Misery Happens (Miss Misery #5) by Tracey Martin

Jessica is now facing the final chapter of her story – an ominous red sky signals the opening of the Demon prison – the first demons, the progenitors of the Furies and a terrifying force that could literally destroy the world.

Prophecy points to one small group of people who can close the prison and save the world – and chief among them is Jess. She has a lot to learn in very little time as well as a powerful magical artefact to find.

And just when she was getting her life together and finally deciding what she wanted from life: just as her life comes under unprecedented scrutiny – and hostility.

I generally really liked this book and the conclusion of Jess’s story – which came to an excellent conclusion. There are only two issues that pulled it back

Firstly, around the middle of the book it all kind of wobbles; the book kind of pauses. I can see why it wobbles and it makes sense for it to wobble but that doesn’t necessarily make the wobble. Basically there’s a tense moment in the middle of the book where everything is on hold. Everyone is researching, everyone is waiting for the bad guys to make the next move, everyone is tense, everyone is fearful, everyone is worrying about what will happen next, everyone is worrying about whether they’re ready or how their lives will change. Everyone is in holding as preparations happen. But everyone – specifically Jess – isn’t actually doing a whole lot. Even though I completely understand why they’re not doing an awful lot, it still feels frustrating – it feels like we’re gearing up to a major ending without actually heading for it, more like we’re waiting for a major ending to land on us. In some ways it’s the same issue I had with the last book – we have lots of preparation for stuff to happen without it actually doing so.

Darkest Misery (Miss Misery #4) by Tracey Martin

Jessica has successfully forced the various factions of the city to come together to talk about the Fury threat.

Unfortunately talking doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything productive.

Inevitably she finds herself with few people she can trust as she’s pushed to find out exactly what the Fury’s plan and how she and her follows are involved – she needs these answers even if it means going to the Gryphon home base in France to get them

I want to love this book. I tried really really really hard to love this book. I loved the previous books in this series, I love the world, I love the characters, I give it a definite nod for its diversity even if it’s not among the main cast, I love the concept, the plot and, so far, I’ve really loved the writing

But this book? I can’t love and that depresses me when I find myself having to write a negative review about a book I was really hoping would be awesome. Alas, I have to. I do hope that this is just a transition book on the way to a whole new direction to the series – which does happen in several series. So I’m clinging to this because I love this series and don’t want this to be more than a temporary hiccough in my love

So why didn’t I love this book? Mainly because a whole lot doesn’t really happen

At the end of the last book Jess has managed to bury a lot of her grudges and prejudices to forge an alliance between the disparate forces of the city: The Mages, The Gryphons and The Preds. They were going to come together with Jess as the go-between, to ensure the Furies’ plan to unleash carnage on the world doesn’t come pass. So they come together and… bicker.

And bicker. They meet and bicker. Then they…. Uh… bicker. And a mage dies but Jess isn’t part of the investigation and all they do about it is bicker a bit more. The bickering is occasionally broken by Jess having temper tantrums which is somewhat understandable given her frustration but part of her whole choice in the last book was to be the diplomat. She fails spectacularly at it.

Misery Loves Company (Miss Misery #3) by Tracey Martin

Jess decided she was going to have nothing to do with the Gryphons any more, regardless of their blackmail, not after what she learned about her childhood

That’s until her best friend Steph’s cousin is turned into a ghoul by the Goblin who owns his soul. How can she refuse to be involved in the investigation and turn her back on her friend?

Of course, going back to the Gryphons isn’t helping her rocky relationship with her satyr boyfriend, Lucen, who wants her to accept the multiple sex partners that are necessary for satyrs. And that’s before she tackles her own conflicted feelings about her own Pred heritage.

Looming over all of this, several prophecies are aligning – and the end of the world may be nigh.

This book is moving the story to a whole new level – in some ways it’s a transition book; but usually that would mean a weaker novel but that’s far from the case here. It feels like Jess has reached the end of her journey of self-discovery and all the conflict there and it has been done excellently. I’ve loved every step of that.

On top of that we have an introduction of the next stage of the meta-plot – the ominous prophecies we’ve been hearing for a while. We can see this looming, it has been introduced and the series has some excellent deduction

And, among that, we have a decent mystery that is both personal to Jess and relevant to the meta-plot but still stands up sufficiently on its own to make sure the book isn’t all about setting up the next book. We have an investigation, a clear book-specific story arc as well.

All three of these elements are really well balanced, really well paced and work extremely well together – it made the book fun to read while still serving up plenty of hooks for the fourth book.

On top of all this, as I said in the previous books, the world building of this series – the Preds and their feeding on different emotions, their forming of circles of addicts – is really original. I love reading something so very different from everything else I’ve read

The cornerstone of this book is Jess’s identity issues and they’re complex and really well done, especially how it relates to the greater world building. Jess was raised as a human, raised, like most people, to hate and fear Preds and even aspired to join the Gryphons, a kind of magical police force that exists to control and, at one time, war against the Pred races. But she has learned that, no, she isn’t cursed, she’s a pred. She’s a kind of satyr. And she’s a satyr because a segment of the Gryphons experimented on her and others while they were children – which has definitely flipped the script she’d always lived by as to who the good and bad guys are.

Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery #2) by Tracey Martin

After her rather public exposure last book, Jessica receives an offer from the Gryphons – they want her to work with them as a consultant, using her unique gifts to catch criminals. For which she will be paid a generous salary – and not go to prison. It’s less an offer and more a demand with menaces.

And part of her “unique gifts” involve exploiting her friendship and connections with the satyrs – who are currently prime suspects in a series of grizzly, sex related murders.

The satyrs are not happy about this, nor overly happy with Jessica. And Jessica may finally be getting her dream job – but can she live with the strings attached? And is that her dream any more, especially as she learns more and more about what she is and the source of those oh-so-mysterious powers.

When reviewing a series that continues good elements it can be hard to write reviews of second and later books. I mean, how often can you write about the same world that continues to be compelling, unique and interesting? Ultimately it’s repetitive – but if the goodness keeps on going from book to book to book, then shouldn’t it continue to be mentioned? If you take the “good” as a given and only mention any new badness then your review looks negative undeservedly

This is my long winded way of trying to excuse being repetitive – because what I have to say about world building and story for this book are the same as for the first book. They’re unique, deep and fascinating. The pacing is excellent, the mystery very well drawn out and balanced; action scenes blend well with character building and exploration. Mental monologues provide enough information to both feel the world and the characters’ place within it without swamping out the actual activity. The plot is twisty without being twisted and complex without being convoluted

All of this is wonderfully shot through with some really good complexity that adds so much depth to the world building. Yes there are sexy satyrs – but the consequences and realities of sexy satyrs are considered. We’re not supposed to lust over them, we’re supposed to see their moral ambiguity in their powers, the exploitation and the fearsome control they have over people

We see a police force that is intrusive and gets in the way and we’re not just thinking of ways to cover it up – but asking questions about what’s being covered up, how to negotiate around the Gryphons and not just falling into the trap of demonising them

The whole thing has layers and complexities all with an exciting story with lots of twists back and forth to sell the whole thing. There’s a lot of good here

Jessica is a very real character to me and one that is surprisingly lacking in tropes – she has good friends (and female friends at that!), a supportive family (even if she isn’t as close as she’d like). She has a lot of moral conflicts, a lot of growth and some very reasonable flaws – even flaws that make me kind of not like her at times, but are very real to her character: Like the Satyrs

Wicked Misery (Miss Misery #1) by Tracey Martin

Jessica hungers for misery. She feeds on it. She thrives on it. In some ways it’s fortunate that she is so very miserable herself. Refused by the Gryphons after her magical talent was so badly cursed, she now makes a living trading souls – helping desperate people out of the deals they make with the Preds – supernatural beings that feed on vices – by trading their souls for the most evil humans she can find. And making a prophet along the way

It’s legal, just. It’s debatably moral – but it gets her by.

Unfortunately it also brought her to the attention of the wrong people – and she is now being framed for a crime she didn’t commit. She is forced to seek sanctuary in the last place she wants to be – among the Preds. Worse, these crimes are pitting the most powerful factions in the city against one another – and the whole city may soon burn

The first thing that struck me reading this book was the world building. This world is rich, it has a lot of non-human, mystical elements in a human setting and there is a lot of effort to ensure that they meld seamlessly. And they do – it’s a really believable, well thought out setting where everything works together and nothing feels jarring and out of place

Which deserves more praise because this world is really unique. The mages are entirely different than I’d expect, the different kinds of Preds feeding on human emotion and vices. The whole new take on demonic pacts and supernaturals preying on humanity and even a magic system that seems to be quite unique. There’s a lot there – and, in some ways, I think not enough of it is explained entirely… but  at the same time I think if there were more explanations the whole book would evolve into one incredibly long info dump that would have to be convoluted just because of the sheer amount of information that would need to be conveyed. As it stands, I love this world and would really like to read more, though have a slight feeling of not quite knowing enough to truly absorb the plot. There was a hole there and I think some things fell through. But what was there was epic and generally easy to follow

I also loved the plot. A nice murder mystery with twist after twist after twist. And the twists made sense, the alternate theories made sense, the distractions made sense. Even the people who were causing problems and scapegoating or blaming  Jessica made sense. I loved that you had all these groups that were either hurting and looking for someone to blame or implicated and looking for someone to scapegoiat and by the end it wouldn’t even matter who was responsible to many of these groups so long as they could blame someone. And on that we have the authorities floating around, causing problems and generally not being involved anywhere because the world really does convey the very essence of the subcultures here – there is a great sense of both the Preds and the mages being part of society but still very much separate, especially when law enforcement is around; it’s a hard balance to strike (other books make law enforcement so distant.