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Eight Million Gods (Eight Million Gods Book 01) by Wen Spencer |
Description: First entry in a new urban fantasy saga by the creator of the popular Tinker contemporary fantasy/SF series. A young American expat writer in Japan suffering from OCD tries to figure out if she’s crazy or not while solving a murder that may be part of a war among Japanese deities.A contemporary fantasy of mystery and death as American expats battle Japanese gods and monsters to retrieve an ancient artifact that can destroy the world. On Saturday afternoon, Nikki Delany thought, “George Wilson, in the kitchen, with a blender.” By dinner, she had killed George and posted his gory murder to her blog. The next day, she put on her mourning clothes and went out to meet her best friend for lunch to discuss finding a replacement for her love interest. Nikki is a horror novelist. Her choice of career is dictated by an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that forces her to write stories of death and destruction. She can’t control it, doesn’t understand it, but can use it to make money anywhere in the world. Currently “anywhere” is in Japan, hiding from her mother who sees Nikki’s OCD as proof she’s mentally unstable. Nikki’s fragile peace starts to fall apart when the police arrest her for the murder of an American expatriate. Someone killed him with a blender. Reality starts to unravel around Nikki. She’s attacked by a raccoon in a business suit. After a series of blackouts, she’s accompanied by a boy that no one else can see, a boy who claims to be a god. Is she really being pursued by Japanese myths – or is she simply going insane? What Nikki does know for sure is that the bodies are piling up, her mother has arrived in Japan to lock her up for the rest of her life – and her novels always end with everyone dead. Buy From: |
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Review:
This is another fantastic book by Wen Spencer and is pretty fast paced and easy to read. The main character Nikki has a OCD disorder that forces her to write constantly but everyone she writes about seem to die horrible deaths. She decides to channel this urge to write by becoming a famous horror writer under a pseudonym. It also allows her to avoid her mother who is very controlling and wants to get her committed to an insane asylum. A good part of how the character develops is due to the main character trying to figure things out without alerting her mother or involving the authorities.
The book is based in Japan and the locations & culture are well explained and described. Even though I have never been to Japan it was easy for me to imagine the city due to the fantastic descriptions. Plus the author managed to avoid stereotyping the culture which was a pleasant surprise and the explanations were enough to get me to look up additional details on the internet as I was reading the book.
Due to the fast paged action the book feels like it is a lot shorter than it is and the final ‘battle’ was a bit anti-climatic for my taste. It felt like there was a lot of buildup and then suddenly all was resolved. They could have expanded this section a little to justify the buildup, but that being said it was still a good conclusion and it has set the stage for future adventures so I am guessing there will be more books in the series down the line.