Series: Delphic Oracle Book 1
Author(s): Alayna Williams
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher/Year: Pocket Books/2010
-Webpage: Alayna Williams Home
-Blog: Salamander's Tales
Synopsis: As a criminal profiler, Tara used science and her intuitive skill at Tarot card divination to track down the dangerous and depraved, including the serial killer who left her scarred from head to toe. Since that savage attack, Tara has been a recluse. But now an ancient secret society known as Delphi’s Daughters has asked for her help in locating missing scientist Lowell Magnusson. And Tara, armed with her Tarot deck, her .38, and a stack of misgivings, agrees to try.
Tara immediately senses there is far more at stake than one man’s life. At his government lab in the New Mexico desert, Magnusson had developed groundbreaking technology with terrifying potential. Working alongside the brusque but charismatic agent Harry Li, Tara discovers that Magnusson’s daughter, Cassie, has knowledge that makes her a target too. The more Tara sees into the future, the more there is to fear. She knows she has to protect Cassie. But there may be no way to protect herself—from the enemies circling around her, or from the long-buried powers stirring to life within. . . .
Rating:
Review: I waited until I had book 2 (Rogue Oracle) in my hands before deciding to read this because I had a feeling it would be like with Williams alter-ego persona Laura Bickle's Anya Kalicinzyk series (meaning, I'd want more and not have it and be sad). It didn't disappoint!
Using the Tarot Cards as a means for which Tara found clues was more engrossing then I first believed. I'm not quite a skeptic when it comes to such matters (tarot reading that is), but I thought it would subsume more of the story then it did. Instead it was more like a silent partner that Tara would confer with and use as a guide, but it wasn't the crutch that the synopsis makes it sound like. As Tara puts it to Special Agent Harry Li the cards don't tell her what to do and she blindly follows them. Instead they offer a way for her to draw connections and use her own intuitive powers to observe what lines up with what.
A plus side is that Williams gave instructive but not preachy or info-heavy details about each card without breaking the flow of the narrative.
Even knowing this is the same author as Laura Bickle, the book itself felt different. There's some similarities between the two protagonists--they both suffer past traumas relating to their gift, both are alone in the world (blood ties wise), both work (or in Tara's case worked) with law enforcement to make the world a better place. The difference is how they interact with the world at large. Anya keeps herself closed off, grudgingly giving small pieces of herself. Tara, even though she is frightened of what could happen, is more open. more willing to accept help.
She's not happy about it, but she recognizes that help--even help from a not quite sure if she can trust him source like Harry--can only facilitate helping the matter at hand. Her and Harry clicked instantly, despite their wariness and general disapproval from his superiors. They were surprisingly complimentary to each other; Harry's forthright manner and logical approach coincided with Tara's intuition really well. Often they would reach the same, or at least similar, conclusion through their differing tactics.
Oh I loved Harry. I really did. I wanted to cuddle him and love him and hold his hand the entire book. He was just so earnest. He didn't believe in the system blindly, but he wanted to believe they had the best intentions and his superior (Corvus, Tara's ex-partner who was ten kinds of shady slime) was doing the right thing. Gabriel, that man made my eye twitch. Seriously. He screamed scumball every time he opened his mouth.
I found the Pythia and Daughters of Delphi subplot to be intriguing. At the end, when most of the cards are laid out on the table, hindsight made second meanings for the comments throughout. If nothing else those are ladies I will never play a game of chance against.
Do you guys believe in the tarot? Any interesting stories from a tarot reading?
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