The blurb:
Teagan Frost might be getting better at moving sh*t with her mind – but her job working as a telekinetic government operative only ever seems to get harder. That’s not even talking about her car-crash of a love life . . .
And things are about to get even tougher. No sooner has Teagan chased off one psychotic kid hell-bent on trashing the whole West Coast, but now she has to contend with another supernatural being who can harness devastating electrical power. And if Teagan can’t stop him, the whole of Los Angeles will be facing the sh*tstorm of the century…
The review:
Within the first three chapters of this book, Teagan Frost gets a whole faceful of meth, and moves sh*t with her mind while high.
That… pretty much lets you know what you can expect this book.
I read this coming off a run of fast-paced, chaotic books with investigative aspects. There was Patrick Samphire’s Shadow of a Dead God, there was RJ Barker’s Dark’s crime debut, A Numbers Game, and now there’s Jackson Ford’s Eye of the Sh*t Storm.
And look, I’m the kind of guy who usually gets very bored very quickly if I read too much of the same thing at once. It’s an attention span thing, as well as a personality flaw. But it speaks to how fun this book was that I didn’t feel that fatigue. Eye of the Sh*t Storm follows in the same vein as the first two books in the series. There’s a super-powered threat that needs dealt with, Teagan Frost and the rest of China Shop get dragged in to investigate, they end up in over their heads. And just like the last book, the threat is a kid!
Except, y’know, a kid that’s far less psychopathic than the last one. (Although that’s not exactly a hard bar to clear.)
After all the fallout from book 2, this book focuses on Teagan taking on a little more responsibility. Which isn’t to say that she isn’t still incredibly impulsive. Because believe me, she is. Like the first two in the series, this book is a collection of things going wrong one after the other — the cause of (and solution to) these things being Teagan throwing shit at people. I did think that this domino-effect approach felt a teeny bit more contrived this time around (there’s only so much bad luck I can swallow), but that didn’t impact my enjoyment too much.
I mentioned that there was another super-powered kid earlier. His name is Leo. He has some funky electricity-based powers — he can turn anything into a conductor — and his introduction into the cast shines a new light on the existing characters. He has a kind of… innocence… that makes for some really lovely smile-inducing scenes. Given what happened at the end of book 2, though, some China Shop employees aren’t too keen on the idea of letting Leo run free. Perhaps understandably. But Teagan understands what kind of life Leo would be facing if he were to be turned into the government, and so all she wants to do is help him find his dad. Taking on that responsibility leads to some interesting character growth, which I think had to happen at this point in the series to keep it from going stale.
I had admittedly hoped that we would see a little more movement on the “bigger picture” stuff, particularly with the overarching series big bads. Now don’t get me wrong, we arguably see more of them here than we did in previous books, but Jackson Ford is clearly playing the long game. I’m just a bit impatient. I’m hoping that in book 4 there’ll be more of a direct confrontation.
In terms of who should read this, well… It’s the third book in the series and it doesn’t switch up the formula too much. If you enjoyed the first two, you’ll love being able to dive into this one. If you’re someone wondering whether to start the series, well… Do you like the idea of an impulsive main character who can move shit with her mind, fast-as-fuck action, and consequences that echo throughout the series? If so, why not check out the first book?
We received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you to Orbit UK for the review copy!
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