The Forest of Forever

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Urban Fantasy - Rogue Monster Hunter

Soren Chase is a hero with a maimed soul. Years before, he went on a bachelor party weekend with his friends. They were mysteriously killed, but Soren survived with a spotty memory and a heavy survivor's guilt. The police suspected him for the murders, but Soren was never charged and went into the monster hunting business for atonement.

Soren is roped into a case involving a haunted forest. The forest has seen disappearances and apparitions, and, at the beginning of the story, an attack on a camping party occurs which is reminiscent of the attack on Soren's friends. Cults and monsters and attacks abound. The story moves along at an interesting and engaging clip. I didn't find my attention wandering; I was drawn by a genuine curiosity about what would happen next to keep reading into the night. Blackwell's mythos with gaunts - demons created from murder victims - and pretenders - an ancient species of evil human imitators - seems to hang together.

Soren himself has all the tropes of the urban fantasy action hero. He is supremely competent, good looking, an effective fighter, an excellent shot, knowledgeable about the supernatural, fast, and instinctively correct in his assessments, but very insecure about himself. It is an endearing but paradoxical and contrived combination. Then, there are the fancy sunglasses he inexplicably insists on wearing.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the character and the story. I wouldn't say the story and writing are perfect. In places, Soren's insecurity is overdone. Other times, Blackwell seems to have too many characters in play to keep track of. There are, of course, incredible coincidences that keep the plot moving along. Nonetheless, there was a very nice twist at the end and I found myself tempted to buy the next book, which is something different from a lot of stories that I can take or leave.