Night Shift (Jill Kismet, Book 1)

Night Shift (Jill Kismet, Book 1)
Lilith Saintcrow, 2008

Premise: Jill is a hunter, someone trained to battle the things from hell that sneak onto Earth to cause death and corruption. But she isn’t without weakness and darkness of her own, and with a force like she’s never seen causing havoc in her city, she isn’t sure whether she can still stand and fight.

Hmmm. I read a historical romance by this same author and rather liked it most of the way through, hence picking this up off a dollar-book rack. Sorta wish I’d grabbed something else now.

It wasn’t out-and-out terrible, I was curious about the setting and the plot, the hell creatures were interesting, and the fact that there were plenty of kinds of were-creatures and the story doesn’t bother to break you in easily about it was fun.

I feel sort of uneasy about my opinions here, too. Did I dislike this book because Jill is just too rough around the edges for me? Because she’s weak? Because the unpleasant parts were too unpleasant? Maybe it was just the wrong time to read this.

Or did I dislike it because the romance is telegraphed way ahead of time and completely forced and way too much of the page count and just kinda icky? Because Jill’s tough-as-nails-only-not shtick got old really fast? Because her could-have-been-awesome power set never gets explained or described in a compelling way? Because the hunters seem like assholes, and not in a ‘you have to be dark to fight the darkness’ way, but in a ‘codified sociopathic’ kind of way?

The plot was interesting. The villains were interesting (although the author might have shot herself in the foot a little here, because the power creep is already really high here in book one, so I have no idea how she managed to ratchet up the tension in the next book.) The world was kinda neat, the set of paranormals different than average and she took a very different tack on the behavior of were-folks which I much appreciated. I just couldn't come around on Jill, and since she’s the main character and the narrator, that made it really hard to enjoy reading the book.

In the end, I’m sorry for the time I spent reading it, and that’s the main qualification around here to end up with -

1 Star - Didn’t Like it Much.