Trish's Reviews > Dead Witch Walking

*sighs*
What is it with UF books getting these ugly-ass covers? It’s already been driving me crazy with Ilona Andres’ stories and it’s no better here. Please don’t let the covers fool or even drive you away!

As is usual for UF worlds, we are on Earth but in 1966, something went different from our history: bio-engineering resulted in a virus being set loose, killing a quarter of all humans. No longer the minority, all sorts of other creatures came forth (vampires, werewolves, witches, warlocks etc).
In this world, there are two government agencies: the human-run Federal Inderland Bureau (FIB) for humans and the vampire-run federal Inderland Security (IS) police service for the supernatural beings.
Rachel is working for the IS as a bounty hunter but quits at the beginning of the story, thus finding herself having a target on her back.
She’s trying to solve a case in order to buy her independence and make sure the assassins will finally quit.
She’s not the only one quitting though: a vampire called Ivy and a pixie called Jenks leave with her and they all find themselves moving in together (in an awesome old church).

The case itself is relatively unimportant. Instead, we get to know the three main characters and the setting (Cincinnati, and especially part of the city that is called the Hollows). Moreover, we are introduced to the magic system that I thought was quite wonderful. There IS a difference between witches and warlocks, there are universities teaching you magic and other stuff, every magic has the same price though it takes different forms.
I loved that Rachel is using earth magic and the garden she has in the church’s backyard.

The writing might not be anything special compared to some classics but as far as UFs go (which I categorize as „candy“), the story felt fast-paced, the characters were presented either in an endearing way or were baddies I loved to hate (yes, I cheered when one got what he had deserved) and the world building, which is always the most important part in a UF series, was appropriately fantastic.

Beware of tomatoes! :)