Powers

Powers

By John B. Olson

B&H Publishing Group

ISBN: 978-0-8054-4735-4

Did Not Finish

I don’t usually write reviews of books I abandoned. I don’t think it’s all that fair since I didn’t finish, but I’m going to make an exception in this case.

Powers is about a young gypsy woman named Mariutza, Mari, who lives in the swamps of Louisiana with her grandfather. She’s been training for years to find and protect the prophet. When her grandfather is killed by a cloaked man, she leaves the swamps for the first time in her life. Through a series of events, she meets Jazz, a musician who is suffering from blackouts and doesn’t believe he’s a prophet of any sort.

The story switches between Mari and Jazz. It’s not confusing but I didn’t feel like I could get a grip on either character. Mari is a very sheltered person. Her grandfather kept her hidden away in the swamps and she knows nothing about the world. There is one scene where she is totally fascinated by Sprite. Yes, the soda. It’s amusing and slightly funny at first but grows tiring incredibly fast. I stopped finding her reactions to things, like seat belts, even vaguely interesting. It was too much of a dichotomy — I felt she couldn’t be that naïve and yet be responsible for protecting the prophet that will save humanity. Jazz was, well, I couldn’t figure him out. He seemed genuine at first, then seemed to turn into some sort of conman after a treasure. I was confused by him — should I like him, hate him, or what.

However, I will say this about the book, Olson does a good job of creating tension and suspicion when the evil beings appear and his writing, overall, was good. It had a nice ring to it and it kept me reading longer than I probably would have. I just didn’t care for the characters here and I think that was my major problem with this book. If I can’t find a connection with the characters, I can’t get into the book. Sometimes it happens.

I received this book through the Early Reviewer program on LibraryThing. After I started, I realized this was a sequel to Shade, the first book. I don’t know if I would have had a different reaction if I had read the first one or not.

I won this book as part of the Early Reviewer program on Librarything.