Charming: Its Retreads a Lot of Old Tropes but Its Still Pretty Fun.
Charming By Elliot James
Sometimes the Kindle sales are great. I mean really great. Last Labor Day I must have got a dozen books for a dollar a piece. I got some old favorites and new books I’ve been wanting to read for a while. But there was one I had to stop and think about. It was a supernatural urban fantasy called Charming, and to be honest the cover art and write up seemed very cliché. But in the back of my mind I was thinking how I enjoy Laurell K Hamilton, Jim Butcher, and Devon Monk. And maybe this could be on par as an unsung hero of the genre. So I took a gamble. I mean it could be real treasure and why not, at the asking price of a dollar. Here is my view of Charming by Elliot James.
So what is it about? It focuses on John Charming. He was born into an order of holy knights who keep bad monsters at bay. But because his mother was bitten by a werewolf right before his birth, he inherited werewolf DNA. He is part, if not half werewolf. When the order learned that he was practically immortal as he was in his twenties, he was considered an abomination because monster hunters can’t be monsters and there’s a whole blood purity thing about them. So he’s on the run. The book picks up about seventy years after that. He had been drifting from place to place staying out from under their nose. In the opening, he is working as a bartender. And one night a blonde bombshell walks through the door. She appears to be flirting with vampire but as the vampire starts trouble he takes care of him as John has superhuman strength and the speed of a werewolf. But from there on out things escalate exponentially. The vampire comes back with his friends for revenge and the blonde joins in, somewhat annoyed with him as she tells him he’s messing up a vampire hunt of hers.
It turns out that she is a Valkyrie, a form of Norse angelic guardian, and she has a whole team helping her hunt a certain vampire including a psychic, lizard man, priestess, and a number of other oddballs. She in time decides to recruit John to help with their cause, as they can use his abilities. It’s a job that he cannot refuse as the order bloodline in him obligates him to protect people from monsters if an issue arises.
So the good? It’s a fine book. The story itself is okay, and the hard left at the end was appreciated. Action was fun. Though cliche, it was just super fun. Even though its not great, I enjoyed much of this. I had a lot of little good story elements too. I loved the back stories of the characters. There’s also a great wild sense of humor throughout.
The bad? First of all, I did not feel John was a compelling character. He’s immortal, super human, and has the perk of not turning into a wolf. He is basically superman. I can’t relate to someone who seems to have everything in his favor. Sure. His girlfriend’s death is a plot point, but he is easily forgets her and gets with the blonde after knowing her a couple days. He had no real depth. The best the author did was write him as the adorkable handsome type, but he just seemed too perfect at times. The tone of the book was a bit goofy too. As more characters are introduced of the monster hunting crew, they are all very quirky. This made the book feel more like a Saturday morning cartoon similar to Scooby Doo than something somewhat grounded in reality like Anita Blake. Call me silly. But I like my monster mashes a little more in touch with reality. And most of the story is not all that original. It is a shallow paranormal action mystery compared to the others out there and a lot of time sit feels like it’s trying to replicate other novels of this of this sort than do its own thing. If you read from this genre before, this may come off as bland.
Overall, I cannot deny this book is some dumb fun. It’s not impressive or all that original, and for avid readers of this genre it may be bland. But it’s still good. Its like the straight to DVD knockoff of a theatrical release that is pretty good, but not great. It could be a lot better, but the ride is still pretty good anyways.
Overall Rating: Its retreads a lot of old these but its still pretty fun.
3 smoothies out of four.
