Spiral Hunt

Evie Scelan is the Hound, whose nose can find anything (no animal transformation, though). She ekes out a living as a finder of lost objects and a bike messenger. Boston’s “undercurrent” is ruled by powerful, dangerous adepts, and when an old flame asks for her help, Evie is drawn far deeper in than she ever wanted to go. I thought that this was very well-executed urban fantasy: there are even two male love interests to go along with the eldritch powers, but the powers themselves are unusual and the conflicts felt organic, not formulaic.

Urban fantasy novels can go in a couple of different directions, and this one tends towards the gritty and grim. In Margaret Ronald's alternate Boston, almost all the magic users are addicts living marginal half-lives, consumed by paranoia. The magicians who aren't flat-out bums fit into another, even more unsavory category: they're evil. A group known as the Bright Brotherhood keeps a mafia-style chokehold over Boston's supernatural population - if you're not with the Brotherhood, you're against them; and if you're against the Brotherhood, your days are numbered.

The novel's heroine, Evie Scelan, is par for the course in the genre but very easy to like. She's a part-time bike messenger who's starting up a fledgling business in finding show more lost items. Her attitude towards her own magic seems a little schizophrenic. On the one hand, we she spent most of her adult life hiding her abilities; she knows it's dangerous to be recognized as a magic user in Boston. On the other hand, her new business is all about advertising, and using, her unique magical talent. She's a "Hound" - she can find lost things, trace scents where there's no physical trail. Pick a pebble up off the ground for a minute, and she could trace the magical residue left on it for miles.

So the plot heads off in a few different directions, which all converge neatly at the end. First, Evie gets a phone call from an old flame - he's been forced to work for the Bright Brotherhood, and he's going to make a run for it. They didn't part on good terms, but Evie's determined to find him and help him get free. This already seems like a fool's errand, but there's more. Her good friend Sarah, a white witch, asks her to hunt down a collection of "chain stones" - stones with magical properties. Evie doesn't realize it at the time, but these stones are very, very important to the Bright Brotherhood. And then, to make matters worse, it soon becomes clear that she probably won't need to look very hard to find the Bright Brotherhood...because they're already hunting her. Her magic has come to their attention, and now they want to force her into the fold.

Evie spends most of her time taking two steps backward for every one step forward. She gathers information bit by bit, and all the while the Brotherhood is attacking her and her friends. For every clue she finds, someone she loves is kidnapped, or some potential informant is killed. This makes the book a real page-turner, but it also casts a shadow over all of Evie's small victories, because the price of progress is pretty steep.

Bizarrely enough, while Evie's day-to-day reality is relentlessly grim, Ronald's mythology is complex, gorgeous, and incredibly charming. At the end of the book, the author notes that she got a lot of her material from a college course on Celtic mythology, and I'm thinking that's why there's such a richness and depth to her references here. But the most charming thing of all - the most wonderfully Bostonian aspect of the book - is the way that Ronald incorporates the Red Sox, and the team's mythology, into the plot.

The only thing that really didn't work for me here was the romance. It's hard to say much about it without giving spoilers, but Evie's relationship with both of her potential suitors rang false to me. On the whole, though, Spiral Hunt puts down a solid foundation for a series. The second book has already been published, and I'll be picking it up as soon as I can. show less

I finished Spiral Hunt in 2 days (that's more like my old style of reading!). I didn't get much else done. But I read that book!

It's a good book. You should read it.

Ms Ronald uses some Irish Mythology in her book. She herself states that she changed some things with her approach, or paraphrased a little. It works here. Her main character, Evie Scelan is a finder of lost things. Some people call her Hound. She uses her nose to scent things, and can tell a lot with her nose. The book is based in Boston, where there is a Brotherhood that controls a lot of the magic. They (the brotherhood) aren't very nice.

She gets a mysterious phone call from an exboyfriend and meets a man who claims to be his friend. This man wants to help her find Frank show more (the ex). Some spooky things begin to happen. She tries to find her ex by using her nose. While this is going on, her cop friend Rena ask her to help with an odd case, and her other friend Sarah asks her to find some missing stones that are magic related. Spooky magical attacks occur. The rest of the book is full of suspensful, spooky happenings. If I write more, it'll be spoilers.

I would highly recommend this book. There are no vampires or werewolves in this one, it's strictly culled from legends from Ireland and there is a lot of magic going down. There is NO akward dialogue, no useless dialogue that makes you think (why?) and absolutely no sex scenes that just pop up out of nowhere. Which is a nice change once in a while. I'm not a prude, but I sometimes get tired of silly sex scenes that just appear for seemingly no reason. (I know publishers push for it in some instances, they shouldn't - yes sex sells, but so does a good book.) The writing is superb. Margaret Ronald makes you care about the characters. When the book was finished, I wanted to read another book by this writer.

I haven't seen this book mentioned in any of the big blogs, or pimped by the bookstores, but it's really worth buying and reading. show less

"Spiral Hunt" is one of the hardest books I've had to rate in recent memory. I really liked the idea of the story and I liked many of the characters quite a bit. This is the first in a series of books about Evie Scelan. They call her 'the hound' because she can find things (and people) by tracking them with her nose and sense of smell, like dogs do. She is involved in the underground world called the 'undercurrent', which is a world of magic most aren't aware of. It sounds amazing. But somehow the book falls flat and failed to excite me although I was invested enough to read the book through in just a couple of days. The undercurrent is a murky idea at best. The readers is left in confusion a good portion of the time. There are many show more engaging elements but the book as a whole was just unsatisfying. I did really like the side characters and I liked Evie quite a bit. The dream states Evie finds herself in adds to more confusion. I had a difficult time connecting all the dots and thats really a pet peeve of mine. I have already purchased the second book and I may eventually read it. Some say its better than this one. show less

Evie Scelan is known as the Hound because of her ability to track people and items through what she perceives as their scent. This alone is a nice twist on magical abilities, giving the book some lovely sensory descriptions. Another thing I enjoyed was the use of celtic mythology, which was not done in a way that pushed my celtic-cliche buttons, and which tied in nicely with the historically accurate influx of Irish immigrants in Boston. The descriptions of Boston seem to be well done, though it's not a city that I'm familiar with. But there are some very evocative descriptions of the city which bring it to life even for someone who's never been there. The physics of magic in this world were understandable and sensible. The story hooked show more me in nicely and kept me turning pages.

Overall, this is a fun and original addition to the urban fantasy genre, and I can't wait to see what the author comes out with next! show less

Spiral Hunt is probably the best new book I've read in a while. I read it for the first time when it came out and decided to re-read it recently since I enjoyed it so much the first time around. Margaret Ronald has created a great protagonist in Evie Scelan, a person with the Scent. With this power, she can track things and people; after all, everyone and everything has a unique scent. In this case, she's trying to track down her old friend Frank after her contacts her with a mysterious phone call. Along the way, she has a couple other jobs and a potential romantic entanglement that all tie up neatly into one overarching storyline.

This is probably one of the best books I've read in a while. Evie's a great protagonist - she's smart, show more flawed and funny - and Margaret Ronald has created a really interesting mythology for the novel, drawing on the British Isles for this component of the story. She's also got some neat supporting characters and takes the book in directions I didn't expect, which is always wonderful.

It looks like there's another Evie Scelan book coming out next month so I'm really excited to see what happens next!

Originally published at http://ireadgood.wordpress.com show less

This is the first new urban fantasy novel I've read in a while. I know the author, and like her, so I was predisposed to like the book, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed it even if I'd never met her. The protagonist and her friends and acquaintances are all believably complex and vivid. I enjoyed the fairly-recent-past Boston setting mixed in with the Celtic mythology.

I'm just beginning the second book in the series now, and look forward to the third installment!