Title: Chill Factor

Author: Rachel Caine

Series: Weather Wardens #3

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

The Overview: Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin has protected the human race from monster storms, been killed, reborn as a Djinn, and then restored to her original form. Now she’s throwing the dice to stop an infinitely powerful, deeply disturbed kid-who is holed up in a Vegas hotel-from bringing on a new ice age. 

The Review:

After reading the first three books in both this series and the Morganville series, I have come to the conclusion that Caine’s work just doesn’t sing with me. There is something missing, and I’ve wracked my brain and analyzed the snot out of these books and I think I have finally figured out what it is (see below). I’m pretty sure I’m alone in this, too, because my best friend/favorite-go-to-person for book recommends ranks Morganville number one as far as vampire books go and really enjoyed the first few books in this series as well. It happens, I guess, but I’m still going to take a couple of paragraphs to explore why the book was just “okay”.

My favorite element to this book was the concept – it was the major reason why I bumped the book’s overall rating up from a 1.5 to a 2.5. People with abilities to control the weather with the help of mysterious, beautiful, and downright hostile djinn that are kept as slaves. It is a really neat idea, and for the most part Caine does a great job expanding on it. My only gripe here is that she sometimes managed to turn a fun ability into a highly technical event that made me feel like I was reading a textbook.

I actually really like the writing style – I am a sucker for good use of description and Caine had a couple of really stunning passages that I made note of to study for my own writing. What she accomplishes so well with that great description is a fantastic overall mood for the story. It takes me to a very distinct world with a very distinct feeling, and honestly if I pick the next book up it will be because I miss the overall feel of these novels.

With all of those good attributes, what’s my problem?

The only thing I can figure is that something about the main character, plot, or love interest wasn’t working for me. With this book in particular, I found myself constantly questioning the main character’s rationale (which incidentally took the plot to places I wasn’t invested in). I also didn’t really care for the love interest – while the main character is running around thinking ” OMG, this guy is the most important wonderful thing in the world, I can’t lose him!” I’m over here like, “Whatever, you could totally do better.” I guess this book goes to show just how important it is for me to be invested in the characters, otherwise it’s like pulling teeth to get through the novel.

Recommendations: with all of these things in mind, I probably wouldn’t recommend these books unless someone specifically said they liked the Morganville series (as I had all of the same struggles with those) so if you liked one you’ll probably like the other. As of right now, it’s pretty low on my urban fantasy totem and would have to go somewhere totally amazing in the next one for that to change. For any wary readers out there, this particular book contains language and violence.

by Niki Hawkes

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