Sunday 29 January 2012

Review: HEXED

Hexed by Kevin Hearne
Book 2 of The Iron Druid series

Genre: urban fantasy

About Hexed:
Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn’t care much for witches. Still, he’s about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty—when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they’re badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.

With a fallen angel feasting on local high school students, a horde of Bacchants blowing in from Vegas with their special brand of deadly decadence, and a dangerously sexy Celtic goddess of fire vying for his attention, Atticus is having trouble scheduling the witch hunt. But aided by his magical sword, his neighbor’s rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and his vampire attorney, Atticus is ready to sweep the town and show the witchy women they picked the wrong Druid to hex.
Source: Info in the About Hexed was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9595650-hexed on 15/04/2011.

Review:
This book displayed the same compelling story telling quality which hooked me to this series in Book 1. However, the fight scenes I think seriously needs a lot more editting and work...
"Of course your enemy is just going to stand around and watch you watch another fight going on between a witch and a demon two floors down because you are the hero... no, they are not going to try to whack you upside the head at all until you are prepared and ready"
...yeah right! This tugs the suspension of disbelief a couple of notches down. Why? Let me quote Brent Weeks of what he said about fight scenes:
You want to write something that’s cool, and exciting, and fun that’s anchored in reality enough that the reader doesn’t get jolted out of the narrative world. That is, even if it’s surprising, you don’t want your surprises to be such that the reader scoffs or becomes aware that they’re reading a book again. At that moment, you’ve broken your own narrative.

[Source: http://www.brentweeks.com/extras/writing-advice/new-writing-advice/]
And with that scene there, the author just yanked me, the reader, from the story... However, because of the very compelling story telling quality that this author displays, I am willing to overlook that and hope like hell that he would get help from a "fight scene expert" (or some such) like the ones they employ in movies to make their fight scenes authentic. Because really, this author has a very good voice!

Empirical Evaluation:
Character Development = 5
World Building = 5
Plot = 2
Story = 3.5
Pace = 4
Ending = 3.5
Story Telling Quality = 5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Iron Druid Series:


Book 1: Hounded publication date: 3 May 2011
Book 2: Hexed publication date: 5 June 2011
Book 3: Hammered publication date: 5 July 2011
Book 4: Tricked publication date: April 2012
Book 5: Trapped publication date: December 2012
Book 6: Hunted publication date: 2013

6 comments:

  1. I still do not know whether I should try this one or not since I did read the short story and was not impressed...but then I seldom is impressed by short ones

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  2. I enjoyed this series a lot, I hope it would give you the same pleasurable reading time! :)

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  3. I have been wanting to start this series for awhile. I may have to bite the bullet and just make the time as it sounds awesome. Glad you enjoyed this installment. I am also currently reading Grave Dance too. I love Fallin and I love smexi Death...

    Michelle

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  4. Aaaa, I have the first two books here, and need to get to reading them. Sounds like a really great series and read. :) Thank you.

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  5. Novels On The Run & Melissa (My World...in words and pages) - I envy you the wonderful reading time you have waiting for you with this series :)

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  6. this is my fav cover so far/ what a Gaelic hunk

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