Deadly Curiosities

Published in 2014 by Solaris, Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin is the first novel in the series by the same name. This is a modern day urban fantasy set in Charleston, North Carolina. Trifles & Folly is an antique shop that has been in Cassidy Kincaide's family for generations. This shop is a front to cover Cassidy and her business partner, Sorren's other occupation, finding cursed and haunted object and destroying or neutralizing them. For all you fans of cult TV series, if this premise sounds familiar, well you are probably thinking of the 1987 to 1990 series, Friday the 13th: The Series. But don't get too worried, there are plenty of differences. Oh, did I mention that Cassidy can psychically "feel" an objects history and Sorren is a vampire?

Although I am not a fan of fantasy novels in general, I do enjoy urban fantasies, if they can catch my attention. And this one did, right away. For one thing Charleston is a wonderful and unique setting for the novels. One would expect a novel with haunted houses and vampires to be set in New Orleans, or in a more urban setting like New York or Chicago. I wish the city had been more of a focal point. I think that Ms. Martin missed an opportunity, by not making the city more of a character.

As far as this story goes, the back of the novel is a bit misleading. Although it sounds like the novel is going to be about Cassidy and Soren solving mysteries and fighting evil, the truth is Soren is hardly in the novel at all. Most of the time Cassidy is "fighting the evil" with her assistant and friend Teag, and at times his boyfriend Andrew.

I would like to talk about what there is not in Deadly Curiosities. There is no sex in this book, not even passionate kissing, or possessed make out sessions. And for this I am eternally happy. There are also no erotic blood sucking scenes, at one point Teag allows Soren to take a sip from him, but it is quite possibly the least erotic vampire scene in the history of the written word. There is also almost no blood in this novel which given the fact that a demon is stalking the streets of Charleston flaying and dismembering homeless men is a pretty impressive feat. On a side note this is quite a difference from the last book I read The Women by Jack Ketchum. This novel is more like anit-splatterpunk.

There were some things that annoyed me about this story and some of the characters' actions make absolutely no sense. Cassidy is able to see and experience psychically what the people who have owned objects experienced. She has had this skill her entire life, but she seems to have little or no control over her skill, talent, I don't know what you want to call it. Now Teag and Cassidy have been having a really tough time with objects going all darkly evil and attacking them, so why oh why after they were attacked at the B&B and then again at the shop, and then again at the historical society, why in all that was holy and good would they proceed to go to a museum. Now this is a museum that was already established as a place where Cassidy has had trouble in the past, even before the big evil starts its terror campaign in Charleston. It made no sense!!

For all the things this novel lacks, what it does not lack is a sense of entertainment. Deadly Curiosities is probably not going to win any awards, but it was a good distraction from some of the "heavy" sci-fi I have in my plate. I am going to recommend this novel as a perfect "beach read." At 456 pages, it is a little longer than the normal summer read, but it reads fast and would be well worth it. (This novel was given to the reviewer by the publisher for a fair and honest review.)

4 of 5 stars