Stange Angels

by Lili St. Crow

Zombies and Djamphirs and Werwolfen, oh my!

Dru Anderson is alone and scared. The book jacket, however, proclaims her to be a "Night Hunter. Knife Thrower. Heart Breaker." as well as "not afraid of the dark." But she never goes hunting at night, she never throws a knife (although she does wield one at times as well as an assortment of guns), she doesn't break anyone's heart, and she is very scared of the dark! She should be - her dad leaves her behind most evenings while he's out hunting the things that "go bump in the night". One evening he doesn't return home. The next night, he does - as a zombie. Dru must muster up all of her courage to dodge the zombie that used to be her father, and kill him before he can kill her. She's left traumatized and utterly, completely alone.

Thankfully, Dru soon makes a loyal friend in Graves. He helps her the best he can, not knowing the true danger that Dru is in, because someone - something - wants Dru dead, and he's still searching for her.

I liked Dru despite her not being as tough as the book packaging portrayed her to be. She could handle a weapon, and she knew how to defend herself to an extent, but she was still scared out of her wits and desperate for someone to help her. She gets that help through Graves as well as the mysterious djamphir Christophe.

One aspect of the book that started to bug me near the end was how the smell of EVERYTHING had to be described. I learned that Graves smelled like deodorant and smoke. Christophe smells like apple pie (that's weird). Dru's mom used to smell like "perfume and goodness." Zombies smell like a whole host of nasty rotting things. Christophe smells like apple pie. When something bad is about to happen, Dru can smells (and taste) oranges. When something REALLY bad is about to happen, it smells(/tastes) of WAX oranges. Christophe smells like apple pie. Did I mention that Christophe smells like apple pie? Yeah, the author did too - a lot! I wish I'd counted.

My biggest complaint of this book however, was the language. The story was interesting and different from other books of the genre but it was just littered with profanity! I tried to just read over it, but that would certainly stop me from recommending this book to most people I know - despite the interesting story.