Broken Blade (Colbana Files #3) by J.C. Daniels

After being tortured, marked and raped by Jude the vampire, Kit is suffering from PTSD and feels that she is broken.  Her connection with her blade no longer works and Kit can barely deal with the loss.  Kit retires to Wolf Haven and starts working at a bar.  All her friends want her to hurry up and rejoin life but Kit isn't ready to face her demons.  T.J. however will not be denied and so arranges a small job for Kit, not realising that it will lead to Kit taking on one of the oldest magical creatures and possibly her death.

In Broken Blade, Daniels widened her world by introducing Pandora/Lilith.  We learned that Pandora/Lillith is responsible for creating shifters, vampires, witches and the warrior race the Aneria. I loved the origin story and it helped explain why witches are pacifists and some of the ongoing antagonism between the various supernatural groups.  With Pandora/Lilith as an antagonist, the story should have been absolutely epic.  I thought that this is where it was going when Pandora/Lillith killed Es, the leader of a coven of witches, only to be sorely disappointed when she was easily defeated by Kit. No way should Pandora/ Lilith have been defeated by a gunshot to the head.  Clearly, Daniels didn't know what to do with this character once she added her to the story.  It made the ending seem so rushed.  It would have been better to draw this out over two books, rather than to have Pandora/Lilith so easily defeated.

Far too often, when traumatic things happen to urban fantasy protagonists, it's brushed off so that the author can tell another story.  Because of the way that Daniels dealt with Kit's traumatic childhood, I believed that this would be different and I was right.  No one just gets over being kidnapped and tortured and that really needed to be dealt with. My biggest issue is that Kit was given just four months before she was forced back out into the world.  How is that enough time to heal?  Her friends claimed to want to help her but to me, it felt very much like Kit and her new quirks were being portrayed as a burden. How is going back to work and burying the trauma the strong thing to do? To me, it just sets up the victim to have yet another massive breakdown because no one is meant to simply power on after something like that.  Since Daniels decided to go there, I couldn't help but wonder why it is that she didn't set Kit up with some counselling?  Yeah, I know that urban fantasy is supposed to be all about defeating the bad guy but if you are going to have a protagonist with serious mental health issues then it must be respected and written about appropriately.

Kit isn't the only survivor who is not fully respected. T.J., the owner of the bar where Kit works is now a wheelchair user after being paralyzed by her former Alpha. She has made a life for herself running Wolf Haven, taking in the lost and the scared.  It is T.J. who ultimately pushes Kit out into the real world, pleading for Kit not to be like her.  T.J.'s way of dealing with being viciously assaulted is painted as weakness and that is a problem. If T.J. wasn't tough, she wouldn't have survived.

"Yeah, sure. I could be like your bitch of a grandmother. I could have been born human and made a leech instead of born a weak werewolf and then tortured by the sadistic wolf who stole my legs. But he’s not the one who stole my life, Kit. I gave it up. I stay in here…and I hide. I let him ruin me. I’m letting him win…and I know it.”

 “TJ, that’s not—”

“Don’t,” she warned, and the thread of steel under her voice was enough to silence me. “I stay in there,” she murmured. “I hide. Even though that son of a bitch would never leave his mountain to find me, I stay here. And I hide. You face down everything that scares you, until now. Don’t let him win, Kitty. You didn’t let anything else take you down. Don’t let this ruin you.” (pg 22)

The idea that there's only one acceptable way to be after surviving a violent assault is harmful and further policies victims.  T.J. it seems is a beta and so Kit simply assumes that she didn't have the ability for vengeance and justice and so decides at the end of the story to go after the twisted Alpha. This was not Kit's decision to make.  What I took away from all of this is that survivors cannot be trusted to run their own lives in the wake of an assault or to heal in a way that best suits them.  This plot line very much makes self care a sign of weakness.

Sleepy Hollow, Season Three, Episode Five: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Editor's Note: This is the second half of the cross over episode between Sleepy Hollow and Bones which for some inexplicable reason, Fox thought was necessary.

A courier driver makes his way happily down the road when Pandora appears in the middle of the street like a specter.  Thinking that he has run her over, he pulls over to the side of the road.  When he turns around, she's not there.  Pandora appears in front of him and tells him that this is not personal and then uses magic to suffocate him.  Pandora's eye begin to glow a sinister yellow and she instructs the driver to run.  When he turns tail, she opens up the back of the delivery truck. In the back of the truck is a sarcophagus which originated at the Jeffersonian.  Pandora throws an amulet on the bones and maggots appear.  Pandora says that some men are too important to die. The maggots become a live creature named General Howe and Pandora informs him that the King requires his aid.  Pandora asks him to gather his men to make the patriots become afraid of Britain and her dead again. Pandora offers General Howe vengeance on an enemy who once tried to end his life. Yep, you guessed it Ichabod Crane.

In the meantime, Crane and the crew are spending Halloween bowling.  Jenny is the first to comment that Crane could have loosened up and actually worn a costume and so he points out that he is John Adams.  The crew apparently should have guessed this from his waistcoat.  Ichabod notices Zoe and Abby encourages him to head over and get his flirt on. Naturally, Zoe knows exactly who Ichabod is dressed as and reveals that she chose to dress up as Betsy Ross.  Yeah, Sleepy Hollow is laying this all on a little thick if you ask me. They agree to bowl a frame together later and Crane heads back to his crew. Everyone takes the opportunity to tease Crane about his little chat with Zoe.  The laughter is cut short when Crane gets a text informing him that General Howe's remains never arrived at their destination.

Some kids are egging a graveyard when they notice an old gothic mausoleum and decide to investigate. The kids started to get freaked out and decide to leave but before they can do so, General Howe appears.  All of the kids save one manages to escape and he quickly finds himself surrounded by revolutionary war zombies.  Okay, for the record everyone knows that in a horror situation, the black folk flee and the white folk investigate and then get murdered.  WTH Sleepy Hollow?

Abby and Crane are investigating the now empty courier truck.  Crane immediately suggests that Pandora is guilty and wonders what she would want with Howe's remains.  Together, they decide to follow the tracks which of course leads to the mausoleum that the kids were just at. It seems that the British employed the area as a staging ground for the battle of Manhattan. Is there a stone in Sleepy Hollow that isn't historical in some fashion? As they head inside to check out the mausoleum, Abby takes the opportunity to bring up Zoe and suggest that Crane plan a date with her but Crane is adamant that he and Zoe are not a thing.  Okay, do these two even realise that they could be facing death? Why are they even talking about Zoe now? Abby suggests that it's time to move on and Crane talks about his former relationship with Katrina but says that this chapter of his life is now closed. Yep, let the audience say Amen. If I never hear Katrina's name again, it will be too soon.

Abby and Crane pause when they notice blood dripping from the season.  When they look up, the body of the kid plummets to the ground.  Abby and Crane don't have time to register what they are seeing because they are approached by zombie red coats, being led by none other than General Howe. Abby and Crane fire but being dead, neither Howe or his soldiers are injured.  They take off running with the soldiers fast on their heels. Crane and Abby just manage to evade the soldiers who run outside and end up bursting into dust when the suns rays touch them.

The next day at work, Abby heads into Reynolds office to find out why he has been visited by two U.S. attorneys. It seems that Reynolds has been working on a big case regarding a company buying items stolen by terrorists.  Reynolds offers Abby the job of task force coordinator and she is happy to accept.

Crane has flashbacks to when Howe was demanding that he inform on the patriots, as he searches through books for clue.  Abby enters and informs Crane that the death at the mausoleum has been ruled an accident.  Crane is upset because he has found nothing in Washington's bible, Franklin's notebook and Grace Dickson's notebook to explain what they witnessed.  Abby is adamant that they will find something because they always do.  Crane is upset because though things didn't end well with Howe, there was a time when he thought Howe to be honourable.  Abby however reminds Crane of all the things Howe tried to make him do. Crane then admits that Washington sent him to kill Howe, conceding that this was one of the darker points of the war.

Yep, it's flashback time and we see Howe holding the amulet that Pandora used to raise his body. Crane holds a gun to Howe's head advising him to order his men to turn around. Howe however chooses to test Crane's resolve, saying that Washington gave him this order to test Crane's loyalties. Howe asks Crane if he can kill a man in cold blood. Crane asks Howe to retreat and he refuses to do so until all the colonials lie in a grave. Howe tells Crane to do what he came to do or leave before he is placed in irons. Redcoats burst into the room, forcing Crane to flee.

In the present, Crane reports that if he had had another moment he would have pulled the trigger, which might have meant that the colonials would have been able to keep the city.  Abby wonders if there was another reason that Washington sent Crane to take out Howe and Crane admits that Howe was holding a stone with a Nordic emblem when he confronted him. When Crane says that the emblem looked like a man with two swords through him, Abby suggests that it means dead man walking.  That's all that's needed to give Crane a lead to a rare breed of undead warrior who swore an oath of duty in life that lasts beyond death.  From the book they figure out that the method of killing Howe must reside in his tomb.Since Pandora wants to raise fear in people the fact that Howe and his men will be roaming the street on Halloween will accomplish that if they are not stopped.

Joe Corbin arrives at Jenny's with the ingredients for her favourite drink and they flirt a little.  It's not long before they start talking about the shard.  Jenny has figured out that a man named Atticus is the one who is after the shard. Joe recognizes Atticus as a friend of his father's.   It seems that Joe's father served with Attius in the military.  Joe asks Jenny to hand him the albums he brought over and sure enough, there's a picture of Corbin standing next to Atticus.  Jenny and Joe wonder how many secrets Corbin kept from them but Jenny is adamant that now that they have a name, they can get some answers. Jenny assures Joe that Corbin was one of the best men she has ever known.