Book Review: Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson

Royal Street

by Suzanne Johnson


Genre: Urban Fantasy / Paranormal


Ages: 16 and up


I received an advance e-copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.


Description:

As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ's boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.

Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.

While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.

To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.

My Thoughts:

I grabbed this book because I love a story set in New Orleans, plus I love urban fantasy, plus I love urban fantasy set in New Orleans. It seemed like a win-win choice of novels. :) I figured it would be a fairly typical adventure, full of magic and romance, and in a sense I was right but there were some unexpected and completely welcome surprises.

The setting of New Orleans right before, during and after Hurricane Katrina added a certain gravitas to the story. I'm glad that the hurricane itself was not portrayed as a magical event (that would have probably irritated me) but the story did a very good job showing what effect the storm might have had on a magical world. The real effects on the city seemed well done, too.

The characters were likable and fun, but I didn't get any spark from them. I enjoyed reading about their adventures, though. DJ was tough on the inside but she needs more help than she is willing to admit, Alex has a dry sense of humor and surprising abilities that added a bit of fun, Jake was the token third point who doesn't stand a chance in the love triangle (though I think he will have a bigger part in the sequel), and Gerry's many secrets causes trouble for them all. The one character who almost had spark was, surprisingly, the sometimes-villain ghostly pirate Jean Lafitte. He was not nearly as creepy as he should have been considering all the creepy things he does.


The plot, like the characters, was fun but nothing special. Magical disasters, secrets revealed, a battle between good and evil. What surprised me was how clean this book was. There was very little profanity (the only time they even come close to the f-word they say 'he dropped a couple of f-bombs') and not nearly as much sexuality as you would normally expect from adult urban fantasy. (The genre is infamous for its scantily clad leather-wearing people on the covers.) Not that I'm saying all urban fantasy has a lot of sex, but this one was particularly mild. I found it rather refreshing.

This is a fun, entertaining read for a summer's day. Simple, light and with a good dollop of romance and humor. The ending has no painful cliffhanger, but certainly sets you up for an interesting sequel.  


Rating System: Profanity, Sexuality and Violence 
1 (mild) through 10 (extreme).

Profanity:

I rate it a 4.10 for some mid-level swearing.


Sexuality:

I give it a 3.10 for attempted rape, innuendos, lots of references and more innuendos.

Violence:

I rate it a 7.10 for murders, attempted murders, bloody injuries and fights.

                Lieder Madchen