Nocturnal Book Reviews

Nothing prepares you for Stacia Kane's writing. One of the best urban fantasy series, Downside Ghosts grabs you from the first sentence, and does not let go until the very end. Even then relief is questionable.

It's heart-wrenching, so very gritty and full of characters who literally jump from the page. Chess herself and her lover Terrible, they are both very difficult, prickly and morally questionable main characters.

Terrible is a thug who maims, beats up and kills people for his mafia boss. However he's got history, he's got heart and he truly feels deeply for Chess.

Chess is a Church witch and ghosts debunker, but she is also a very damaged soul and a full time junkie. She literally can not function without this or that pill for every occassion. This addiction, and her horrible past both hangs over her like Damocle's sword and doesn't let her live and feel in full.

Stacia Kane made a huge gamble with Chess's character, and I think it truly paid off. We all feel for this girl, we really want her to sort her sh*t out, we want her to keep living. Chess's head is a very dark, messed up place and she seems to be always on the edge between life and giving up living, and all we want for her is to be happy.

Plotwise the series is impeccable, but what spices everything up is Chess-Terrible-Lex dynamics.

Chess and Terrible is all about gut-wrenching, raw emotions, awkward conversations, sobs, blinding pain and just as blinding happiness... Lex has a completely different feel to him as Chess's ex-lover and son of a Chinese drug lord on the opposite crime turf. Lex is cunning, warm and flirty. If Terrible is a lion, Lex is a fox (Macchiavelli's references aside).

The book picks up a very fast pace from the beginning and does not slow down at all. Like all Stacia's books it's very creepy, full of gore and horrors, hauntings, magic and horrible acts of violence that only us people are capable of.

If you are a fan of horror, urban fantasy and ghosts this series is a MUST READ. I pretty much guarantee that you'd love it from the very first book.