Kerry Allen

Thin Air by Rachel Caine
Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
ISBN: 0451461630 
Available Now
Retail Price $6.99
Book Six in the Weather Warden series

The sixth book in a series poses something of a pimping dilemma. I would neverever suggest beginning a series at any point other than Book One. I assume if you’ve already read the first five, you’re not waiting for someone to convince you to buy Book Six, so the goal would seem to be to steer the uninitiated toward Book One… but I’ve just read Book Six and am bursting to share. Hence my dilemma.

Perhaps my unbridled enthusiasm for the series, communicated in my lovefest for Book Six, will be persuasive enough to move you toward the beginning.

Minimal background information: Joanne Baldwin is a Weather Warden. Wardens tweak weather, fire, and earth to make them less devastating, but it’s a tricky business, since the redirected energy from the tweak has to go somewhere, which can cause devastation of its own. For many, many years, the Wardens made use of enslaved djinn, harnessing the djinns’ power to augment their own. The djinn, during the course of Book Five, became gloriously, catastrophically free, and David, Joanne’s djinn lover, was thrust into the unenviable position of their leader.

I must first confess: I am a David groupie. Total squealing fangirl, a disgrace to upstanding romance readers everywhere (and the Warden books are fantasy, not romance—although the romance is one of the greatest I’ve ever read—so my embarrassing behavior transcends genre boundaries to make you cringe). Would I choose him over Acheron (Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter honcho), whose bitch I am? Yeah. In a Marysue fantasyworld, I would either/or Ash—be his personal naked trampoline or his galpal. I could totally handle being Simi.

David? Hell, no, I do not want to be just friends.

Why the disparity? I’ve seen how David loves, and it is fierce. All-encompassing. Heartbreaking. Five minutes being the object of that kind of passion would tide a girl over for the next hundred years or so.

So at the end of Book the Fifth, when Jo’s memory was wiped and David, in all his inhuman intensity and perfection, scared the hell out of her, I was anxious—and not for Jo. Would she end up turning to Lewis (mentor, friend, and former lover who is comfortingly human), who’s a decent guy, but not so decent he would respect the sanctity of her forgotten love for David if she put the moves on him? That would kill David. He would atomize Lewis first, which would hardly convince Jo he’s not a monster, and then he’d die, heart shattered, and I would cry for a week.

Let me tell you, it’s been a long, cruel wait for the continuation.

The guts of the thing: There’s a demon loose in the world, sucking energy from anything that will feed it. When Jo’s memories were taken, they were flung off in the form of energy and gobbled up by the demon. Now it’s bent on taking over the rest of Jo’s life, and the only obstacle is, well… Jo.

Jo finds herself alone, wanted by the Wardens, wanted by the police, wanted by the press, hunted by a demon who has her face and her memories, and not even David believes she’s herself anymore.

Unfortunately, there’s no federal task force to address this kind of identity theft, so it’s up to Jo to stop her doppelganger from using her power to tear open a portal and invite her demon buddies over to earth to party.

And, more importantly, keep her slimy skank hands off David. (Whaddya mean that’s not more important? Sez you.)

Mercifully, this book did not end on a panic attack-inducing cliffhanger, so I can await Book Seven with a normal level of anticipation.

To pop your Weather Warden cherry, start with Book One, Ill Wind.