Mind Games
is the first book of a planned trilogy. It's not your everyday Urban Fantasy -- there are no werewolves or vampires or fairies or witches or demons.After you've read thousands of books, at some point you end up with similar plots or story ideas played out by different characters. But every once in a while you read a book that is just different from anything you've ever read before.
I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to describe why Mind Games is different without giving spoilers, so I'll start with the blurb:
Mind Games heroine Justine Jones isn't your typical kick-ass type - she’s a hopeless hypochondriac whose life is run by fear.
She's lured into a restaurant, Mongolian Delites, by tortured mastermind Sterling Packard, who promises he can teach her to channel her fears. In exchange, she must join his team of disillusionists - vigilantes hired by crime victims to zing their anxieties into criminals, resulting in collapse and transformation.
Justine isn't interested in Packard's troupe until she gets a taste of the peace he can promise. Soon she enters the thrilling world of neurotic crime fighters who battle Midcity’s depraved and paranormal criminals.
Eventually, though, she starts wondering why Packard hasn’t set foot outside the Mongolian Delites restaurant for eight years. And about the true nature of the disillusionists.
She's lured into a restaurant, Mongolian Delites, by tortured mastermind Sterling Packard, who promises he can teach her to channel her fears. In exchange, she must join his team of disillusionists - vigilantes hired by crime victims to zing their anxieties into criminals, resulting in collapse and transformation.
Justine isn't interested in Packard's troupe until she gets a taste of the peace he can promise. Soon she enters the thrilling world of neurotic crime fighters who battle Midcity’s depraved and paranormal criminals.
Eventually, though, she starts wondering why Packard hasn’t set foot outside the Mongolian Delites restaurant for eight years. And about the true nature of the disillusionists.
There were a few rough points, the biggest being that I knew who the villain was going to be very early on in the story. But, there are a few twists that keeps this from being as bad of a point as it could have been. The other main issue has to do with pacing, there were some pretty slow points in the story.
The good parts? The intense descriptions of how debilitating severe hypochondria can be, and the ways that this particular psychosis was used to weave the metaphysical elements of the story. Another mark in the positive column, there are the already mentioned twists and turns, so for a while you're not entirely sure who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
I'm going to give Mind Games
an 8 of 10, and I'll be looking for the next book, Double Cross
, at the end of September.Book Rating: Mind Games: 8 of 10
This fulfulls another book in the Debut Urban Fantasy Challenge I'm participating in.
1. Mind Games
2. Double Cross
, Sept 28, 2010
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