Witchling (Sisters of the Moon, Book 1)

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Meet the D'Artigo sisters: half-human, half-faerie, they're savvy-and sexy-operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But their mixed-blood heritage short-circuits their talents at all the wrong times. Delilah shapeshifts into a tabby cat whenever she's stressed. Menolly's a vampire who's still trying to get the hang of being undead. And Camille is a wicked-good witch, except her magic's as unpredictable as the weather, as her enemies are about to find out-the hard way.

Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Chick Lit Combines With A Bad Anita Blake Rip-off December 21, 2006
44 out of 60 found this review helpful

With the popularity of the Anita Blake series, everyone seems to be trying to cash in on the dark urban fantasy pony. Fortunately, the series that popularized the genre has gone so far downhill in quality that most fans are eager to seek out new series to get their fix. Some writers like Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison try to recapture what was good about the Anita Blake series before Laurell K Hamilton started pandering to the hairy palms crowd. Unfortunately, Yasmine Galenorn is going the Charlaine Harris route in giving us series that repackages everything that is horrible about the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series and adds insult to injury by adding in Hamilton's universally reviled Merry Gentry series in the mix.

Camille D'Artigo is an agent of the Otherworld. A world of fairies, elves, vampires, and demons and every other supernatural creature one can shove down a kitchen sink. She is a very special human-fairy hybrid who is also a witch. However, more than the first person narrative perspective, the series reveals its chick-lit ambitions by making Camille and her two sisters cutesy. By cutesy, I really mean incompetent. Camille's spells often backfire on her. Menolly, the vampire, is a member of a sort of vampire AA. Delilah, the shapeshifter, turns into a cute little tabby cat whenever she gets upset. Urgh!
The world is much like our own, except for reasons unknown, the denizens of the Otherworld have gone public. Magical creatures frequently travel between worlds. That's where the trouble starts.
Some demons are trying to open a portal to Earth and the Otherword from their own world, and the D'Artigo sisters have to guard nine magic seals from them. In otherworld, the corrupt Fairy court is fiddling while Rome burns so our none-too-bright sisters are pretty much on their own against three super-duper demons. Also, Camille is dealing with her rather complicated love life as she juggles two boyfriends, Trellian, the dark Sidhe, and Morio, the demon fox.
If this plot sounds familiar to you, then you probably read the first couple of Anita Blake books. However, imagine cramming an investigation, a love triangle, and an exploration of the consequences of establishing relations with the Otherworld into one tiny book that doesn't quite reach three hundred pages. It's rushed, full of clunky infodumping, and barely readabel. By taking on too much in too little space, only one of the plot threads is resolved. From the excerpt in the back, the next book seems to focus on the werekitty sister so I imagine the tepid love triangle won't be resolved anytime soon.

5 out of 5 stars

A Magical Treat! November 22, 2006
31 out of 36 found this review helpful

There's nothing better on a cold winter day than a cup of steaming cocoa and a good book. WITCHLING definitely qualifies as a good book--one of the best of 2006. And if reading about Camille D'Artigo and her sisters' exploits doesn't get your blood pumping, well you'd better watch out because Menolly might want a snack. (She's very neat about it, though.)

The book is set in contemporary greater Seattle area and features the three D'Artigo sisters who are half human and half fae. Each has a special gift although because they're half-bloods, their gifts aren't exactly reliable. Camille is a witch, Delilah shapeshifts to a kitty, and Menolly is a vamp. The sisters work for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency and must find another operative's murderer. But when the murderer turns into three--demons, that is, things get a little exciting. I really don't want to say much about the plot because each chapter is a discovery, and the reader will want to make that discovery himself.

Who doesn't like murder, suspense, dragons, demons, and a baby gargoyle, all mixed in with a good dose of humor? WITCHLING is an exciting, compelling read. The worldbuilding is incredible and the characters are spellbinding, no pun intended. I heartily recommend this book and am eagerly looking forward to the next in the Sisters of the Moon series, CHANGELING.

1 out of 5 stars

I Would Give This Zero Stars If Possible April 27, 2007
21 out of 32 found this review helpful

Three magical sisters have come from the Otherworld as supernatural operatives. The three sisters, Camille; Menolly; and Delilah, each have their own unique abilities. Camille is a witch. Menolly is a vampire, and Delilah is a were-cat. But because these three magical sisters are half human, their powers tend to misfire and go altogether wonky. So when a fellow operative is killed and the sisters are assigned to investigate, they must learn to harness their powers and find the killer before it's too late.

I was tremendously disappointed with this book. I am a huge fan of Yasemine Galenorn, both her pagan writings and her cozy mysteries, but this book just plain sucked. First, there are three magical sisters. Hmmm...where have I heard that before...? Oh I know! Charmed! Then, just for good measure, she blended in a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer and stole some Laurell K. Hamilton and presto! One book that was a giant rip-off of other popular works, full of poor dialog, a plot that was ridiculous, and the book was about 50 pages too long.

I will not be reading anymore books in this series. I would not recommend this book for anyone.

2 out of 5 stars

expository lump October 13, 2006
15 out of 22 found this review helpful

Let me start by saying that I like Yasmine Galenorn's writing quite a lot. I love her pagan/metaphysical books--she's one of the few authors out there who seems to have a genuine passion for the subject matter--and I've also enjoyed the one installment of Chintz 'n' China that I've read.

That said, I didn't really enjoy this book, though I feel kind of bad saying so about something she's obviously worked hard on and feels strongly about.

Galenorn has set herself a difficult task here. Most writers of urban fantasy choose a narrator who has grown up in the ordinary, everyday world of humans. Whether the protagonist is aware of the supernatural at the start of the book or not, s/he does begin the story as someone who is more familiar with the human world than with the Otherworld. This enables the author to gradually lead readers into the world, because they can find out bits and pieces of information right along with the character. Galenorn's protagonist, Camille, is the opposite. She is half-human, but grew up in the Otherworld among Sidhe society and has now moved to Earth as an investigator of supernatural crime. (We'll leave aside the question of whether someone who grew up in Faerie would call it "Otherworld." It seems to me that our world would be called Other by the denizens of Faerie.)

So we have a narrator who ostensibly knows everything about Otherworld and almost everything about supernatural crime. And we have a very short novel, during which the foundation of a series needs to be laid and several skirmishes fought. There's very little "screen time" in which to gradually lead readers into the setting. Instead, every time Camille opens her mouth, an infodump falls out. Because Camille serves mainly as a vehicle for exposition, she isn't very well-developed as a character. Several other characters are either flat (the sisters) or else behave in completely incongruous ways that jar with the way the character seemed at first (Chase). I'm not talking about characters changing through their experiences. This is more like "BAM! I am a completely different person now!"

In addition, I felt that the final scene was sort of jarring with the rest of the story. Its purpose is to set the scene for sequels, but its atmosphere doesn't really fit with the rest of the novel.

However, I'm looking forward to seeing where Galenorn goes with this series. I suspect the characters will be more interesting now that the expository lump is out of the way.

4 out of 5 stars

What a conglomerate of characters and plot! October 25, 2006
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

3 and a half stars. Yes, that means that this book is a bit rough and not nearly was well but together as Galenorn's modestly popular Chintz 'n China Mystery Series. I should have known something was up when MJ Davidson was quoted on the cover. Witchling is the first in the series with Changeling soon to follow. Galenorn tries to mix a lot of characters, fashion, sex, and a number of mythological/fairy tale traditions. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work well in a 276 page book. If the book had about another 10 pages, then we might have really had something. Now, it isn't horrible, but I think I might have been better off buying the book and then waiting for a few more of them to come out and reading them together. Also, the book is in first person, and some folks don't like that. The thing I really didn't like was that Galenorn mixes her traditions but uses the different names for the same entity as if they were two different types of beings. Also, she often forgets that the Sidhe are Fairies, too (sometimes a sentence or two after she calls them Fairies).

A tirade of demons are loose on Earth and the magical half-human, half-Fae D'Artigo sisters and their sidekicks are off to stop them before their master, Shadow Wing, gets his grubby mits on the any of the nine shields that separate Earth, Otherworld, and the Subterranean Realms. Here is the problem, by the time you are halfway through the book, there are over 8 of these "sidekick-types" and all of them are a different type of entity. So much time is lost explaining what all these entities are, that the plot line becomes broken and rushed. Another 50-100 pages or so could have really allowed the author to smooth things out.

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