Brix and Bellefeather are a team of paranormal investigators in the haunted city of Port Astor. The city, once home to fae courts and bitter rivalries, is now a place where people wish to forget the past. Forty years before, the fae disappeared without explanation, but left behind all sorts of specters and wraiths. That’s not to say that Brix and Bellefeather aren’t haunted by their own problems. Brix regularly communicates with the soul of his dead fiancé that he’s trapped in the world of the living, even if he knows she should be on her way. Bellefeather shares a body with a demon named Belizial, and the two do their best with the one body they occupy. Things get rough when Brix and Bellfeather are called to the legendary Peony Hotel, a former hot spot for fae, the wealthy, and the mortal lovers shared between the two groups. There they discover that a couple longing to bring back the ghost of infamous movie idol Jimmy Valentine have succeeded, and trapped themselves in the process. Jimmy isn’t just a simple specter, and his haunting is tied closer to the paranormal investigators than they thought.
Ballad of the Bone Road by A.C. Wise s compelling and complicated to the point that if was ever adapted to film or television, there would be so many pieces left on the cutting room floor. There’s religious cults, a fae creature named the Hollow Queen, and more ghostly activity than you can shake a stick at. My chief complaint is that the Hollow Queen is treated like a major threat in this book but not explored at more than what feels like a surface level. Port Astor the city sounds incredible, but we stick mostly to the Peony Hotel and the countryside outside of the city. As a reader, I found myself wanting to know so much more than what we are given. Brix and Bellefeather are incredibly compelling characters which both lead the reader thinking about them long after the book is finished.
Ballad of the Bone Road is now available from Titan Books.
