Robots and Vamps

Review by Christel

I am always looking for a different angle on my favorite genre, Urban Fantasy.  After hearing about Dark Time and seeing the really cool cover, I was excited to get the chance to read it.

Susannah Layhem is living a nice, peaceful life with her husband Nathan in the year 1692. She is pregnant with their first child and life is moving along for the young couple as anyone would expect, until that fateful night and that ominous knock at the door.

Alice is a jealous woman with a sinister plan. Nathan rejected Alice and took Susannah for his wife, leaving Alice bitter and full of resentment. Alice testified that Susannah was a witch resulting in her death sentence. With Susannah out of the way, Alice would be free to comfort Nathan and manipulate him into marrying her.  Susannah’s body couldn’t hold up to the rigors she endured during her imprisonment and her baby came prematurely. Susannah had to deliver her infant alone and her baby girl died immediately. No such luck for Susannah; she would have to wait for the flames to consume her.

Tied to the stake and so close to meeting her fiery death, Susannah was suddenly whisked away from this existence brought to the Midworld to be introduced to the demon Rabishu. Rabishu offered her vengeance in the form of servitude. She must agree to do his bidding on earth and he will let her remain ageless. When Susannah accepts this arrangement and signs the contract with her own blood, she is returned to her body for her first assignment. Stepping out of the flames that are engulfing her, she appears as the witch she was accused of being. Alice didn’t stand a chance…

Present day… Susannah now goes by the name of Maliha Crayne and is also known by her pen name Marsha Winters. Posing as a successful writer, she is wealthy and lives a very comfortable existence except for the fact that she is still working for Rabishu. Lately she has been regretting her kills and she is looking for a way out of the bargain she has kept for over 300 years. Being Rabishu’s assassin just isn’t what she thought it would be and the killing is starting to get to her. When she confronts Rabishu about her misgivings, he presents her with yet another arrangement. She is given a chance at earning her freedom, but it does not come without consequences.

Rabishu is a demon child of the Sumerian god Anu. Anu left his 7 demon children behind in the Underground as he traveled to the stars. To control his demon children he gave them each a weakness. He wrote these weaknesses on a tablet that could only be read using a special translating lens. He then broke the lens into 7 shards and dispersed them on Earth where his children could not get to them. The demons yearn to find the tablet and the shards so that they may learn the weaknesses of their siblings in order to gain control over them. Rabishu has informed Maliha of these artifacts in the hope that she will locate the shards for him. Only, Maliha has other plans.

Maliha is now saving lives rather than ending them and in her quest to right her past wrongs, she is presented with several opportunities to make things right. Maliha has friends who know what she is and friends who don’t know what she is, but each of her friends are dependable and have useful talents their own. One of these friends asks for her help as some of his colleagues were recently murdered and he is afraid for his own life. Things are not as simple as they appear and the more Maliha investigates, the more she becomes sucked into a heinous conspiracy that even she could not have imagined.

This book has a lot going on. There are several plots going on at once and flashbacks interspersed that explain a bit of Maliha’s past. You really have to be on your game while reading this book and you have to pay attention. I can see where it would be easy for a reader to get lost with the 3 different names that the main character uses and the story jumping back and forth in time.

I love the Sumerian twist on the demon vs. heroine story making it more exciting and giving an ancient feel to the relationship. Supernatural beings who are rooted in ancient legend seem to have more credibility to me. It seems silly that I am saying that something supernatural is credible, but giving the supernatural a history based on mythos makes the reader feel like these beings actually could exist, if you just stretch your imagination a little. And Ms. Banks knows how to stretch ones imagination.

The supporting characters have interesting histories of their own and there are some characters you can’t quite figure out yet.  It seems as if there is much more to Maliha’s story, and I can’t wait to see where her new life takes her.   If you are looking for a new urban fantasy series with a little bit more complexity, this book is for you. Dark Time hits shelves July 28, 2009. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.

Authors Website: Dakota Banks

To discuss this book, please visit Robots and Vamps Book Club