In Rachel Caine's Ill Wind and Heat Stroke, Weather Warden extraordinaire Joanne Baldwin, who protects the human race from monster storms, was killed, reborn as a Dijinn, and then restored to her original form. She's been through a lot - and stuck her neck out many times - to save innocent lives. Now she's rolling the dice to stop an infinitely powerful, deeply disturbed kid from destroying the world....
A teenager named Kevin has holed up in style at a Vegas hotel with the most powerful Dijinn in the world, planning who knows what kind of mischief. The Wardens' senior leadership is dead, Djinn are disappearing, and a secret society wants to help Joanne destroy Kevin, even if doing so kills her (again). But everybody in Vegas has a game going, and Joanne has to learn the rules fast because the stakes have never been higher - and all hell is about to break loose....
In this one, Joanne finds herself in Las Vegas, location of a terrible event in her past, and it seems that those events are about to come together with current events, leaving Joanne stuck in the middle of a dangerous situation!
Caine is really good at putting her main character into very dangerous situations, and then having to extricate her again. Not only does Joanne have to worry about whether the Wardens are going to catch up with her, and perhaps permanently alter her forever, but there is also a new group who have entered the fray, known as Ma'at, who believe that the Wardens are completely corrupted. Unfortunately they're not exactly on Joanne's side either.
When I read this I quite enjoyed it, but it was so long ago now that I can't say much more than that! I guess the thing is about this series, is that I like it.....but I don't love it! I'm not quite sure what it is that I am waiting to happen, but there's just something that stops the series from being a Must Read Right This Minute kind of series.
I was interested to see exactly where one thing that has happened with Joanne will go in this book, but I'm sure all will be revealed in the next book, which I have sitting here on my shelf ready to go.
Rating 4/5
The only thing I don't like about Caine's writing--what leaves me somewhat unsatified--is the cliffhanger endings and the lack of resolution.
ReplyDeleteIn each book there’s always some big bad danger that must be stopped in order to save the world (usually by JoAnne), that drives the entire book. At the end of the book, the main plot meets a resolution but then some new whammy comes along, right at the end that gets left unfinished, on a cliffhanger, for the next book. I guess what I don’t like about this series is that it always feels…unfinished—like episodes on a TV show, only you have to wait a year for the next installment. It feels like the series should be leading up to something big, but it never quite gets there.
But despite that, I do like these books. I like the characters, and I think the magic system in this world is unique. I’ve already got Thin Air pre-ordered. I just wish Caine would start wrapping the series up, soon. I need some resolution to the series now, lol. But if I understand correctly, she still has more in this series under contract so who knows when there’ll be a definite ending. Another reason I like closed-ended series rather than opened-ended ones.
(And I'm sure this long comment is way more than you wanted to know! LOL. :-P)
Heh - Dance Chica said exactly what I was going to say!
ReplyDeleteI love Rachel Caine's weather warden world - when I read the first book, I just went "wow", and wanted to read more. And David (that's his name, isn't it?) is just yummy :-)
But (and it is a big but), I'm really starting to hate her cliffhanger endings (she does it in her Morganville YA vampire books as well!) and the fact that the storyline keeps on getting bigger and bigger, and never comes to a resolution. If she wrote her books so that they work as stand-alone ones, I think she would be one of my faves. As it is, her books are still on my radar, but I don't rush to the bookstore to get her latest.