by Stasia Morineaux
This book has a really grabby opener– it starts right bang on the action with no fooling around with scene setting or back story. Sometimes I find that disorienting. Here I found it engaging and suitable for the story, which follows the story of a *very* disoriented protagonist, Isabelle, as she navigates her new life-after-life career as an escort for recently deceased souls.
Suddenly Isabelle is catapulted into an unfamiliar world of hard to pronounce Celtic myth and legend, and her ability to fit in will determine whether she gets to keep her new life or not. The reader, like Isabelle, has a lot to learn about the inhabitants and workings of this Celtic afterlife world. Fortunately the author has provided us with a glossary and a pronunciation guide!
Stylistically, it’s as if Chick Lit and High Celtic Fantasy had a love child. There have been other books that attempt a similar mash up and some that are quite successful, like Dead is the New Black. I think No Time to Cry is an even more ambitious mashup since it doesn’t just add supernatural elements to the modern world, but instead introduces us to a whole new mythology.
There’s a lot going on in this book. Mistaken and secret identities, behind the scenes plots and subterfuges, hidden enemies and secret allies, unknown powers, romantic subplots. It’s all a bit much to resolve in one novel so of course it doesn’t, ending instead with a cliff hanger guaranteed to have readers anxiously biting their nails in anticipation of the next book. Coping with cliffhanger endings and waiting for book releases are not strengths of mine, so I finished with a bit of pouting and foot stamping.
If you enjoyed the TV series Dead Like Me and/or Lost Girl, you’ll like this book. There seems to be quite a bit of angels and reapers type stuff around these days. No Time to Cry is a unique, well written, contender in this growing paranormal sub-genre. I lucked into a reveiwer’s copy, you can snatch up your own for only 99 cents right now on Amazon.
T. L. Ryder 