Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Mortal Bone-Marjorie M. Liu

The Mortal Bone


Marjorie M. Liu

Ace, Dec 27 2011, $7.99

ISBN: 9781937007188



Like her bloodline going back ten millennia, demon hunter Maxine Kiss carries her five “boys” as tattoos on her body, which serves as prison for these Reaper Kings who if freed would devour the world. She and her soulmate Grant the Lightbringer escort Bryon the teenage to a “safe house” once belonging to Maxine’s mom in Texas.



However, a possessed woman arrives giving Maxine a plastic bowling bag of which the visitor says someone in her dream told her to deliver it. Inside is a crystal skull that has the demon within the woman and the five on Maxine’s skin clamoring to go to it. The connection between her boys and her is severed; they are totally free to bring hell on earth unless Maxine can somehow reconnect with them.



The fourth Hunter Kiss urban fantasy (see A Wild Light, The Iron Hunt and Darkness Calls) is a great thriller that is action-packed but driven by the aftereffect of the broken link as Marjorie M. Liu gets deep into the psyche of the heroine. Maxine has mixed emotions of being liberated but in some ways misses the bond that has been part of her for a long time. She also feels guilt and responsibility to prevent her boys from returning to their Reaper King days; as nothing short of the end of the world is at stake.



Harriet Klausner

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