suzemo

Short story about Chess, our intrepid church-witch, which needs to be read after [b:City of Ghosts|7352840|City of Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, #3)|Stacia Kane|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327897476s/7352840.jpg|6912417] (#3 in the Downside Ghosts series). It's not a stand-alone and shouldn't be read before that book or it would spoil quite a bit of the fun tension in the previous books.

The story was un-exciting. Chess is doing her investigation, there's lots of time with her boyfriend scattered in there, and there's not a whole lot of tension or the crazy excitement you find in the full-length novels. It was nice to see her and Terrible happy, and for that, it might have earned a 3 star.

The problem I had with the story (and I think Michelle was correct in calling it fan-fic wishful-fulfillment) was that it was so busy trying to be sweet and sexy that it made Chess act out of character.

You just cannot make me believe that because Chess is in wuv that she suddenly changes character and doesn't rat out the couple for hosting a ghost. Chess always, always has 100% faith in the Church and loves her job (and is good at it), but suddenly, because she has a boyfriend she's just ignoring Church laws. She's suddenly going to start risking her job? A split "OMG, I can't let Terrible die!" illegal move in a panic I can buy, but she'll let people break one of the biggest Church laws? She'll let them keep a ghost, which she, if anyone, knows can be a horribly bad idea. And the most distrusting person ever decides to trust random strangers with actually calling her "if anything changes" even though they've already proven their untrustworthiness by breaking the law 20 ways to Sunday (first summoning, then hosting)?

I call bullshit and I just can't buy it. I can't. That's not Chess. And I don't care how happy or endorphin-ed she is, she's not stupid, and it's not in character with what we've seen so far.