Zoe is a detective of sorts. Since she can travel out of body, she is able to spy on people without them being able to see her. The author has created a world that is sometimes difficult to follow. Wraith, corporeal, symbionts, phantasm, Abysmal, etc. Zoe has lost 24 hrs of her life and only has a recollectioon of a demon-type from the Abysmal who looks like Vin Diesel taking some of her powers and giving her some of his during a night of vague passion. Vin Diesel and a cute cop are vying for her affections (ala Stephanie Plum. The author even uses the term "damn skippy.") It's somewhat sassy, a dash of sexy, but a bit silly beause Zoe is constantly making "note to self," and when she astral travels wears her pink bunny slippers. I had read the second in the series, Spectre, first which referred to things that happened in book one. So I would suggest you read the books in order. ( )

Zoe is a detective of sorts. Since she can travel out of body, she is able to spy on people without them being able to see her. The author has created a world that is sometimes difficult to follow. Wraith, corporeal, symbionts, phantasm, Abysmal, etc. Zoe has lost 24 hrs of her life and only has a recollection of a demon-type from the Abysmal who looks like Vin Diesel taking some of her powers and giving her some of his during a night of vague passion. Vin Diesel and a cute cop are vying for her affections (ala Stephanie Plum. The author even uses the term "damn skippy.") It's somewhat sassy, a dash of sexy, but a bit silly because Zoe is constantly making "note to self," and when she astral "travels" wears her pink bunny slippers. I had read the second in the series, Spectre, first which referred to things that happened in book one. So I would suggest you read the books in order. ( )

Wraith is Phaedra Weldon's debut novel, and it shows. There will be spoilers here, so stop reading if'n you don't like that.

The book does show promise. Zoe Martinique gets paid to travel outside her body and snoop. She finds trouble in the form of a murderous entity set on taking her bit by bit. Weldon builds her world more through exposition than discovery, which can make the details a bit hard to remember.

I like the characters, especially Mom, though she's perhaps a little too perfect. The book has a very good first half, then kind of meanders, as if Weldon either didn't have a clear idea of what to say, or left too much in her head where it would do the reader no good. Especially annoying was the tell, don't show nature of her relationship with Archer. Frankly, we should have been there for the sex. She should have remembered the whole thing so we could have some conflict, confusion, and guilt. It would have made the dynamic between these two characters much more interesting.

Some of the motivations were less than believable. She drops (literally) her hottie cop so he'll die and she can get angry enough to kill the bad guy? Oh, I don't think so. It's as if Weldon had a place she wanted the character to go, but wasn't sure how to get her there. Re-thinking the destination may have been in order.

That said, I'm still going to read the next book, because this has all the marks of a series that will get much better as the author finds her sea legs. I'm betting the next two books will be pretty good, and the fourth book will kick ass. ( )

Zoë Martinique lives in a strange life. Her mom runs a tea/occult shop out of an old Victorian house, with the help of the ghostly gay couple that haunts the house and Rhonda, an urban fantasy cross between Penelope Garcia and Abby Sciuto. And Zoë herself is a strange character, possessing the ability to shuck her body and astrally travel about the city at will. It's Zoë's career path, auctioning her services as a super spy off on ebay, that leads to trouble when on an out-of-body spy mission she witnesses a creepy, Vin Diesel look-alike kill and reap the soul of a vice president of a major Atlanta company. Worse the creep marks her somehow, binding the two of them together and sending Zoë on a life changing mission to save herself and others.
I have very mixed reactions to this book. To begin with it was very hard to get into. Zoë makes a lot of TV/movie references, she speaks directly to the reader often and her attitude is rather childish. Zoë's mother, the ghosts and Rhonda come off flat, and, honestly, annoying. The flow of the action, and therefore the tension, is consistently interrupted by Zoë's comments to the reader or attempts to be funny (usually with pop culture references) which nine times out of ten aren't. At one point, after the plot finally starts to be interesting, the flow is completely broken by a scene in which Zoë's "loving" mother holds Zoë at gunpoint and forces her to submit to an exorcism. I very nearly stopped there. Even though she's 28, Zoë's mother, Nona, treats her like child, even to the point of drugging her and physically restraining her to keep her from following the plot. Not only does this make Zoë seems even more childish, and disrupt the core plot, dragging it out more than needed, but the later references to Nona only acting out of love just don't coincide with her actions making the mother-daughter dynamic feel more like an abuser/Stockholm syndrome relationship.
However, there are some interesting ideas in Wraith. Primarily is the reoccurring theme of people using Zoë's body against her. She gained her power during a traumatic rape and even after she becomes comfortable with it over and over people capture Zoë's body while she's out running around astrally and use it as leverage against her in a variety of ways. Whether Weldon realizes she's layered this theme into Wraith or not I'm not sure, but I did find myself continuing, wanting to see Zoë overcome this problem as much as I wanted her to have beat off her original rapist.
The dynamic between Zoë and the two leading males in the book is also interesting, especially as unlike other urban fantasy books that stick closer to the romance Happily-For-Now ending this series seems poised to go into some very dark, rule-free territories that are interesting and new.
There's also something to be said for the plot itself, which has unexpected twists of mystery, centers around planes of existence rather than the ways the character exist and spans into a multitude of human races that are sometimes missing from other urban fantasy tales.
I'm not sure I can recommend Wraith at this point, but I can't exactly dismiss it either, making it one of the more difficult reads, and difficult reviews I've done in a while. ( )

With the release of the second book in Phaedra Weldon’s series, I thought it would be a good time to revisit Wraith, Zoe’s debut. A friend first introduced me to the book in November and I’m very excited to read the next Zoe Martinique investigation.

Zoe is a quippy, compelling protagonist, a woman able to project herself astrally. She uses her talents to procure information, which leads her into trouble from the outset. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot; a good teaser can be found at Amazon. I enjoyed this book a lot more the second time around, likely because I was able to appreciate the nuances of Ms. Weldon’s writing. Zoe is surrounded by a great supporting class - her mother Nona, her friend Rhonda, and two ghosts - and a fun love interest. There’s also a lot of humour in the story, in addition to the complex plot with tons of action, and it makes the book go by too fast, in the best way possible.

The author has a neat take on astral projection and the effects it has on the human body. It’s almost enough to make me want to buy this book. Well, not really but Ms. Weldon has a fairly convincing take on the science of astral projection. Her wraith concept is also really cool.

Originally published at http://ireadgood.wordpress.com ( )