Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review.
I’m going to keep reading this author’s books as long as I like the premises, because she is improving as a writer as she goes. There are still things in here that ultimately meant I couldn’t bump this up to four stars (dear lord, the sex scene*) because this simply just isn’t as good as books that I have rated four stars in the past. But her ideas intrigue me, and her execution is not bad, even if it’s not great. So anyway with that ringing endorsement . . .
This one follows paranormal investigator Olivia Becente, a mixed race Native person, who is still mourning the death of her sister by suicide five years before. Her sister died in the titular Room 904 of the Browne Palace Hotel, where every five years or so, young women check in and never check back out, Hotel California style. Upon her death, Olivia inherited her sister’s paranormal sight (or her own were activated by the trauma) when previously she didn’t believe in any of it. We come into the story when several of her jobs all point to the same haunting, that of Room 904, and her sister’s death, which may not have been a suicide at all.
*I can’t even explain to you how hard I laughed at this scene, which was supposed to be sexy. Also, I didn’t like the guy she was having sex with and thought the “romantic” elements should have been cut entirely from the book.
I liked the way she used the supernatural/paranormal elements to highlight the atrocities done to Native peoples, and how tied the main conflict was to her Native identity. It was also extremely personal to her, as the plot ends up not only involving her dead sister, but her mother as well. Her character work, while more detailed than in White Horse, does still need some work, as the side characters sometimes fell flat.
All in all, not mad I read it. And if you liked White Horse more than I did, you will probably like this one even more.
[3.5 stars, rounded down]
