I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
Nightshifted
by
Cassie Alexander
horror, urban fantasy in eBook edition that was published by St. Martin's Press on May 22, 2012 and has 331 pages.
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First in the Edie Spence urban fantasy horror series about a nurse who gets caught up by the worst people!
My Take
This starts out so bad that I almost stopped reading it, but it got better. Certainly an interesting twist with the nightshift nurse working a supernatural floor in a County hospital. It’s where you go if you’re supernatural and you need help.
I do NOT understand how the pediatric charge nurse makes the leap to thinking that Edie is generating a fire in the floor below Shawn’s room. Then there’s Edie’s reaction to Asher and his flowers. WTF? She immediately leaps to the conclusion that County nurses aren’t good enough for him, but nothing has been said to indicate she is a County nurse. Nor has Asher said anything about not dating nurses.
Whoa, Meaty is GOOD and thinks fast. He’s got a good argument to save Edie from that summoning. Temporarily at least.
The series plot seems to be the black zones that are growing throughout London that the Shadows can’t penetrate. This seems to be a violation of a treaty.
The Story
If only Edie hadn’t gotten so cocky, the patient wouldn’t’ve died, and she wouldn’t’ve felt that obligation that pulls her deeper into this unexpected world.
It just gets better when she feels an obligation to a patient who dies under her care – she forgets to restrain him, and he flails about killing himself – to find the niece he lost centuries before. She’s a vampire/human abused by pedaphiliac vampires whom Edie frees. But only after killing one of the vampires. The Throne of vamps he belonged to condemns her to death, via a sham trial, but with help, she wriggles free — a firefighting zombie, a shapeshifting hunk, the freed vampire, and a greedy lawyer.
The Characters
Edie Spence is a nurse who made a deal with the Shadows to keep her brother clean and not overdose. She’s gotta wonder about that deal. Minnie is her cat. Jake is her heroin-addicted brother.
Asher is a gorgeous guy Edie meets in a bar.
Co-workers at County Hospital
Meaty is in charge of the nightshift, and no one knows what he/she is. Charlie and Gina are fellow nurses. Gina mostly works the corrals. Dr. Emmanuel Turnas can’t be bothered to show up.
The Shadows are supposed to run interference when the patients get out of hand. They feed off all emotions, but pain lasts longest. The hospital has a deal with the Consortium.
Patients…
Ti Smith is a zombie firefighter. “Madge” Madigan is a werewolf. Mr. November is a patient found on the streets; he’s also a daytimer, a vampire servant, and they don’t know which Throne he belongs to. Anna is the girl Edie must save. She’s also November’s niece — Uncle Yuri Arsov — who was taken and turned and used as a model in pedophilia films for decades, if not centuries. Koschei was her brother, her younger brother.
Shawn is a C3 quad with a fascinating CD player.
Dren is a Husker, he takes souls; if you try to elude him, his Hound will track you down.
Thrones are different vampire factions: the Rose wants to farm humans while the Zverskiye sees humans as free-range meat — they’re the Throne accusing Edie. The Dnevnoi are the loyal ones; their first child is pledged to the Throne and becomes Zverskiye, the second child is sacrificed to the Tyeni (the Shadows).
Geoffrey Weatherton is a vampire lawyer who makes a heinous deal with Edie. He belongs to the Rose Throne.
The Cover and Title
The cover tells it like it is with Edie in her nursing uniform standing in front of a window behind which is the silhouette of a dragon, for ya never know what or who will show up at the hospital.
The title could easily be nightshafted for the bargain Edie’s had to make, instead Edie has agreed to be Nightshifted.
