The Reading Jackalope

Book two of this series picks up an hour or two after book one ends. I dove in head first and emerged a few hours later at the end of the book. While I liked Omens, I found Visions to be a lot more enjoyable. This may be because the set up was done and things were all in place so now we could really explore the world that Armstrong is building here.

The A plot is a murder mystery. Someone leaves the body of a dead girl in Olivia’s car. The book ends when we find out who done it. That’s a good plot, it’s a mystery. But it’s not the strongest element of the book. Wile we do spend some time investigating this murder, the A plot is really a device to bring up the overarching plot of this series and delve into the romance plots. It’s pretty clear to me that the murder was the least important thing in the novel. And that’s ok, because this book fulfills the creepy promise that The Screams of Dragons gave me when I read it.

I still have issues, and they’re the same ones I had with Omens. I had brief hopes that we’d get a young female who wasn’t a complete mess, but they were dashed. James, the ex-fiancé, moves from spineless jerk to full on stalker. This does bother me a little as it feels more like James is being made into the bad guy in order to make the other love interests look more appealing. I’m not particularly fond of that trope. But, I also completely buy his apparent transformation, so it works. Gabriel Walsh, the lawyer, is still extremely distant, emotionless, and manipulative because he has a sad tragic past. It didn’t bother me as much in this novel though, because Olivia has shown herself to be unwilling to be susceptible to his bullshit. And so she feels comfortable calling him on it. It does stink of ‘this is the one good woman I will be kind to’ though. (See also Damon in the CW Vampire Diaries. Asshole to everyone but Elena because she’s the special girl. Again, not my favorite trope). I’m also bothered by the number of people pushing them together because it would be good for him. So? Olivia may be good for him, but I’ve yet to see that he’s actually good for her. She trusts him and can call on him when she needs him, but as a romance partner, nope. But then we have Ricky Gallagher, the motorcycle gang member. He’s patient, and easygoing. The sex between the two of them is hot. HOT. Basically everything about their romance was awesome. I’m rooting for Ricky here and hoping that the strongly hinted romance between Gabriel and Olivia never actually manifests.