Title: Seawitch Series: Greywalker #7
Author: Kat Richardson
Published: August 7, 2012
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy
Page Count: 338
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:A quarter-century ago, the Seawitch cruised away from her dock and disappeared with everyone on board. Now, the boat has mysteriously returned to her old berth in Seattle and the insurance company has hired Harper to find out what happened.
But Harper is not the only one investigating. Seattle Police Detective Rey Solis is a good cop, albeit one who isn’t comfortable with the creepy cases that always seem to end up in Harper’s lap. As they explore the abandoned vessel, Harper and Solis discover a cabin containing symbols drawn in human blood, revealing the ghost ship’s grave history.
As Solis focuses on the possible murder of a passenger’s wife, Harper’s investigation leads her to a powerful being who may be responsible for the disappearance of the Seawitch’s passengers and crew. And while their searches lead Harper and Solis in different directions, they will need to put aside their differences to solve a deadly mystery twenty-five years in the making…
From some perspectives, I can see Seawitch being one of the strongest installments in the Greywalker series so far. It definitely has scads more page-time devoted to characterization than I’m used to reading from Kat Richardson. At the same…I was just confused by the plot, so by the end I really wasn’t feeling it. In addition, I don’t really think this author is a very good writer. So. Altogether, not my favorite.
Some points of interest:
– I liked the mythology involved. Giant sea otters and sea witches, etc. Very interesting stuff. Too bad Richardson tends to info-dump or go about explanation in a very convoluted way.
– Yay characterization! Except…it was very sloppy and very stiff (regarding Harper’s new friend Solis) and actually made the character super unlikable (regarding Harper herself). I appreciate the effort, but it wasn’t well done.
– Quinton is starting to get on my nerves. I liked him as Harper’s love interest in the beginning (books 3 and 4), but now he’s being secretive and confrontational and I’m just about done with the drama. I really liked how Richardson was keeping this one aspect of Harper’s life drama-free. Why the shift, over the last two books?
– Confusing. Maybe there was too much going on, or maybe it was just due to Richardson’s difficult prose style. I was confused by who the bad guys were, what their motivations were, and what Harper’s role was supposed to be.
– I feel like the series has lost direction. While monster-of-the-week type books are well and fine, there needs to be some sort of driving conflict behind the series, I feel. There was one at one point, but Richardson resolved it in book 5, so now there are just a bunch of loose threads hanging about. This book feels almost pointless.
