Review: The Charm Collector Box Set: Books 0-2

The Charm Collector Box Set: Books 0-2 by Melissa Erin Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So, the prequel novella had me looking forward to an urban fantasy with an established married couple, sensible, capable, underpowered but making up for it with intelligence, private investigators who know about the hidden supernatural world. Sure, the husband didn't have a lot of personality - the wife was the narrator - but I assumed that would change as we went along.

Book 1 starts - and we're in the viewpoint of their daughter (in utero in the prequel). The dad is dead, the mother has disappeared, and the daughter, far from being a PI, makes her living by stealing artefacts, and is also implied to be making a number of other poor life choices. Not what I was hoping for at all, and not nearly as appealing to me. I'd much rather read about a smart, capable person solving problems that aren't of their own making in the cause of the greater good. Also, it felt (at least at first) like it rendered the prequel more or less irrelevant.

However, as the book goes on, she does start solving problems not of her own making in the cause of the greater good, along with several other initially unpromising characters, so I started enjoying it again.

In the second book, the allies assembled in the first book are dodging the authorities and trying to solve the threat, split into two groups, with separate interwoven narratives. The main character's thread continues in first person, and her friend's story is in third person. The alternation isn't chapter-by-chapter, which I think was a good choice, and usually switches at moments of high tension, which is the best way to do a split narrative. There's a slow-burn romance subplot for the MC's friend, but the parties to it are mostly focused on the main plot. And eventually, the events of the prequel do become relevant again. It gets gripping and impactful - a lot of the best writing is in the second book, but it needs the first book to set it up.

The world is interesting, with hidden supernatural cities dotted across the USA (and presumably the world), where magical technology functions, sometimes just replacing mundane technology (magical lights instead of electric ones), sometimes doing things mundane tech can't do (teleportation stations). The thing is, magic is said to be limited on earth, so why use it to do what mundane technology is capable of? It's not because mundane tech doesn't work; it does. Yet blue "fae lights" instead of more natural-spectrum LEDs are the choice for lighting, including flashlights, in the hidden cities. Perhaps it's a vibe/nostalgia/hanging-on-to-culture thing.

The copy editing is mostly fine, with the occasional small issue. There are a few places that need an apostrophe, but when an apostrophe does occur, it's in the right place. There's the odd homonym error, too, of the kind that a lot of people make, like leach/leech (always a tricky pair), tick/tic, base/bass, borne/born - it's surprising how often people write "borne" (carried) when they mean "born" (birthed) - plus a few other vocabulary choices that are either highly unusual or just wrong for what is evidently the intended meaning. Those mistakes are widely scattered, though.

There are other minor glitches. For example, a continuity issue: the MC, on her way to a teleportation station, worries about whether her stored-value card has enough credit on it, because she's not carrying her bank card or any cash. And then at the other end of her teleport, she gets a cab. Paying for it how? There's also a piece of dialog where the speaker is trying to say "I'm not out of your league, you're out of my league," but actually says "You're not out of my league, I'm out of your league." Since it isn't called out as a fumble by the character, I assume it's a fumble by the author. And a zoo established in the early 20th century and abandoned not long afterwards is very much set up like a modern zoo, including features like an "insect exploratorium" (the word "exploratorium" was first used in the 1960s).

So there are opportunities to tighten up and improve it further, but the heart of it is sound - a strong, distinct cast with interesting synergy and some push and pull between them, a compelling problem for them to solve that they have to push hard and risk everything for, plenty of action that means something, an original world (as far as I know) that mostly makes sense, and skilled tension-building cuts back and forth once it splits into two storylines. The ending is suitably dramatic. Overall, I enjoyed it, and will look out for other books in the series and from the author.

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