TALL, DARK AND DEAD.

TALL, DARK AND DEAD by TATE HALLAWAY.

SOURCE: Ex-library stock.

THE BOOK {According to the back cover}: 'The line between magic and sanity is very thin. That's part of why I, Garnet Lacey, quit cold turkey. Never touch the stuff. No Exceptions.'

Trouble is magic is so addictive, especially when you've got inner goddesses like Lilith to contend with. And it doesn't stop there for Garnet; if you are going to run an occult bookstore then you've got to expect customers like Sebastian Von Traum, with his piercing brown eyes, sexy accent, killer body and total lack of an aura; which means he's dead...

Trouble can be so hard to resist, and what with Vatican witch hunters, long lost vampire exes and a boyfriend with an ex-wife who is literally stirring in her grave, Garnet Lacey has trouble enough for anyone.

FIRST SENTENCE {First House}: What's the best way to keep Vatican Witch hunters off your scent?

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 142}: "Why are there always cats?" Leader Guy muttered between curses. "Why don't these people ever have goldfish familiars?"

MY THOUGHTS: The first book the Garnet Lacey series. Now a witch on the run, whilst Garnet's past as a member of a coven murdered by (well, that would be telling) is pretty much explained - eventually - like a jig-saw with pieces missing there were holes in the story making the whole novel feel as if it were part two in a series already begun.

A series with huge potential (and who knows perhaps the rest of the books in the set will live up to this) but I'm afraid for me Tall, Dark and Dead was full of promising ideas left unexplored, bad guys who were hardly bad and a heroine who, well, 'the Goddess within her' aside, was more whiny than 'kick-ass'.

Part supernatural/urban chick lit/fantasy (call it what you will), part thriller, part love story, sorry, make that, lust story. With its witches, vampires, poltergeist, dhampyr, cat with an unusual allergy, and, in the case of Sebastian's wife, something I'm still not sure of, this could have been a unique and quirky read and yet for me the only vaguely compelling thing was the exploration of the different kinds of 'being', of whether Sebastian was a vampire (albeit a seemingly different kind of vampire), a zombie, a golem, a highly magical necromancer or simply a 'witch of some high degree'.

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