At long last I have finished Infernal Enchantment by Helen Harper! Confused by this book seemingly unrelated to anything I’ve read recently? Well, earlier this month I read the first book in Harper’s Firebrand series, about a British detective who dies, wakes up in the morgue twelve hours later, and proceeds to solve her own murder. But my library didn’t have the rest of the series, nor did anyone else in the network. So I had to go for an interlibrary loan and those are…sluggish compared to the network. It took me until this week to even get book two in my hands. But it’s here! And I read it!
Emma Bellamy is settling in to her role heading the Supe (supernatural) Squad. She’s the newest there, but she’s the detective to their officers and, most importantly, she’s a supe herself. Although she hasn’t shared that with anyone outside a small circle yet, things force her hand early on. It’s because of a grieving parent. The couple was upset when their son applied for and became a werewolf, worse when he died in a car accident. They blame the wolves for his death and are entirely irrational on the subject.
Emma goes to stop the father from doing something foolish to the head of one of the werewolf clans and gets shot for her troubles. And killed. In front of a bunch of wolves, other supes, and a few other people. Her boss is all for keeping things quiet, moving her out of London, but the supes argue back. The police want the Supe Squad to have more authority over the supes? Then it’s absolutely perfect that a supe herself is in charge. Certainly Emma’s “street cred” will go up as a result.
That’s not the only thing that seems to be going up. Emma notices that she feels energized after she resurrects, enough to disregard the idea of sleeping even if it’s the middle of the night. She also realizes that she seems to be getting physically stronger with each resurrection. Which could be a double-edged blade in the end, but remains to be seen.
She also, in the course of this investigation, finally learns that she is a phoenix. The phoenix, if the old book is to be believed. It says that while a phoenix can have progeny, the actual abilities can only be held by one individual at a time. Which raises more questions about Emma’s past than the first book, although there’s no time in this one to delve into them. She’s got empty graves to worry about.
One issue I’ve been having of late is that I frequently find myself lamenting when I’m reading a physical book because I could be listening to my current audiobook instead. But I’ve realized that’s more a reflection on my book choices than total obsession with the audiobooks. Because I didn’t have that problem today. Harper’s books are self-published and clearly not the most popular (more likely she doesn’t have the reach to have caught a trend wave to ride), but they’re solid. I was fully engaged in Emma’s investigation and didn’t have the brainspace to worry about what’s going on in angel-world at the same time.
Sadly, the distraction issue is likely to persist. I have some other books to read that will likely be good enough to hold my attention while reading, but there’s definitely a lot of crap in the Pile right now. Like I said before, there was a library sale last weekend and so I picked up a lot of cheap crap. I fully expect to get my money’s worth, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be the most engaging of reads. I did not pick up thirty books this time though, for good or for ill.
Anyway, I do look forward to reading more of the Firebrand series. It’ll be interesting to see what non-vampire, non-werewolf supes we’re introduced to next, and how Emma will manage her professional life versus personal.
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