'Nevermore (A Raven Crawford Novel)' by J.C. McKenzie

          If you're looking for a quick, easy sort of fast food novel, this might be the one for you. The author is not bad and the story is a relatively typical one. The protagonist accidentally becomes more powerful and has to figure out what to do with the changes that causes, while dealing with a lot of incoming drama.

Personally, I struggled through it, but mostly because there were a couple of things that kept bugging me.. but I kept reading, because the dark fae Lords were absolutely captivating. Particularly, the Lord of Shadows. 

Raven is likeable enough, she's on the sassy side, as is the rest of the family. In fact, most of the characters in the book are likeable people. They're just also not very interesting, despite the fact that many of them are either shifters or magic wielders.

At the start of the book, McKenzie actually includes a disclaimer about her use of both Canadian and U.S. spellings, which to be honest.. I didn't even register. I think most of us are so accustomed to reading work from writers all over the world, we don't pay too much attention to things like regional verbiage. With the possible exception of 'whinging.' For some reason, I hate that word.

The problem for me, is McKenzie is a little bit of a gimmicky writer. The main character is grand-sired by Odin.. sort of.. and I'm not even going to get in to the debate about how these mythological figures are not his children, but rather messengers. I will say, at least the idea of her shifter background was creative, and the first time she cussed something to the effect of 'Odin's nutsac'.. it was even funny. By the second, it wasn't.. and as it continued throughout the book.. devolving into things like 'Odin's shriveled stalk,' it was just painful. Like wise, the 'ooo shiny' reaction of her inner ravens was amusing once, maybe even twice.. but then that too was overdone.

Even the main character's name is a gimmicky, considering her shifter type, but she's a mortal at least.. living in our world. The author offers up more intriguing surnames to the fae dark lords.. Camhanaich and Bane, but then douses them with mundane first names like Cole and Luke. It's like she thought they needed to be both otherworldly and humanly relatable at once.. rather than through their natures over time.. through getting to know them.

Structurally, the novel is sound, but the collision between Raven and the main(?) protagonist for this story seems to build as if it's going to be quite the scene, only to result in a few swings and a quick, rather disappointing.. finality. And just to keep things on point, McKenzie even includes everyone's favorite Scooby Doo ending, "I would have got away with it too, if you.."

There ARE some great quotes in the book. Unfortunately, those are quotes from other writers that the author included at the start of her chapters. Give it a chance though.. perhaps you'll disagree.

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