I struggled to get through the Scent of the Shadows, the first sign of the Zodiac. I found the world to be written too vaguely, the story too wordy. Although I liked the idea of Joanna Archer, living as her dead sister Olivia, while secretly being an agent of Light, s superhero, I found the book to be all of the place, and truthfully not all that exciting. Since I had already purchased the second book, I vowed to read it eventually and hope it would get better. Did it ever! This story had an intresting storyline, the plot twisted in hills and valleys. Unexpected turns around every corner. In this volume, Joanna the Archer of Light, is out for revenge against the man (an agent of Shadow) who raped her years before. To get to him, she risks the safety and trust of her own troop of Light superheroes. The master of her enemies, the Shadow agents is her own father, a man she never knew. Now the Shadows have set a plague upon the city of Las Vegas. People are dying suddenly and grotesquely. The action here never lessens, until the book's conclusion. There are hints at the end to what awaits in the third installment. I still find some of the paranormal hero activities a little hard to imagine, and I felt like the scenes with the little girl giving Joanna her aura were just too contrived. This story was much more exciting and tight than its predassessor and I must admit I am eager to read the next installment. ( )

Continuing the series of Zodiac books.

Jo's secret identity is known and she is being hunted. She decides to flip and go on the offensive. She disregards the orders of her troop leader, forms a loose alliance with a Shadow initiate, and uncovers a lot of clues about what the bad guys are up to but doesn't share and doesn't put the pieces together in time.

This book does a good job of advancing the shadows and the light. It makes it more likely that she's going to switch sides at least once I think - her boss in the Light is very much by the book, whilst she's more adapt and overcome.

It is made clear, abundantly clear several times, that she's following a path that's dangerous to her and her friends but she presses ahead anyway. She makes gains, but puts quite a lot of things at risk.

Fundamentally unresolved is the attitudinal difference. Her team wants to defend, patch-up, cover-up, take no risks; she's much more into direct action.

The book ought to be better than 3 stars, but it's not. All of the elements for it to work are more or less there, but it's like the difference between apple pie if I make it and if a top-ranked Michelin chef uses the same ingredients. Mine would be OK but just not as good as the Michelin chef's. This book feels more like my apple pie: it's solid and OK, but that spark of greatness isn't here sadly. ( )

The second book continues not too long after the first, and Joanna Archer here is out to take revenge on Joaquin, the Shadow agent that assaulted her as a kid.

The tone is the same as the first :

"His curiosity didn’t surprise me. I was something new, after all. Something spoken about in the superhero mythology and written about in our texts, but that no one on either side of the Zodiac had ever seen before. I was the first star sign who’d ever been both Shadow and Light, the person our mythology called the Kairos, and the fulcrum upon which the supernatural fates hinged. Basically I could tip the metaphysical scales in the favor of whatever side I chose, Shadow or Light, which made me a valuable commodity in the paranormal world."

Or so she finds out. the Changeling protector children and psychic recordkeepers of the Zodiac, based at the local comic shop, of course, which is pretty funny.

A little bit faster paced, a little more amusing, and more action as she goes from auctioning herself for charity in her Olivia guise, to superhero training, mass swinger balls and attempting to assassinate her enemies. Not to mention a confrontation with her mystic evil unreal real father.

Again, another entertaining and at times brutal superhero novel.

http://superprose.blogspot.com/2007/1... ( )

I thought it was better than the first book in the series. The story seemed tighter and there were fewer instances of characters failing to grasp the blindingly obvious. Still, it might be be time to get this series from the library rather than buy the books. ( )

An amazing new series about superheroes! If you love urban fantasy, this one should be on the top of your must read list. It's kind of a mix between X-Men and Heroes set in Vegas. ( )