Gwen’s review of Nightkeepers (The Final Prophecy, Book 1) by Jessica Andersen
Paranormal romance released by Signet 3 Jun 08

This is the start of what promises to be a very fun paranormal romantic suspense series. You can’t get a lot more ambitious than calling a series “Final Prophecy” and talking about how the world will end in our lifetimes. Luckily, Andersen delivers a fun story and engrossing romance to go along with the dire predictions.

I enjoyed this story. I wasn’t swept away in rapturous waves of “OMFG! YOU MUST READ THIS”-ness, but I did like it. I had a more “Hey – this is pretty good” reaction, with a couple of slow moments.

The only serious bone I have to pick with the book is it’s a LOT of world-building all in one little ol’ book. And it was CONFUSING at times. I much preferred the story when I could just focus on the characters and their relationships. But, even then there were a LOT of them to keep up with. I wanted to draw myself a “relationship map” so I could keep track of who was with whom, and what their relationship was with the rest of them.

The mythos behind the Final Prophecy series promises to be unique, if a bit unusual – Mayan gods and goddesses. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s new pantheon in her Dream Hunter books risks the same thing Andersen does – introducing a new pantheon to readers. When an author veers off the beaten path of Christian, Greek, and Roman pantheons they have to do one of two things: (1) spend a LOT of time in the book setting a reader’s baseline understanding, or (2) provide a glossary. Both are painful, but perhaps the glossary is the lesser of two evils (ask Ward). Lots of info dumping really, really slows a story down. I’ll be waiting to see how Andersen resolves this in book 2. I have a hard enough time trying to pronounce the names, let alone knowing what a god/goddess is supposed to represent or be able to do – all those X’s…

I enjoyed Andersen’s characterizations. I liked how her heroes and heroines were as normal as possible – foibles, mistakes, and normal tendencies in amongst the bizarre and otherworldly happenings. Some of the settings were stretching my ability to suspend disbelief, but I was able to just roll with it and enjoy the story. I really enjoyed Rabbit and the complexities behind his relationship with his dad. In fact, one of my favorite paragraphs is a scene with Rabbit in it:

[Rabbit] was doing his damnedest to keep the thing away from the sacred chamber, trying to give his old man and Strike a chance to save the world, but he was losing steam. His breath burned in his lungs, and his legs were on fire as he bore down and widened the gap, running with muscle and heart and a touch of magic, a litany of oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, sounding in his brain.

That is just such a well-written scene. In just a few short sentences, the entire scene is set, characters are described, and the drama unfolds. Not too many authors are proficient enough to really do this so elegantly. Luckily for us, Andersen is one of those authors.

This was a good, ambitious book. I enjoyed it and will gladly read the next in the series, though perhaps not the exact moment it releases.

Grade: B-

Summary:

According to the Mayan doomsday prophecy, time ends on December 21, 2012. In Nightkeepers, the last king of an ancient race of magi must team up with a sexy Miami-Dade narcotics detective in order to reunite his scattered warriors and fight the gods of the Mayan underworld. Wielding ancestral blood magic, the king must choose between his duty to avert the 2012 apocalypse and his love for the woman who is the gods’ destined sacrifice.

Read an excerpt.