Review: “Secondhand Spirits”
I was really excited to get my hands on this one by Juliet Blackwell, who also writes with her sister as Hailey Lind.
The premise of the story is intriguing. Lily Ivory is a powerful witch who really isn’t all that excited about her talents. In fact, Lily mentions several times that she never finished her training.
Lily is able to get information about people through vibrations on clothing and jewelry. After years of roaming the world, she’s decided to settle down in San Francisco and open a vintage clothing store.
Many of the real-world premises covered in the book were completely and totally believable. Lily’s own insecurities, for example, are common enough — her lack of faith in her own powers, her struggle to overcome her childhood, her feelings of vulnerability as she tries to make friends in a new city.
Other aspects were a little more difficult for me to grasp, such as the gobblin/shape-shifter creature which is meant to be her familiar and isgiven to Lily by a powerful male witch. I liked the character and the interaction between Lily and her familiar, but the iniital concept of how Oscar (the familiar, who transforms into a pot-bellied pig when others are around) came to belong to Lily and the idea that he’s a gobblin or something (that’s never really made clear) wasn’t as easy for me to follow.
The premise of the story involves La Llorona, or the Weeping Woman — a common legand in Hispanic areas of the country. (Read about her at Wikipedia.) La Llorona steals children to replace the ones she drown so many years ago. The magical/witchraft angle of the book is done well, even keeping Wicca and witchcraft seperate. And the idea of sending La Llorona back to those who can handle her was completely and totally well done. Ms. Blackwell doesn’t mock or belittle the legend even in the solving of the mystery. I mean, really, a demon who’s been around for hundreds of years isn’t going to disappear because a fiction writer decided she should!
So, overall, I liked the story. I liked the take Ms. Blackwell took on the La Llorona legend and I liked the character of Lily Ivory and her friends. I’m interested to see where the characters go and how they grow as this series progresses. Sadly, the next one won’t come out until June of 2010, so I have a bit of a wait ahead of me. Dang it!
Blessings!
Nichole