Urban Fantasy Audiobook Review: The Voodoo Killings by Kristi Charish

The Voodoo Killings by Kristi Charish (Kincaid Strange #1)

audiocopy thanks to Audible Studios

Synopsis from Goodreads
For the first time since we launched Bitten by Kelley Armstrong, Random House Canada is thrilled to announce the debut of a new urban fantasy series. Kristi Charish's The Voodoo Killings introduces Kincaid Strange, not your average voodoo practitioner...

For starters, she's only 27. Then there's the fact that she lives in rain-soaked Seattle, which is not exactly Haiti. And she's broke. With raising zombies outlawed throughout the continental USA, Kincaid has to eke out a living running seances for university students with more money than brains who are desperate for guitar lessons with the ghost of a Seattle grunge rocker--who happens to be Kincaid's on-again, off-again roommate.

Then a stray zombie turns up outside her neighbourhood bar: Cameron Wight, an up-and-coming visual artist with no recollection of how he died or who raised him. Not only is it dangerous for Kincaid to be caught with an unauthorized zombie, she soon realizes he's tied to a spate of murders: someone is targeting the zombies and voodoo practitioners in Seattle's infamous Underground City, a paranormal hub. When the police refuse to investigate, the City's oldest and foremost zombie asks Kincaid to help. Raising ghosts and zombies is one thing, but finding a murderer? She's broke, but she's not stupid.

And then she becomes the target...As the saying goes, when it rains it pours, especially in Seattle.

Audible US/UK | Amazon US | The Book Depository

8.5/10

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 Wow, this was so refreshing!

I miss simple, action-packed, colourful and to the point  urban fantasy I fell in love with ten years ago. And Kristi Charish delivers exactly that. This is so like early Anita Blake, Kelley Armstrong, Kim Harrison and Jim Butcher, I absolutely adored it.



Kincaid is a woman of many secrets and unbeatable tenacity bordering on suicidal recklessness, very much like Rachel Morgan. The reader is thrown right into action and it's presumed that we are supposed to know the basics of otherworldly Seattle and Kincaid's place in it. I quite liked it. It's all matter of fact and nothing needs to be chewed for us specifically. There is absolutely no info-dumping anywhere.

Everything is super vivid and steeped in layers of past history and connections. Kincaid just got out of relationship with a cop, she has an old friend and roomate, ghost of a famous musician Nate, who helps her earn money, she is still in close contact with her mentor, Max, she has a friend who owns a sports bar and helps her out from time to time. Finally she is on friendly terms with an underground zombie queen, Lee Lin.

Charish creates characters and interactions between them as memorable as in the worlds of Ilona Andrews and Rachel Aaron. They are colourful, simpathetic and believable.

There is no romance, this is classic quest journey. Find object A and deliver it to place B. Try not to die in the meantime while everything conspires against you. There are many delicious friends and adversaries. Nate, Cameron and Gideon are fabulous and very different from each other. Lee Lin and the villain, neon girl, Aaron, even the poltergeist, Annabel - all of them leap off the pages, and I found them enormously entertaining.

While everything is localised and tied up to Seattle itself, the reader would not be bored. The narrator herself does a decent job but I wouldn't say that all the characters here are portrayed to their best potential. However, this did not detract in the slightest from my enjoyment, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as a read or listen. Well played, Miss Charish!

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Вау, как же это было свежо!

Я иногда скучаю по простому, напичканному экшн, яркому и немногословному городскому фэнтези прошлого. Кристи Чариш как-раз это нам и доставляет. Она очень напомнила мне раннюю Аниту Блэйк, Келли Армстронг, Ким Харрисон и Джима Батчера.

Кинкейд Стрэйнж - женщина многих талантов и прямо-таки бульдожьего упорства, доходящего до самоубийственного безрассудства прямо как Рэйчел Морган. В этой книге нет перегрузки информацией, построение мира в постоянном процессе и никем не объясняется. Читателю приходится собирать его по кусочкам из слов героини или её поступков (что мне кстати пришлось по душе). Действие очень локализованно и не выходит за пределы Сиэттла.

Всё жутко яркое и пронизанно различными связями и прошлым между персонажами. Помимо самой Кинкейд, со страниц прямо спрыгивают характеры Нэйта - призрака, с которым она живёт; молодого зомби Камерона и опасного чародея призрака Гидеона. Возьмите характер Ли Лин - королевы зомби подземного города. Та просто шикарна! Злодеи выписаны с незабываемым флёром, хорош бывший бойфренд Кинкейд - Аарон. Все созданы тщательно и с любовью и напоминают мне ранний стиль Илоны Эндрюс.

Даже не очень хороший рассказчик не смог уменьшить моё удовольствие от этой книги, так что читайте или слушайте. Очень советую!