Hello all! It’s been a few months since I’ve last gotten to review a book. Blame my 11 month old, that’s what I do. 😉 At any rate, I’ve plowed through some books lately, thanks to being a pumping mom (TMI, I know, but whatever. That’s what it’s like to be a working mom), so I have plenty to review when I get the chance!

Today’s book is Rattle the Bones by Eric R. Asher. This is one of the latest books in his Damian Vesik necromancer series. Damian has recently come into the mantle of Anubis, which is powerful necromantic hoodoo, to by memory, and has also gotten into a war with both Gwynn App Nudd and Herne, two powerful faeries who just happen to be working together despite appearing as enemies.

Gwynn orchestrated pulling his capital of Falias out of the faerie realm and into the United States, killing millions while he did so. Damian, being a necromancer who was on scene at the time, absorbed those souls and now has quite a bit of magic punch.

In Rattle the Bones, Damian and crew have to battle a new horror that is aligned with Gwynn, Herne and some outlaw undines (water witches). These are call the dark-touched and they are super vampires or something. Kinda hard to tell what they were exactly. I wasn’t sure if they used to be vamps and then were turned into something else, or they’re something else that just happened to have some vampiric qualities.

At any rate, the dark-touched are hella hard to kill. You basically have to stab them with something fiery right through their tiny little eyes. And since they move as fast if not faster than a vamp, that’s pretty darn hard.

Damian and his friends (Zola, Sam, Frank, Foster, Aideen and more) try to take on these horrors while trying to save not only the area humans (called commoners by the supes in this realm) but other supes as well.

This book is the opening salvo in the war against Gwynn and Herne after their treachery killed off Gwynn’s wife/Foster’s mother, Cara in the last book. It was pretty clear that this was on the road to something bigger in the next book or two, since there wasn’t any sort of show down with the main bad guys. They never even made an appearance in this book.

Set-up book aside, this was a pretty fast read. Asher’s characters are fun, even in dire circumstances, and he draws across a lot of mythologies to bring things to life. I’m definitely interested in seeing where Damian goes but I’m desperately trying not to buy more books until at least Christmas. 😀 Rating: B. I would liked to have seen at least something of one of the main bad guys that have been set up in this series in this book, but if you like some good old fashioned, knock down drag out fights, this is for you.