A FISTFUL OF CHARMS – Kim Harrison | Looking For a Good Book

I’ve been seeing these books around … at the bookstore, at the library, on-line … and they’ve really captured my attention. The sexy cover certainly helps, but as an avid reader of fantasy and ‘dark’ fantasy, I decided I couldn’t keep passing these up. I had to give this a try.

A Fistful of Charms is the fourth book in a long-running series by Kim Harrison, referred to as ‘The Hollows’ series. I’d like to say that there are currently thirteen books in the series, but I could be dead wrong, since there is a book #0.5 and a #2.5 and #13.1 and … you get the idea.

Rachel Morgan is a bounty hunter and her specialty is the dark arts, which has captured the attention of a lot of people, live, dead, and undead alike. Some want to see her dead, some want to see her in their bed, and some want to take possession of her very brave and powerful soul.

The book started off with a bang and I was really interested. Rachel gets into and out of some jams right out of the gate and this looked like it would be a wicked thriller with some hot action (in more than one sense). But then I got a little lost and I got very bored. Yes, bored! When there was some action – any action – I perked up, but the plot itself didn’t mean a thing to me. I got the feeling that this was because I wasn’t familiar with the characters.

As much as I hoped I could just jump in to the series, it appears that one really needs to know who is who and why they are behaving the way that they do, which is a process throughout the various books. I’ve missed three (or four or five) books’ worth of character building and it’s important stuff.

I am still interested enough to go back and start over, at the beginning, but based on this one read, I can’t recommend this very highly.

Looking for a good book? A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison is the fourth book in a dark fantasy series and it may serve the reader to read the first few books before venturing into this novel.