Phaedra Weldon

Wraith (2007)

My initial review was going to be that I found Wraith to be pretty much meh. Then I read the last twenty pages, during which it sprinted from meh to boo.

What bugged me? Where to start?

First and foremost, I didn't understand why the cop liked Zoe so much. They spend five minutes together and it's suddenly twoo wuv? I don't think so. Especially they had nothing upon which to based their interests other than mutual hawtness.

Bletch.

The next problem was that I found Zoe annoying. Not so annoying that I hated her, just annoying enough that I wanted to finish the book so I could read about someone else.

Third, way too many and too ridiculous "sexy" bits. I really didn't want to know about her relationship with her vibrator. REALLY didn't want to know that.
Those were the three things that made the book meh. What shoved it over the line to me actually disliking the book, was that the last twenty pages resolved very little, and instead made it very clear that there was going to be a sequel.

I hate that.

Sure, a part of the mystery was resolved in the end, but primarily the ending left us with one character in a coma (I kid you not), one character voiceless and time sharing with an evil spirit, the long term health of another character unknown, a secret conglomerate that is unhappy with the main character, and, oh, probable eternal damnation. Just because. I'm sure I could think of more but I'd rather not. (Oh also? Someone on the shit list of the police chief. Just as a bonus I suppose.)
In essence, this entire book was little more than a set-up for the sequel.

I really, really, really hate it when books do that.

What made this most frustrating was that the story itself was pretty interesting, which is why I didn't put the book down when it first started to annoy me. I was extremely curious how things were going to turn out. Unfortunately for me, I didn't really find out. Not only were many major threads left open, but when threads were closed, it seemed rather perfunctory. "Oh, we need some resolution? Well, how about this? and then we can move on to creating more hooks for the next book."

Grrrrr.

So my recommendation is that you skip Wraith. There is more than enough good supernatural fantasy out there that you shouldn't bother with this one–even if you find it used. Which is really too bad, because there were parts of the story that had promise. Unfortunately, they were entirely overwhelmed by the annoying and maddening bits.

Rating: 3/10