Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin

Amazon(Paperback)/Barnes and Nobles(Paperback)

Book Published by: Solaris

Review Written by: Dani Hoots

Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin follows Cassidy Kincaide as she, a psychic who can see the history of almost any item with an imprint of its owner; Teag, who recently discovered he has the gift of casting weaving spells; and Sorren, a 500 year old vampire who comes only when trouble is near.

So, as you expected, trouble has come to the town of Charleston, South Carolina.

This novel felt like a shiny twist between Warehouse 13 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Between neutralizing items from doing dangerous things in Trifles & Folly, a little antique store…

And a sexy blonde vampire…

I had two of my favorite shows all curled up into one exciting story. Some of my favorite scenes included little references that add a sense of humor, but didn’t dwell on them for more than a sentence or two, such as Sorren leaving a note for Cassidy saying, “Feeling better. Stepped out for a bite. See you soon.” This type of subtle humor keeps the story real and fun.

At first I didn’t care for the main character, mostly because the reader is dumped straight into her power with a strong antique item. This causes her to react strongly to it and to me she felt weak. I wanted to see how a normal item affected her before something over powering her. It made me wonder how she could be so powerful if something could take her that easy. It wasn’t until later in the story do you see her with a smaller item that she can control. After that I fell in love with the character and wanted to learn more.

As for Teag and Sorren, I wanted to learn their story a bit more. Of course for Sorren the reader doesn’t know much about because he doesn’t like people knowing too much about him, being 500 years old and all, so we learn his story slower. I would have liked more scenes with him since he is trying to protect Cassidy, but the fact he can’t come out in sunlight makes that difficult. On the other hand, I would like to learn about Teag some more. We know he is a weaver, but I wanted to see him learn the skill, not just be told he has been taking classes. I want to know how he noticed this ability and how he is learning.

One last problem I had was I felt I was dropped in the middle of an already ongoing series. It didn’t feel as if it was the first novel. I felt disconnected as to what was going on, as if they had always been doing this and wondered what made this case special. I understood that the enemy was greater than any other they had face, but what were they doing beforehand? I needed a sense of what was normal before all of this happened.

I truly enjoyed the story. It was jam packed full of amazing fight scenes, ghosts and demons haunting houses and shipyards, and well-rounded characters that only needed just a little bit more description. There was even a fight scene in a museum as things started to become possessed and alive!

I give the novel 4/5 stars, just because there were some areas that could be improved on, but it was a fantastic, well researched story.

So watch out for Deadly Curiosities as it hits bookstores June 24th!

Dani Hoots