The Scent of Shadows: The First Sign of the Zodiac

I'm not sure the other reviewers actually listened to the prose of this novel...perhaps they're frustrated and/or unpublished writers themselves?!?! As for SCENT OF SHADOWS, I found the writing to be excellent. Yes, this is a debut novel by Vicki Pettersson and her voice is NEW and FRESH and EXCITING. Jo, the strong female protagonist, isn't a vampire or werewolf, or shapeshifter, she's a gutsy, gritty, streetsmart chick who has just found out she's also part of the world of underground superheroes! IN LAS VEGAS! What an incredible setting for an Urban Fantasy.
Look, if you want more of the same in this genre, look up vampires or zombies. But if you want a new voice in literature, one that you should hear, then download THIS. You WON'T be disappointed!!!

I haven't read the print version.

I knew that the story continued so I wasn't too surprised.

The fight scene in the Neon boneyard.

No it was too long to do that!

It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but good all the same!

A heroine with a power-mad father, absent mother, and a past rape that tore her budding-but-true-love romance apart is enough drama for even the most demanding hanky-loving audience. Too bad, then, that Pettersson felt the need to pour still more on with adjective-laden, emotionally wrought hyperbole and descriptions as empty as they are florid. Add that the author manipulates her heroine to hesitate when she clearly shouldn't, apparently so that her loved-ones can suffer still more and you have a story I just can't credit even before you get to the hoky zodiac superpowers.

And somebody please inform Pettersson that killing someone with superpowers who has threatened to kill you and everyone you love at his earliest opportunity, after a long battle in which he actually *has* killed someone you love, doesn't constitute "killing in cold blood" even if he is unarmed at that particular instant.

Good story, good narration, but don't expect morality. This heroine murders people in cold blood. Hard to separate the heroes from the bad guys. Makes me wonder if the author is actually a man.

I took a chance on this one and really wished I hadn't. It started off well but the further I got into this book the more I disliked it. Supernatural beings etc., are ok but this was totally off the wall! I did not like this book at all.

If you've ever lamented over the fact that you could never be as good a writer as the authors who are actually paid to write, listen to this one. I have never read cheesier prose before. I've read better from Remedial Composition students. The publisher for this monument to ineptitude should be ashamed of itself.

The story line is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Language is very course. I find it hard to listen to.