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NO HUMANS INVOLVED
by Kelley Armstrong
Spectra, May 2007
342 pages
$20.00
ISBN: 0553805088


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Jaime Vegas doesn’t have a lot of respect for fake spiritualists. Oh, she pretends to be one, so she knows all the tricks. It’s just that as a necromancer, she really can talk to the dead.

Jaime has accepted a role in a reality show that will try to make contact with the ghosts of past Hollywood stars; it’s stupid work by her standards, but she hasn’t had a hit since she was a child star, and she wants a TV show of her own. So she’s willing to go and put on a good act, although while the other two spiritualists are casting about for clues and hints, she is having a lovely chat with the charming actresses, who have shown up out of otherworldy curiosity. It almost makes up for being the only one who notices that there’s a man hanging from the chandelier right over the food in the dining room.

But along with the ghosts there’s another presence in the garden – one that, for all Jaime’s power, she can’t make a clear connection with. One that is desperate to communicate. Jaime starts pulling in every favor she has with the magical folk – the vampires, the witches, even her werewolf boyfriend. All the signs point to humans doing spell work. But normal humans can’t do magic, every magical being knows that.

It’s hard to describe NO HUMANS ALLOWED without sounding cheesy – the very words “werewolf boyfriend” have a certain undeniable fromage factor. However, Armstrong does an excellent job of defining her world without asking dubious readers to suspend their disbelief too far off the floor. She juggles the paranormal and the very normal with aplomb, while building a gritty mystery puzzle at the perfect pace of clues and dead ends.

Although this is her sixth book in the series, it’s possible for a reader to jump right in, understand the rules of this urban fantasy, and be curious not only to see what’s next, but to go back and read the first five. It's definitely one for the paranormal and urban fantasy fans to add to their shelves.

Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, August 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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