Dire Straits (Bo Blackman Book 1)

Love her work, very refined. Did have some issues with following the back.plot but it all worked out in the end. Really great stuff.

I found the character was a likeable person and I especially liked the intrigue. Unfortunately there was too much "filler" and not enough substance in the story. I did like it enough to get the second book and hope...

What a fantastic book. A strong central character who makes mistakes but learns from them. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

This starts well with some nicely descriptive writing covering a stake out, with the derelict scene and tension well described, through to taking a cold shower and trying to get clothes on over damp skin. Our heroine is a determined human in a world that contains vampires, daemons, witches and faeries - oh and her grandfather - not sure what he is, but he’s something.There are some nice touches - like when she’s escaped a bloodbath and is sitting on a train, freaked that people are staring, only to realise that her skirt is caught up in her knickers - every woman’s dread - and I liked that Rogu3 - her Mr Fix-it - turned out to be what he was. A neat trick, and, when you think about, totally logical.There are the usual never-tell-anyone-a thing, and rush-in-without-a-plan annoyances of these types of book, and the romantic direction of subsequent books is blindingly obvious, but all minor annoyances. The baddie was well hidden, and the scene is well set for sequels, but I really hated the ending - I even read it twice to see if it felt better second time around, and it doesn’t. Will I read the next one when it comes out? Hmmm, right now, I’m really not sure…

Starts well, although slow paced, led me to believe it was going to be quite dark and gritty mystery abt a PI in a supernatural London but devolved into blandness. The world was not well explained and despite episodic violence there was no real sense of the power or mystique and or horror of r the tribers. The vampires and demons seemed just like humans fir the majority of it. When bo signed up as a recruit i struggled to care that she is supposedly giving her life up because at that point the reader knows virtually nothing about vampires or her life before. About halfway through the story direction really shifts and bo, although likeable, just seems to go from one blunder to another, not achieving very much. Shes neither physically strong nor very clever and the vampires even say they don't particularly want her, shes just convenient. The plot is a bit garbled and, although the prose is readable, there is virtually no atmosphere and a strange lack of emotion in the way bo thinks and describes things.The other characters are not vivid or interesting and all in all it was a disappointment after a well written start.for urban fantasy there was hardly any fantasy, horror, magic, powers etc and none of the usual romance.bo was an unremarkable character with neither particular wit nor anything special about her. I don't think i will bother with the next one.