Hellsinger Investigations

Fish and Ghosts - Rhys Ford

Happy October 1st, Everyone! I love October. Even though winter is right on it’s heels, I can’t help but love the crisp air, the pretty trees, the apple orchard… and Halloween! In honor of The Month of Scary, I thought it would be a good idea to start out this month with creepy ghosties!

While I had definitely heard of Rhys Ford before, I actually stumbled onto Fish and Ghosts purely by accident. I was goofing around on Facebook and saw that Jordan Castillo Price was featuring an blog post for the book, and that it was about ghosts. This automatically made me want to read it, and I thought it would make a good impromptu October read.

Isn’t it the best when an impulse leads to good things?

At first I thought I would have a problem with the way the romance developed. The writing style sometimes felt too lyrical and wordy, especially during the sex scenes, but I adapted quickly and got used to the pacing and prose. I anticipated my bigger issue would be that once Wolf realized that he had feelings for Tristan he went ALL in. That’s fine. Hey, I’m well aware that there are all types of romantic personalities out there. Some people dive in heart first, and that’s wonderful. I think the only reason it made me skeptical was that from that point on in every situation, no matter how harried or dangerous, Wolf always found time to kiss Tristan’s nose, or forehead, or corner of his mouth -or just kiss him for real. A scary ghost is coming at them, Wolf will take care of it! And he’ll do it right after leaving a tender kiss right on the tip of Tristan’s nose first. What saved the romance for me was that I think the author recognized this trait and had Tristan comment on it once. It turned the potentially unbelievable character trait actually rather cute and charming. It wound up just feeling romantic.

I also thought that the paranormal story was unique and unusual. I could understand why the thought of a broken Hoxne Grange brought Tristan to his knees. The Grange is a very special place. It was special because of Mara, and Heather Cook. It was in the way that Tristan created a home for both Boris and Jack… I particularly loved the story of Jack and the red ball, and I loved that Wolf just kept throwing it. I would love to rent a room at the Grange!

Also, while the cover of the book isn’t the best what I do love about it is that it’s not some overly sexual image of Tristan and Wolf half naked. In fact, I look at it and I don’t see Tristan at all. I see Wolf and Matt, from Hellsinger Investigations, on the job doing what they do best, proving haunting’s as hoaxes. And fortunately, in this case, failing!

If there were one thing that bothered me a little, it was the fact that I thought Gidget fell more on the mean side of her relationship with Matt. She was supposed to be quirky, their relationship was supposed to be an odd but adorable one, but for me I felt like she was just kind of a bitch. I rarely, if ever, saw her react toward Matt with affection to balance her snarky personality.

Anyway, I’m incredibly excited to move on and read the next book. We got our first taste of Wolf’s eccentric family and I know that in Duck Duck Ghost we’ll get an even closer look at Cin, hopefully with more Meegan, and I really can’t wait!

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