Reluctant Adept (Clairvoyant's Complicated Life #3) by Katherine Bayless

Lire has changed a lot over the last two books – she’s come a long way from the Clairvoyant who helped in police cases. Now as Earth’s only Adept – one of only two known – she is in high demand. And many forces, especially factions of the fae, are desperate to control her

But behind that is the looming threat of the demonic invasion – and who else can unite the disparate forces to face off this threat?

When I first started this book I had a horrible moment of confusion – because I had no idea what was going on. We had vampires and witches and psychics and magic and djinn and two factions of fae and a demon invasion. In the middle of all this is Lire, a Clairvoyant with a collection of new psychic powers she can barely control who also has an essential and deeply rare ability that is not only generally in high demand but will be essential when facing the demonic invasion and is valued by the fae as utterly necessary for their civilisation to continue.

That’s a lot to swallow – but within a few pages it all came flooding back and I remembered how huge and wonderful this world was, how much fun the characters are and how layered and interesting the plot line was. And very quickly paced – this book hit the ground running. There was no standalone stuffing, you cannot pick up this book without having read the previous two books first – because the plot begins straight away and we dive in to this world with a full expectation of the reader to know what’s happening. And I love it. No padding, no fluff, no unnecessary explanations – we get into the plot and the meat.

You need to have read the two previous books first and I strongly advise it because I love this series

The plot is complex and involved with Lire doing a lot of growth while also fiercely staying true to herself. Learning as she goes, dealing with a lot of very different characters from different factions all with their own full agendas – and none of them (ok, maybe the demons) can just be condemned as pure evil for the sake of it.

Deceiver's Bond (A Clairvoyant's Complicated Life #2) by Katherine Bayless

Lire, powerful Seattle psychic and clairvoyant could really use some down time after narrowly surviving a traumatic and near-death experience – especially since she now has 3 new psychic powers to try to assimilate even while she’s frightened of some of the new things she can do.

But there are ongoing effects – the demon Paimon still has forged a link with Lire and is driving her to act to save the world; if she can actually trust a word he says. Invisius is still trying to snare Lire in its own secret machinations…

And then the sidhe appear.

This book seems to be moving in a very different direction, while still using the wonderfully rich world and excellent characters we had in the last book (I loved them so very much).

In the last book the focus was on a demonically manipulated serial killer and, lurking behind him, the sneaky and manipulative Invisius organisation with its mind readers, diviners and the ability to control people’s thoughts. It was a dire threat to face, but Lire had friends and allies and we were all set up to face it

This book takes a sharp turn – and a much broader focus. This brings in the fae and the demons in a much larger extent and we have some wonderful expansions of the world building with both creatures being referenced and developed including an excellent and original reason for why both species actually want to reach Earth (I think this is especially important because so much of the genre works by relying on past assumptions of genre staples. Demons want to invade this world? Why? Because it’s what demons do, right?). It upgrades the epicness of the series and puts things in a far more important context. This is no longer just Lire’s story, but a story on which the world rests.

But Lire is still front and centre of it – her story is still central. We still have Lire getting though her life, excellently handling her psychic abilities that have now grown so greatly and her own self-doubts and worries about that. There’s the added pressure of her normal life being almost unsupportable through all this pressure – even well meaning pressure – and her growing frustration with the very nature of prophecy. Various beings have decided she is the Chosen One to save them all and she has not the time, patience or confidence for such pronouncements. Especially since prophecy is being used as a stick to goad her or a justification for other’s meddling. No matter what the prophecies say, this is Lire’s life and she has no wish to throw it away or twist it irreparably because “it is written”.

It’s still about her which is excellent – because Lire is an awesome character.

One thing the new, epic and fascinating plot lines have done though is brush the old plot lines aside a little… clumsily. I felt that we kind of raced to the new paradigm and the old one was hastily put to bed and banished into the background.

I do find Lire to be annoyingly nice at times. In particular she’s almost supernaturally forgiving and understanding. Especially towards Danny and Kieran. Yes both of them have been put in awkward situations like Lire, but the situations they’ve been put in have caused them to directly affect Lire’s life. Danny has invaded the minds of people round her, changed their lives, rearranged her neighbours, her work and regularly kept secrets from her. Kieran was sent to seduce her (which is a very very broad definition of what he was expected to do) and fought with her while Maeve did her thing with Vince. Sure they are in terrible circumstances and are acting with the very best of intentions but I think Lire is being something of a saint to be as forgiving and understanding as she is. I would definitely have stabbed a few people with the silverware over dinner by now.

Deadly Remains (A Clairvoyant's Complicated Life #1) by Katherine Bayless

Lire works for the police pro-bono – and as the most powerful touch-psychic in the area, she’s definitely a major asset. Unfortunately, prejudice and superstition make it hard to convince others to accept that, especially Detective Vince Vanelli. She has enough problems navigating in a world where touch is a constant peril, without having to babysit the chip on his shoulder

There’s a serial killer on the loose and she’s determined to help catch him especially when one of the victims hits so close to home. She pushes far further than is wise – both taxing her powers and rising the ire of an secret organisation that has a lot of power to make life difficult; but can Lire really risk the killer killing again?

When I picked up this book I saw it was about a psychic helping the police I was interested, but expected something I’d seen before – after all, a psychometric reading information from evidence, or any psychic helping the police isn’t new.

And there were a lot of concepts I’ve seen before – but this goes to show that a concept doesn’t have to be completely new to be awesome. Because while I’ve seen them before, I don’t think I’d seen them as well done as I have here. The information that Lire gets from touching things is really well done – as is the peril of her touching things without realising. The way she can get overwhelmed is really well done – as well as the worry over the subject matter – how can you go around touching things involved in a murder without seeing and experiencing truly horrendously traumatic images and events? Or, what if you touch someone who themselves is a terrible person and you absorb their entire experience and mind set? It’s really well written to really bring home the power of these visions and how they can affect the psychic’s mental health.

On top of that, the world building has been developed beyond these concepts – so we have a psychic who gets impressions from touching things? We often see that, are giving a dash of tragedy and move on but this book takes it to the next level. What does that mean? How does this psychic eat? How do they drink? How do they wash their clothes or buy furniture or sleep in a hotel? Since animals also leave impressions, can they even eat meat? This is where this book excels – it takes the basic concepts but develops it and makes it real with the detail and all the little elements that we generally don’t think about but have to be considered.

I also love how it’s developed into an actual marketable skill – authenticating antiques or providing information for historians is an excellent twist I’ve never come across before.

I’ve rambled on about this world building of the psychics for a while and it probably gives a terrible impression that there are lots of infodumps in this book – but there isn’t. It actually flows wonderfully with all these elements of the world naturally incorporated into Lire’s experience.

Also she has an undead necromantic possessed teddy bear which manages neither to be twee nor ridiculous. How can this not be a good thing?