Craaaaaaawling in my skin! These wounds, they will not heal! …Yes, I have finally found a book emo and angsty enough to warrant the use of those hallowed lyrics. Let’s pack for purgatory with Hell Bent, by Devon Monk.
Synopsis:
Instead of the deadly force it once was, magic is now a useless novelty. But not for Shame Flynn and Terric Conley, “breakers” who have the gift for reverting magic back to its full-throttle power. In the magic-dense city of Portland, Oregon, keeping a low profile means keeping their gifts quiet. After three years of dealing with disgruntled magic users, Shame and Terric have had enough of politics, petty magic, and, frankly, each other. It’s time to call it quits.
When the government discovers the breakers’ secret—and its potential as a weapon—Shame and Terric suddenly become wanted men, the only ones who can stop the deadly gift from landing in the wrong hands. If only a pair of those wrong hands didn’t belong to a drop-dead-gorgeous assassin Shame is falling for as if it were the end of the world. And if he gets too close to her, it very well could be….
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
Well, I put it off for as long as I possibly could, but it’s finally time to return to the Allie Beckstrom series. Well, sort of: rather than being numbered as Allie Beckstrom #10, this one markets itself as Broken Magic #1. The front also proclaims it to be “first in a new series!” To be clear, this is not a completely separate story that just happens to be set in the same world; it features many characters from that series, commonly references events from that series, picks up dangling plotlines left over from that series, and is premised on dealing with the fallout from the climax of that series. So, I think that hits the qualifications for a “Secretly a Sequel” tag. But hey, to be fair: if I was related to the Allie Beckstrom books, I wouldn’t try to advertise that fact, either. That series, if you’ll recall, started out promising but went downhill real fast; and though it never did anything terribly offensive enough for me to hand out one of my rare and scathing one-star reviews, I did kind of hate it by the end. Still, I don’t think it would be fair to judge this series for the sins of the father; so I shall try to put aside my pre-existing baggage and look at it with eyes unclouded by hate of its predecessor.
The plot is that, due to the events of the previous book, which does not exist because this is a fresh start to a completely new series which can totally be picked up on its own without having to read nine other installments, magic has lost most of its former power. The only people who can still use magic at its former strength are soul complements, now called “breakers” for their ability to break magic. Shame and Terric – soul complements, Authority officers, and also living avatars of Dark and Light magic – learn of a government conspiracy to use breakers for some nefarious purpose, leading them to a confrontation with their old nemesis: Eli “the Cutter” Collins. (…Well, he was actually more like Allie’s nemesis. And “nemesis” is a bit strong; it was more like “guy who acted sort of creepy at times and she kind of suspected might be evil, but who never actually did anything overtly evil in front of her so she just shrugged and let it go”. But I’m sure at least one of Shame and/or Terric must have met him at least once in one of those books; and even though it wasn’t memorable enough for me to recall for certain if it even happened at all, it totally laid the groundwork for a long-lasting enmity that makes this case deeply personal).
I have to admit, Shame’s narration style took some adjusting to. I mean, I remember him being kind of a cynical slacker in the Allie Beckstrom books; but I was unprepared to be exposed to the full-force of his emo-goth internal monologue. Every chapter has him thinking at length about how he is a monster who brings nothing but death ad pain to all those around him, and how he struggles every moment to fight the dark urges inflicted upon him by his terrible accursed power and no-one understands, and how he fetishizes death and looks forward to his own demise. The book doesn’t explicitly say that he posts angsty poetry on a livejournal page, using a red font against a black background, but feel free to draw your own conclusions. In short…
By the end, though, I had stopped minding so much, because the tone of the story had actually darkened to the point where Shame’s attitude no longer felt entirely ridiculous. I mean, I have to give the book this much credit: it actually commits to telling a much darker and more disturbing story than the Allie Beckstrom books, and doesn’t pull any punches. Whereas Allie wouldn’t use a gun even when facing a psycho murderer who had an axe in one hand and a shotgun in the other, this book racks up a significant body count of protagonists, antagonists, and people who were just unfortunate enough to get in the way.
So, I’ll give Shame’s cliched monster angst a pass… just this once.
Seriously, though: if he starts listening to Linkin Park’s “Crawling”, I am out of here.
What actually bugged me more was the protagonists tunnel vision with regards to viewing Eli Collins as the bad guy. Yes, I get it, he’s evil. But he’s also going out of his way to drop clues to you that he’s not committing these crimes because he wants to, but because he is being forced to by an even bigger bad guy; that this bad guy is in fact holding him prisoner and forcing him to work on a nefarious plan he wants no part of; and that he is leaving these hints so that the heroes can unravel this greater villain’s plan. But, no matter how obvious he makes it, the heroes are always, “Well, let’s go hunt down and kill Eli; that’ll solve everything.” I’d be like if Luke Skywalker spent the whole Star Wars trilogy trying to hunt down the specific Stormtroopers who shot Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, while Darth Vader was standing around in the background awkwardly tapping his foot. So, when the climax has the protagonists try to attack Eli only for it to turn out they’ve run straight into a trap set for them by Krogher… well, frankly, I actually blame them for it more than Eli. He tried to warn you, dudes. I think Allie has rubbed off on you – she also had this thing where, if a villain told her “Please don’t punch yourself in the face”, she would do it just to spite him, because obviously if someone is evil then you should always do the opposite of whatever they say.
…But no, I’m trying to keep Allie out of this. I’m looking at this as its own series, on its own merits. So, overall, it was fine. Flawed, but not too badly to overlook. I always try to give the first book in a series the benefit of the doubt; and this is definitely the first in the brand-new Broken Magic series right? Not the latest in a long series of novels which have set the bar so low that I’m probably overcompensating and overrating this installment because it is merely mediocre rather than actively awful. So, like I said: fine.
Final Rating: 3/5
profmorbius 