So I finally did it. I’ve been hearing about Yasmine Galenorn’s Otherworld series for awhile now and I just finished the first novel, Witchling. The story itself is unique and yet it’s not. There seems to be a lot of things that ring familiar in my head, yet I can’t pinpoint why. The series revolves around three sisters – Camille, Delilah, and Menolly.
We’re the D’Artigo Sisters: Half-human, half-Faerie, we’re savvy–and sexy–operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But our mixed-blood heritage short-circuits our talents at all the wrong times. My sister Delilah shapeshifts into a tabby cat whenever she’s stressed. Menolly’s a vampire who’s still trying to get the hang of being undead. And me? I’m Camille–a wicked-good witch. Except my magic is as unpredictable as the weather, which my enemies are about to find out the hard way…
Camille: At the Wayfarer Inn, a portal to Otherworld and the local hangout for humans and beasties alike, our fellow operative Jocko’s been murdered. Every clue points to Shadow Wing, the soul-munching, bad-ass leader of the Subterranean Realms. He’s made it clear that he aims to raze humankind to the ground, turning both Earth and Otherworld into his private playground. Our assignment: keep Shadow Wing and his minions from creeping into Earth via the Wayfarer. The demons figure they’re in like Flynn. After all, with only my ‘bumbling’ sisters and me standing in the way, how can they miss? But we’ve got a secret for them: faulty wiring or not, nobody kicks ass like the D’Artigo girls.”
I know I don’t normally post the publisher’s description, but my head isn’t thinking on the description, it wanted to go right into the opinion. There is one aspect about this series that has been popping out at me throughout the entire novel – the girls aren’t perfect. They are a witch, changeling, and a vampire and none of them are great at it. Don’t get me wrong, they get by and they can get the job done, but because of their genetics, they can’t get everything correct. This is really refreshing in my opinion. There are a ton of books out there with witches and changelings and pretty much all of them have these characters who are perfect at their specialty and are generally really strong as well. The may not be strong when we’re introduced to them, but they end up finding out how strong they really are by the end of the book. The D’Artigo sisters are so not like that. Their magic is unpredictable, they know it and they work with it. It’s fun to see what Camille does when her magic doesn’t work the way she wants it to or it lands her in a situation that is not exactly in her favor. For a change, the main characters may be badass heroines, but they are working with some faulty talents and that isn’t stopping them from doing their jobs.
Another aspect I like are the men. So far, we’ve been introduced to four men – Smoky, Morio, Trillian, and Chase. Normally, the men wouldn’t be that big of a deal. All novels have them, but the thing I like…they are not your normal men. They’re not werewolves or vampires or your other typical drop dead gorgeous male who’s out to make the heroine’s life sexually frustrated. Instead, we have a dragon, a fox-demon, a Svartan (and I swear I see Spartan every time I read that), and a FBH – respectively. The only other novel I know of with a dragon as a main character is the Aisling Grey series (MacAlister) and there’s one character in the Mageverse series (Knight). Other than that, where are all the dragons? They can be sexy beasts and I personally would love to see more of them. Now I can. The fox-demon is still a shapeshifter, but he’s a demon as well. I don’t think I’ve seen another shapeshifter be demonkind before. Svartan is just another world for dark elf and that’s a new race as well. Usually the dark elves are the villains of most plots, so it’s refreshing to see them get a hero bit for a change. Honestly, the human male isn’t that unique, but he’s true. He’s not a macho male “I can kick anyone’s ass” type of human, but he’s a cop who is fascinated by the Fae and wants to work with them. He doesn’t know everything and he’s learning as he goes, but he handles it. Even when he’s obviously afraid, he doesn’t back down. How many human males have been like that. Chase just seems more real as a human male in a Fae world than most I’ve read about lately.
The plot itself is not really unique in my opinion, but the delivery is really good. A big bad demon wants to take over Otherworld and Earthside. He needs to collect spirit seals in order to get instance access for his troops and that’s where the girls come in. The plot itself seems used and I know I’ve seen it recently (McCray’s Magic series), but I see a lot of potential in it. Depending on how it’s developed in the following novels, I could end up thinking that it’s really unique; however, at the moment, it’s just not impressing me at the moment.
Overall, I did like the novel and I’m not mad that I bought the book. The characters are fun and different that I can’t wait to see them developed more. The plot itself is starting out mediocre, but I can see where it could go off and throw some complicating circumstances into the girls lives. And I can’t wait to see more of the men. I love dragons and any novel with dragons in it will always get my attention. The D’Artigo sisters remind me a lot of Phoebe, Piper, and Pru from Charmed, except they have the knowledge and the experience behind the magic, they just don’t have the finesse. For anyone looking for something new and familiar, then I would definitely try Witchling and probably the entire Otherworld series.
Read Order:
Witchling
Changeling
Darkling
Dragon Wytch
Night Huntress (Jan 2009)
The unpredictable magic thing reminds me a little bit of the anthology that Jenny Crusie contributed to last year… The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes.
I’ve had this book on my radar for sometime. Reading this review tells me that it is one I will enjoy. Thanks for the post.
The way you described them, I thought they reminded me of the Charmed sisters as well. Sounds interesting, you’ll have to keep reading!
Charmed is exactly what popped into my head when I read this too, but I do enjoy the idea of 3 sisters being a witch, a were and a vamp. I’m going to keep going with this series because I have a feeling it may get pretty interesting.
Are you going to try the others? The next book is from Camille’s perspective and is very different to Witchling…and then the third is from Menolly’s view and that is amazing.
I know what you mean about the lack of dragons. They’re definatly a species I’d liek to read more about. ;)
I’ve read a few Aisling novels as well, but I have to say I like Smoky more. He makes me laugh, a lot.
The only problem that I had with the series was that I preferred Camille’s POV to Menolly and Delilah’s. Yasmine is such a good writer, that it felt like I was reading another book, she changed her tone brilliantly. I just couldn’t get into their POV as much as I could Camille’s, or even Menolly’s. I’ve read the first 4, and I’ll probably grab the next one when my TBR pile has gone down a bit.