This is concerning the Dark Heavens books by Kylie Chan:
http://www.kyliechan.com/books.cfm
Let’s preface this with a quick note: obviously just my opinion of the series and therefore I urge you to read or not read as befits your interest in fantasy fiction.
I was at the Worlds Biggest Bookstore in downtown Toronto(go there and be awed), it was one of those days, where you walk around the bookstore and wait for something to pop up and hit you in the face.
The first book of the series caught my eye, and yes I’m one of those people that actually enjoys cover art and it helps in my picking of books. It has a cool boat and a lady in traditional garb doing something.
I read the back and was initially turned off by the description, young woman is nanny to young child who’s dad is something other then he seems, martial arts bla bla bla.
Side note: I usually like books that have male protagonists because I can put myself in their shoes and the reading experience becomes richer.
I put the book down and continued rambling down the aisles, found nothing and came back to it. (Like magic)
So I read the first book, the second and third…a day each(easy reading)
Lets chop it down to a few things:
Writing style:
Firstly, not a masterpiece of writing(unlike this article). It’s straightforward, with little confusing martial arts verbage to confuse non ma techie people.
Storyline:
It’s a fairly interesting storyline bout a non martial artist that gets involved with what, seemingly, appears to be a mafia type family.
Things get interesting when it seems that the child our heroine is nannying(is that a word), is prone to plenty of attempts of kidnapping. So after a while, the father, starts to give the nanny instruction on chinese based arts. Or so it seems.
Then we discover(Spoiler alert): The father is actually a god or shun, and which shun is he? The shun of martial arts. WOOOPAH!
So now we find out the major plot line, the king of demons…has declared that any of the lower demons that can bring back ma god’s head…will be his number 1. This is a big thing in the demon world.
So demons are constantly after the little girl, nanny finds out she is extremely good at martial arts, better than almost anyone of the human persuasion, and proceeds to protect the little girl, who is also learning as she’s half shun, and the storyline develops that she falls for the ma god, as most young women fall for the older guys(daddy issues what?)
One demon in particular shows a particular talent to mess stuff up for this family, and at the end of the third book after certain main events take place, heroine is imprisoned, daddy is away and can’t help, the little girl comes into her own and kicks the demons butt.
Actually i found the third book extremely rushed, much like this article that I’ve lost patience for, and the people at work are wondering why I’m typing so much.
The ending does come abruptly and doesn’t exactly feel particurlarly satisfying for me. Luckily she’s written more, and I think it’s a continuation…
And there you have it…a garbled mess of an article. Hurrah!
Have you read it?