Loved it! Great combination of detective/thriller and fantasy, with intriguing characters, a mystery and non-flashy magic. I mention the last because most urban fantasy is of the 'kick-ass'variety, and this is not at all. ( )

Whoa, did I ever have issues with this book. Oh man, where to begin? OK, let’s start with the fact that I found Olivia’s plight entirely unbelievable. I mean seriously, paparazzi stalk her for days, chasing her around every corner? Ummm… please. I couldn’t stand the fact that I was basically waiting for her to figure out that she’d been lied to and had a lovely childhood with wonderful parents (which was made clear in the prologue). Her adoptive mother being a complete bitch was such an obvious setup to contrast to her real parents, who are supposed to be the awful ones. I hated the insanely slow pace of the plot - seriously, the entire chapter where she’s job hunting could have been summarized in two sentences. The paranormal activity is supposed to be spooky and unfold slowly, but it just tried my patience, too. The whole plot line felt insanely contrived and absurdly unbelievable, like I was being led along on a paint-by-numbers journey. Oh, and I didn’t like Oliva at all. She’s unrelatable, selfish, and whiny. So yeah - no more Cainsville books for me. ( )

From a technical standpoint, this book is much better than the average UF but the entire setup and the kind of plot just wasn't to my taste at all.

The best part about this book are the interesting, grey, and nuanced characters.
They felt very much like real people with complex motivations and unique personalities.
While this alone is exceptional in the fantasy book landscape and even more so in UF that's really the only good thing I have to say about the book together with the good pacing.

So from here on out, there are a few minor spoilers because I can't really talk about anything at all without mentioning some stuff about the magic that is only confirmed for sure some time into the story.

The entire book tries for this weird creepy mystery vibe and initially, it worked really well but it overdoses. The first time we see an OOOMEN OF DEATHHHH... (Immagine a creepy voice in a very echoey room loudly whispering it.) it still had a somewhat scary vibe but after the 5th time, it just got tedious. There are DEATHHHHH OMENS everywhere but there aren't nearly that many actual deaths. There are a few hairy situations that could've ended in death but the ratio of death omens to dead bodies is tiny.
If the omens would help the MC to prevent people from dying or have any other kind of influence this might make more sense but you could rewrite this entire story without any magic and without having to change anything major. It's entirely unnecessary and only serves the purpose of being spooky for the most part.

This might be a decent segway into the MCs denial of it all. She is still in denial after almost 500 pages of constant weird and unexplainable shit and DEATHHHH OMENS everywhere. It is really frustrating. Especially because she is a very smart character, (if a bit naive which is absolutely justified), it's incredibly off-putting that she doesn't do shit to understand what the fuck is going on with the omens. She has this "yea, there is weird shit going on, maybe I really have a special ability, shrug, no, that can't be true" every time it comes up and then proceeds to ignore the topic beyond that. And it's not only her seeing omens. She has reason to believe that her life is in mortal danger because of it but she just refuses to even consider any of it. It's really frustrating and totally out of character. Another book I've read recently that had an MC in strong denial for a long time was "Agent of Enchantment". It's not really a book worth mentioning in general but the way the internal monologue of the MC works around the denial was very believable. What I am trying to say is that you can do magic denial very well but this book just doesn't.

What started to annoy me pretty early on is the way the MC doesn't seem to have any agency. Events happen to come her way and she just reacts the only reasonable way. This is a big problem for most of the book and only starts to lessen somewhat towards the end. This might be a symptom of being the first book where the character just doesn't yet have enough influence to make impactful decisions but I expect it will stay that way. This might not have been so frustrating if this lack of agency wasn't due to manipulations by others. Every time the MC needs a push along the plot thread, some random character appears in her path with the sole purpose of knowingly and deliberately doing so.
Again, it's all supposed to add to the spooky mystery vibe and hint at a more complex plot but it just annoyed me.
This kind of plot steering annoys me so much for so long now that I would probably suck up a decently written UF story just for the novelty of the MC thwarting manipulation attempts and just denying to be forced by circumstance to work with some asshole or something like that. Like these situations where the MC can either face whatever the conflict is or just leave and the MC actually just leaves. A story in which the MC just makes "the other choice" one could say. Any author would have a hard time to construct a well-organized plotline for such a story but I don't really care. Just discovery write it without a plot goal just so I can finally read a story without artificial plot steering into situations the MC would've never gone into willingly. Instead of facing the big baddy because someone thinks its the MC's job, the MC just leaves the country and goes to live in Belgium? Fine with me! And I believe this could actually work with a complex enough world and magic system. That was an off-topic rant if I've ever seen one.

Back to the book. My last criticism requires an outright spoiler.
The entire CIA shit seemed incredibly contrived to me.
Do you think the CIA really is that badly organized? The entire premise of the CIA making people vanish with elaborate coverups is just absurd. Well, it turns out it wasn't really the CIA I guess but a retired/rogue agent on his own but that is still absurd. Do you really believe the CIA would ever take their eyes off retired agents? Of course, the CIA would know about an operation like that and either profit off of it or shut it down.
And anyway, using brainwashed sleeper agents for simple coverups like that is insane. You don't reveal your best weapon for grunt work like that.
Let's just say regardless of how I look at that final plot revelation it makes no sense. It's just a big pile of bullcrap to be more honest.
And anyway, how clichée is that plot anyway? CIA agents mind controlling people with ties to obscure magic? I can't even count how many times I've read that basic premise.


The books strengts while being remarkable just weren't enough to balance its flaws. I am tempted to check out the second book just to see if things improve but if they don't I am done with the series. ( )

Kelley Armstrong wow-ed me again with this addicting story!

Omens is an excellent read by Kelley Armstrong that is definitely a change in scenery for her. This book is not like the Otherworld novels, but is written perfectly just like them! There was lots of mystery and suspense and I'm already dying to get my hands on the next novel in the series!

Kelley Armstrong needs to keep up the great work and make a lot more books! Soon I will run out of reading material by her and I'm totally obsessed with her!

Overall, I loved it! I want more! And now!

I would recommend it this novel to anyone interested in: paranormal, fantasy, mystery and suspense, fast moving plots, and fiction that is addicting,

Five out of five stars! I would give it even more stars if I could! ( )

Absolutely loved it, spent the whole week of holiday wishing I'd brought #2 with me! Highly recommend this one. ( )