In the beginning I really hated this book. I hated it to the point that if I had not been reading it for review I would have heaved it into the box marked “trade” and never opened it again. But then a curious thing happened: I found myself engrossed in the story even while actively disliking the book.

Set in a sort of fairy gangland, the story is mainly told from the point of view of Ember, a bloodfae. As a bloodfae Ember’s blood is sweet and coveted by many, primarily the vampires. When the story opens, Ember is involved with an unsavory character named Jasper, an abusive jerk who pimps Ember out for her blood. When Jasper offers her a ring, Ember quickly accepts, ignorant of the consequences. She doesn’t realize that Jasper has bartered his soul to a demon named Kane and upon accepting the ring Ember’s soul becomes Kane’s as well. A tussle ensues and Jasper is killed. Kane then offers Ember a bargain. If she can regain the three other jewels that contain the souls of those who have bargained with him, she will be free of the bargain.

With Jasper gone and no real friends of her own, Ember is at loose ends. She turns to Jasper’s friend and business associate, Diamond. Diamond is a glassfae and is acquainted with Ember and her sweet blood. He would like to kill his boss Angelo to gain control of his empire and as retribution for stealing his girlfriend and making her a vampire. Assassinating an old, powerful vampire like Angelo will be difficult, so Diamond concocts a scheme to have Ember drink a poison to which he believes she is immune and allow Angelo to feed on her blood. He offers his protection and assistance to Ember to aid in her quest to recover the jewels, hoping that she in turn will help him bring down Angelo.

Despite an original premise and plenty of action, I found reading this to be a chore. The writing style in which the author creates bizarre compound words like feverpink and scortchrash drove me bonkers. Used sparingly, I believe it could have been a unique descriptive device. But using it on every page multiple times quickly wore thin and became annoying.

This was not half as annoying, though, as Diamond’s way of thinking and speaking. While Diamond’s mind moves quickly, his thoughts and speech patterns reflect this. He speaks in fragmented sentences often and makes up endings to common words. Hence, “I need to think” becomes “Need to thinkify.” Or “not the point” becomes “not the pointificality.” Ember finds it cute. After about three pages from his point of view I wanted to beat him senseless with a dictionary.

The author does a very good job of getting inside the characters’ heads and maintaining consistency. I found it really difficult to connect with either character, though. Ember comes across as a wimp who is constantly seeking a male’s protection. Diamond is not the abusive jerk that Jasper was, but I found his connections with a fairy gang and his desire to poison Ember in order to achieve retribution unseemly and not hero material. To his credit, he at least has second thoughts about feeding Ember poison.

I eventually overcame my issues with the prose and figured out how to substitute normal words for Diamond’s own brand of English. Then the story began to flow a little better for me. All in all, I appreciated and, at points, even enjoyed the originality. After all it isn’t everyday you find a story set in a fairy gangland with a giant pink fairy as a hero. Plus, our protagonists have sex mid-air. Which is kind of awesome. In a bizarre way, of course.

This is the fourth book in The Shadowfae Chronicles series, but works as a standalone. I would encourage potential readers interested in this story to download a sample from Amazon or spend a few moments reading the first chapter in the store to see if the writing works for them. It certainly was not to my taste.