REVIEW: Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey
B Reviewsmurder-investigation / Penguin / supernatural / Urban-Fantasy19 Comments
Dear Ms. Carey,
I’m a huge fan of yours. I loved the original Kushiel trilogy and while I thought the succeeding trilogies didn’t quite live up to that beginning, the Phedre novels still rank high among my favorite fantasy novels. Your non-Kushiel novels didn’t hit me the same way but I still appreciated what you were doing with those narratives. You always try to do something different and subversive and I like that. So when I heard you were turning your attention to urban fantasy, I was intrigued. I’ve made no secret of the fact that the subgenre has lost its charm for me, but some things will bring me back. My favorite author writing in it is one of them.
Daisy Johanssen is a walking cautionary tale against using Ouija boards. Most stories talk about accidental possessions or summoning ghosts who refuse to leave. When Daisy’s mother used an Ouija board, the other girls at the slumber party woke up in the middle of the night to find her having not-entirely consensual sex with an incubus. Yikes. Daisy was the result of that.
In most places, this would be an issue. However, Daisy and her mother hail from Pemkowet, a midwestern town known for one thing: its supernatural population. Many decades ago, the Norse goddess Hel made her home there and as a result, an underground supernatural community — known as the eldritch community — sprung up around her. As an adult, Daisy serves as Hel’s enforcer and the liaison between the Pemkowet police department and the eldritch community.
Because of its supernatural population, Pemkowet has become a tourist town. People come from all over in the hopes that they’ll spy a cute fairy or maybe even a vampire. Of course, the reality is not quite as pretty. When a frat boy drowns in the lake, everyone initially assumes it was accidental. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. And now Daisy must find out what exactly happened in order to keep Pemkowet’s tourist trade — and the eldritch community at the heart of it — safe.
This is a pretty big departure from the Kushiel books. It’s lighter in tone, so readers shouldn’t go in expecting the darkness that characterized your traditional fantasy novels. On the other hand, I personally am tired of the faux-gritty darkness that’s pervaded the urban fantasy genre lately so I found the lighter tone refreshing. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not comedic or humorous. It just wasn’t unrelentingly dark or “edgy” and wasn’t trying to be.
I found Daisy to be a very relatable heroine. I liked how she took everything in stride. Yes, she’s half-demon and her father wants to use her as a vehicle to cause the apocalypse, but she has no intention of letting that bring her down. I loved that she has a great relationship with her mother and a female friend! A close female friend who she’s known since forever even. Considering one of my major complaints with the urban fantasy genre is that its heroines often don’t have or keep female friends, this was excellent.
And Daisy values her best friend a greal deal. She tries to patch things up after an argument over a potential love interest. When her friend’s little brother is endangered, she drops everything to help find him — even though it may jeopardize other aspects of and relationships in her life. Daisy prioritizes this friendship and I liked that its weight reflected the length of time they’d known each other.
One of the things I liked about the Kushiel books was how female positive they ultimately were, and I’m glad to see that carry over here. Daisy, her mother, and her best friend were great. The complicated layers to their relationships struck me as very real. I adored Lurine, Daisy’s former babysitter turned B-movie actress, who also happens to be a very powerful member of the eldritch community. I loved her. If you wrote hundreds of pages about the adventures of Daisy and Lurine, I would be on-board that train so fast, I’m not even going to lie.
Dark Currents isn’t what I’d consider a mindblowingly original novel. The subgenre is well-established by this point and its tropes are well defined. We have a heroine with a supernatural heritage caught between two worlds in an investigative role. There are a few supernatural men in her life that she may or may not be interested in and want to pursue. Someone has died, and this jeopardizes the relationship between supernaturals and normal humans. We’ve seen these plot points before.
But there are touches and quirks that keep thing interesting. The light tone, as I mentioned before. The small town setting and the fact that everyone — and I do mean everyone — knows your business. One of Daisy’s love interests is someone she’s known since elementary school! (This is really a suburban fantasy, all things considered.) The fact that Daisy and her close circle of family and friends are actually lower working class, and it’s not the result of them having to wander like vagabonds. Daisy’s mother lives in a trailer park and works as a seamstress. Daisy’s best friend works as a cleaning lady. You don’t really see these sorts of jobs in UF novels. Even the push and pull between townies and tourists was pretty accurate.
All that said, we do catch glimpses of darkness here and there. Daisy can bring about the apocalypse if she chooses to embrace her demonic heritage, after all. And there were the circumstances surrounding the frat boy’s death. That was pretty twisted. So even though I would call this a lighter UF, readers shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking it’s all sunshine and rainbows. It’s definitely not. At the very least, the conflict between Pemkowet’s eldritch population and the religious groups who want them razed to the ground should provide some fodder for thought.
Dark Currents is a quirky novel, but I think it’s a solid entry into the subgenre. The murder mystery plot is well-constructed and well-paced. It is very much a first novel in a series, given that it sets up various characters and relationships, but it did the job well. I’m interested in seeing where Daisy goes from here and looking forward to the next one. (And more Lurine wouldn’t hurt too.) B
My regards,
Jia
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Is Carey’s writing as florid (or verbose, maybe?) in this new book as it was in the Kushiel books?
Oh, this sounds good! I’ve only read the first Kushiel trilogy so far (but have nearly all her other books on my shelf xD) and I totally adored it. I simply cannot stop recommending it to my friends and I’m really looking forward to her new book. I was a little bit sceptical at first, because “Santa Olivia” was UF, too, right? Not everybody seemed too happy with the book, so I wondered whether it would be the same here. Anyway, there’s just one way to find out: to read it. ;)
If this is the first in a series, does it *end* (or at least resolve major plot points) or does it end with cliff-hangers? because that’s the kiss of death for me.
@jmc: No. The book is written in first person but it’s a modern, relaxed voice. Not quite so over the top or bombastic. (Mind you, I like that but it wouldn’t really work here.)
@Shiku: Santa Olivia was more of a post-apocalyptic book than an UF. That book incites conflicting feelings in me. I like the way it was written and it was so readable. But from an objective standpoint, the plot was a mess. It felt like three different books in one. That said, there are people who love that book and I can see why. But it really needed more focus, narratively speaking. For what it’s worth, I liked this book more than Santa Olivia.
@becca: Yes, the murder mystery plot introduced in this book ends in this book. That part is quite self-contained. It’s the relationship aspects that’ll continue on into the next book and even then, those aren’t cliffhangers at all.
@Jia: Good to know, thank you! Looks like my memory mixed that a little bit up, but if I know what to expect there’s not much that can go wrong. :)
I liked your review and it raised my interest, but from it I gather there is set-up for a love triangle? I don’t like that at all (I don’t mind if they turn it into menage, though ^^). How prevalent is that part of the book?
@Estara: Not very. It’s not even a love triangle so much as Daisy getting multiple options and then
Buried Comment (Reason: spoiler) Show
@Jia: Thanks for the answer :) I liked it well enough at first, it suited Phedre’s voice, but it got old for me.
i know you’ve put SPOILER above that spoiler but if you’re like me you’ve already sightread it uhn is it possible to hide it for people who might not want to be spoilt as to the result of the romancey bit?
@Jia: Thanks for clearing that up, that makes me much more likely to buy the book. I’ll add it to my TBR list.
@amandine: Ah, sorry! I’ll edit the comment now.
@Estara: It might not work for everyone. It’s definitely playing with the love triangle tropes of the genre though. Where Carey will take it, I can’t say for sure because she’s never really had a proper love triangle in any of her previous books.
Somehow this book wasn’t on my radar at all, and I love Carey. Thanks for the heads up!
Jia, you’ve sold me. To the TBR Mountain it goes.
Nice review! Totally agree about the books being very ‘female’ friendly – but then again, all of Carey’s work is pretty progressive when it comes to gender and sexuality :)
I actually hated the lighter tone but though it was a pretty good book altogether.