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Shadow People (2013)

by James Swain(Favorite Author)

3.37 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0765329956 (ISBN13: 9780765329950)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Tor Books

series

Peter Warlock

review 1: Okay, its been awhile since I read a book and thought, this is really not good. For me there was a lack of effort in the dialogue and setting to get into this book. I thought perhaps it was meant to be a young adult novel but I have read young adult novels that were written clearer and with more concern for the intelligence of the reader. There is a passage early on where Peter, the magician, returns from an out of body experience where he runs into a serial killer. He knows the date of the murder because he saw a newspaper at the killer's house that gives the verdict to a trial that has been going on. One of the other characters asks what the verdict is, because she must have an obvious lack of focus on what is happening at the moment. Peter leaves his body to see a seria... morel killer who has killed several women and is ready to kill another but no, please tell me what is going on with the trial that has been in the news instead. And when Peter says it was a guilty verdict the other character actually cries out "Yea!" Yea? In that moment in the book the author lost me. If the characters in the book cannot stay involved in the story then why would you expect the reader to? Sorry cannot recommend this one at all.
review 2: Not as fast-paced or exciting as the first book, but it was still an entertaining read. In this second follow-up to the Peter Warlock series, our protagonist is on a mission to stop a serial killer named Munns (who knows abut Peter and the Order of Astrum)from claiming his next victim, a young woman named Rachel who has good intentions. Peter is also faced with the Shadow People, who wreak all sorts of havoc for him in the beginning, but later on he discovers that they were trying to help him save Rachel. I felt like the chapters in this story were way too slow, especially in Part One where it took almost four or five chapters just to conclude a situation, and almost seventy percent of the story focused on Peter and Liza's relationship. There also wasn't much of the other Friday night psychics, except for the subplot where Holly spies on Peter's every move and is begging for her Aunt Milly's help (which gets really repetitive after a while). Holly is even more in love with Peter, to the point where she tries to have sex with him when he visits her. I can't really blame her. She cares for him so much, even in the end when she finds out about Peter's dark side. Snoop, Peter's best friend and assistant was barley in the book as well. I hope I get to see more of him in the next one!We also got to discover more about Peter's childhood and the "demon" that was born within him. He learns all sorts of bad things that he had done as a child (his memory was repressed) such as his parents fleeing from England to New York because he killed a man, he also killed a burglar and the night that his parents died, he went on a rampage and killed six more people. However, it turns out that his inner demon only killed bad people, which I guess makes him a demonic hero. I started to like Liza a little more in this book. I applaud her for being a supportive girlfriend and helping Peter with his problems. She was really trying to make their relationship work, especially when she learns about his dark side. However, she really pissed me off at the very last chapter when she suddenly begs Peter to stop his psychic stuff and live a normal life with her. Seriously? How the hell did she go from being all "we're a team" and "I'm there for you" and then afterwards she turns into a freaking Mary-Jane and wants him to change for her own sake? Telling from the huge cliffhanger in the end, I think Peter and Liza's relationship will for sure be put to a huge test in the next book when Peter is challenged by the wicked Dante, who is coming out with his own evil magic show that will effect New York greatly. I can already tell that it will be an exciting tale! less

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