has no physical form, but Kelley Armstrong got me again. By the third chapter, I was hooked.
Thanks to consistent and believable "rules" in the world of her work, Eve's afterlife came alive for me. I wanted to see her prove herself worthy of the task assigned her and redeem herself in the eyes of all the readers who saw her as less-than-honorable from Paige's perspective over the course of the last two books. And she didn't disappoint me.
We already knew Eve was a good mother. Even Paige told us that. But through HAUNTED, we come to learn that she is also a good person, with a strong, if a bit tarnished, moral code of behavior. Sure she kills, and she doesn't try to hide that fact or make excuses for it. But she only kills those who deserve to die, and by the end, I was wishing she could have added a few more notches to her belt, as there were several bad guys worthy of her particular brand of justice.
The best part of this novel by far was how incredibly real Eve's angst felt over being unable to help, or to let go of her daughter. I was literally brought to tears twice, once by her horror and frustration as Savannah faces death and Eve is unable to do anything but watch. And again when she is realizes the inevitable conclusion: that life is for the living and she must let Savannah go, for the good of them both. I couldn't help feeling that Ms. Armstrong was writing about her own reluctance to let go of her children as they grow up, and based on the dedication, I think I may be right.
In HAUNTED, Ms. Armstrong has given us all a gift, a truly touching story about a woman who recognizes life's precious moments for the miracle they are and learns to cherish them as she reaches emotional maturity just a little too late - in an afterlife that is anything but restful and boring. With her best work and most compelling heroine since BITTEN, Ms. Armstrong has claimed her place on my permanent bookshelf, and a little piece of my heart, as well.
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