Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3) by Faith Hunter

Nell continues to work with PsyLED, the supernatural crime fighting organisation. And more and more she is drifting away from her insular church routes, leaving behind its thinking and training. Her magic is also growing as her insight and power is becoming more and more of an asset to PsyLED

But when they become embroiled in a supernatural murder case that involves a United States Senator, Nell may have to draw on her power more deeply than ever before: with the risk she may lose all of the new freedom and experiences she has discovered

I do like more of Nell’s self-growth and awareness this book; her acknowledgement and clear labelling of her experiences as abuse and how that has changed her. How this affects her views of current relationships, how it has scarred her and how it colours her interactions in real life.

I also like how she’s even applying this to the “saviour narrative” that she learned and is more and more challenging. Like she acknowledges her family tried to save her from abuse and that marrying John saved her from a far worse fate. But she equally can see how her relationship with John was abusive and twisted her own experiences and expectations of relationships. Just as she loves her family and knows they tried to help her, equally she has little faith in them keeping her little sister safe against the church. Her whole complicated relationship with her family is fascinating- her love and faith in her family tempered with her deep, wary awareness of what they’re part of. And even the family recognises that - the confines they live in that they can’t seem to break: they rely on Nell with her outsider ways to do things they will

Then there’s the love triangle - and for once a love triangle I actually like: because of what it recognises for Nell. The conflict of old versus new, safety and familiarity over what could be and, ultimately, who Nell is and who she has become

Equally I love how Nell is both fiercely confronting anyone else who would treat her in a patronising or sexist manner, and challenging her own church instilled attitudes while also realising that not everything that’s happening around her fits in that lens: especially with the wereanimals and other supernaturals.

Nell is the gem of this story: her growth her, experiences, her interactions with the others really makes this series. And on top of that we have her unique supernatural nature, how her powers control and lure her, the dangers of them, the alienness all add up to something quite unique.

Curse of the Land (Soul Wood #2) by Faith Hunter

Nell has now joined Psyled as a probationary agent. Newly trained and with some useful skills beyond the arcane, it’s time for her first mission. And maybe something to distract her from the blight that has infected her own land.

But that’s not the only distraction – with Rick LaFleur consumed by his own personal problems, the team has to face a dangerous and unknown entity that is piling up bodies and could leave a swathe of destruction in its wake. Or wake up something even worse

This is one of those reviews which is pretty hard. It’s pretty hard because I’ve read book one in this series, Blood of Earth, and it’s hard for me to review this book without heavily copying and pasting from the last book review. We have the same original world building which excellently draws on the Jane Yellowrock series, expanding on it in wider and broader ways, bringing in new supernaturals and excellent world building and mystery. I also love that it’s willing to have the Unknown. It’s actually surprising in how many urban fantasy books we seem to have complete encyclopaedic knowledge of all the mysterious and hidden mystical stuff in the world. When really far more would be a mystery – it’s refreshing to see characters find a random magical oddness and instead of saying “aha, it’s a werechupacabra voudoun!” instead say “I have no idea this exists” or “we have no name for this because we never knew this was a thing!” I like that

I like the characters that come together that form Nell’s team. And I really like Neil – the way her character is so affected by her upbringing, both rebelling against it and being shaped by it as she is exposed more and more to the world around her and grows slowly as a person. She doesn’t lose her church roots – but they are just roots and don’t shape entirely how she grows.

It’s not that it’s the same of the last book – but the things that make this book so much fun are pretty much the same as the first book. That is the foundation of this book and it works so well. We have Nell with her extremely original powers and relationship with her land. We have her developing relationship with her family, growing from the first book. We have the team coming together – introduced in the first book we now see much more of their interactions and purposes especially characters like T Laine and Jojo who were more side characters in the first book.

Blood of the Earth (Soulwood #1) by Faith Hunter

When Jane Yellowrock visited Nell, she left her in chaos. While the vampires Jane was looking for were saved, Nell was left as an outsider among her cult; one who not only had the temerity to be a woman living alone, but one who helped an outsider against her

She knows it’s only a matter of time before the churchmen burn her out and even her strange and disturbing powers connecting her to the Soulwood won’t be enough

Until Ricky LaFleur arrives, special Agent from PSYled, the supernatural investigation agency. He wants her help – and with that brings the offer of money and possible safety. Or is it just going to rile the church even more against her?

This book is set in the Jane Yellowrock world and takes one of the side characters in that series and clearly lays the foundation of a new series within that world setting

And this, as the first book in this series, does an excellent job of this. We already have a lot of the world building from the larger Jane Yellowrock series and is careful to only bring up those elements that are relevant to Nell’s story and the story as it stands now. It also really helps the greater world setting by bringing in characters, creatures and concepts that just don’t fit with Jane’s story. I like this idea because when you have a really big, rich world setting it can be really tempted to ram it all into one story and it wouldn’t work

Nell also brings in such a different viewpoint from Jane – she’s so very different from Jane that it makes for excellent potential to see whole new sides to this world (and Jane’s habit of approaching problems as things to shoot and stab things). This also allows more supernatural creatures to be introduced (like the gwyllgi which is definitely some interesting and obscure mythological research) as well as Nell’s unique abilities without crowding Jane’s life with more weirdness.

Nell herself and her nature is a fascinating concept – her connection to nature, her terrible power, her very conflict over what she can do and what she is an excellent characterisation. It also worked well with her character. As someone who grew up in a highly religious and oppressive cult, but someone who has escaped them – she has very conflicting elements to her character. She rejects her past and often hates how her past has shaped her, rejecting elements of herself which reveal she’s a “churchwoman”. At the same time she has been shaped by her past – her opinions, her experiences, her lack of education are all directly shaped by that church past. On top of this she has lived in such an isolated state that she is often shocked when she sees more of society outside of her very isolated circumstances. Her constant surprise by simple things like men making coffee and doing “women’s work” does far more to emphasise how utterly misogynist her upbringing was than any amount of rants or condemnation