Circus of the Darned
Circus of the Darned is the follow-up to 2005's Got Fangs?, the first book in the Goth series, and takes place in the same world as Katie MacAlister's Dark Ones series. The name Katie Maxwell is a pseudonym used by Katie MacAlister with her young adult titles.Francesca "Fran" Ghetti has been traveling across Europe with her mom and the GothFaire for the last several months. Fran is finally beginning to realize that she'll never have a normal life she once craved. The traveling GothFaire and all the strange and mysterious people that work there, her Wiccan High Priestess mother, and Benedikt, a really cute Dark One (aka vampire) who claims she is his Beloved are just the start! She's also got to deal with her psychometry skills—the ability to read a person or object's past, as well as their thoughts and emotions, through touch—and try to integrate that into her life. But at least she's beginning to accept, perhaps even like, her new life.
However, just as things have started to look up, it all begins to fall apart. First, someone steals her horse Tesla, most likely the oddly curious man who had expressed an interest and offered her an amazingly large sum of money for such an old horse. Then, she accidentally manages to raise an entire battlefield of warring, Viking ghosts... who refuse to move on to the afterlife! Buggers! All this just in time to ruin her first "real" date with Benedikt on Saturday.
While this book had a good story to it, there were several things about Fran's character that bugged me. For example, I got tired very fast of all the teen-ish giggly, girly stuff going on. I had to laugh though because even Fran herself would admit she didn't like "going all girly". Too bad she can't listen to her own advice. LOL But it's not just this book really... I have the same problem with most of this author's characters—they're all too ditzy, girly, catty, or just plain stupid for my taste; she's never really written a character that has endeared herself to me. (For proof, just search for "macalister" on my blog to read my past reviews.)
