I’ll say this upfront, this review is gonna be pretty darn short. The Asylum Interviews: Bronx by Jocelynn Drake is a short story, not really long enough to be a novella in my opinion, and is a prequel to her upcoming book, Angel’s Ink.
The first of two prequel stories to Jocelynn Drake’s Angel’s Ink. It’s not easy being a tattoo artist and a wizard, especially when you’re in hiding. Or when a botched ink job has amplified an incubus’s existing sex appeal into one that could wreck the whole town. And your only help is a troll.
I really enjoyed getting to see how Gage and Bronx met and how Bronx came to work with/for Gage. What I didn’t expect was for this prequel to be from Gage’s POV. In my experience, short stories/novellas feature secondary characters from a series and is told from that character’s POV, not the protag from the main series POV. So when I initially started reading, I thought I was reading from Bronx’s POV. It took me about a page and half to figure out Gage was our narrator. The Asylum Interviews: Bronx gives us some of Bronx’s back story and gives us a glimpse into the world Gage lived in before his life gets turned upside down in Angel’s Ink.
As I mentioned, I felt this prequel to be a pretty short, short story. As in it’s only about 70ish pages (I read an eARC, and e-format on any book is always shorter page wise than in print, for some reason). To be honest, I’m not sure that this will be out in paperback…as it wouldn’t surprise me if Harper Collins decided to wait for both “interviews” to be released, then do an “omnibus” in paperback of both short stories. That makes sense, to me anyway. But, I digress. My point being is this is a really short, short story and shouldn’t take you long to get through. Drake does a nice job of weaving in all the necessary information about Bronx and keeping the plot and pace moving, with plenty of action and tension throughout.
If you’re a fan of Jocelynn Drake, I definitely recommend picking up this short story and Angel’s Ink. You can read either one first, as The Asylum Interviews: Bronx is meant to be a prequel and you don’t need to have read Angel’s Ink beforehand, nor is there anything in the “interview” that will give away the plot for Angel’s Ink if you read the “interview” first. The next prequel short will be Asylum Interviews: Trixie and I believe will be released on September 4.
Read Order:
Asylum Interviews: Bronx
Asylum Interviews: Trixie (Sept 4, 2012)
Angel’s Ink (Oct 16, 2012)
