Book Review – Broken Elements
Disclaimer: As with all my reviews, there is a possibility of spoilers, though I try to keep them out as often as I can.
Urban Fantasy has permeated my life lately, quite heavily, especially with the recent realization that my book series technically can fall into the bounds of urban fantasy. But also due to the discovery of more urban fantasy books like the Mercy Thompson series and a recent series that brings in yet another different type of main character from a first person perspective: An Elemental.
The character concept is brilliant, most people have done wizards and magic user’s that can use an element, but not the actual elementals, the kind that embody their element, and that’s exactly what the main character, Aidan Brook, and many others are in Broken Elements. Akin to many urban fantasy, this one takes place somewhere around present time though the exact era isn’t particularly obvious, only to the point that wifi is pretty much everywhere.
Aidan had been pretty much a hermit for the last ten years and the whole story is moved forward by the seclusion ending from a string of murders popping up once more. Now, unlike many other urban fantasy stories, it isn’t Aidan’s job to fix the murders or protect the innocent or solve the case, she’s just a person that got sucked up in the case because of the connections to her, in a way this reminded me a lot of Mercy Thompson, which is why I mentioned her above. Unlike Mercy Thompson though, we have a more clear understanding of what kind of power Aidan does have by the end of the first novel and her potential as a water elemental and her magic.
Some of the other characters involved are the fire elemental, Sera, who is her best friend practically sister and recently estranged in a way. Vivian, an earth elemental that is better with computers than earth manipulation (And one of my more favorite characters just for the simple fact of her introduction coming with a marxist feminist shirt). Mac, an animal shifter, which is another group of individuals introduced in the story and makes you wonder what other supernatural creatures might exist. And there are many others like Simon the Cat or Brian the Ice Elemental Bartender and Sera’s father, Josiah, yet another fire elemental. All together we end up with the Scooby Doo gang, except with a shapeshifting cat instead of a talking dog.
Most of the character’s had little quirks to them that made them all interesting at least, though Vivian did seem slightly flat and more of the token ‘LGBT’ character than any of the others, about the only thing she did have going for her was the shirt, otherwise we just don’t see much of her really come to light. But that’s only one character and the character at least had a few interesting touches to her besides mentioning that she broke up with her girlfriend (which wasn’t really necessary for the story or character other than marking her as LGBT).
Regardless the plot they are weaved through definitely provided plenty and at first it almost seemed like there was too much information being found and it was a wonder how any of this stuff would come to a conclusion in this book, but luckily we do discover everything introduced in this book, except one minor detail at the end, which is introduced at the end anyway and not necessary, but provides that… oh yeah this story is going to continue, kind of element. No matter what, the plot still feels done, unlike the second book of the Hunger Games, by the time the climax and resolution rolls around.
Overall, the minor discrepancies were very minor and the story and characters manage to deliver, which means even though this comes from an independent publisher it is definitely up there with some of the other urban fantasy types. My only major issue is not one I’d really want to talk about since it spoils a lot of the ending, but it involves discovering who the criminal had been the entire time, which although I had not been expecting it felt like a curve ball thrown in at a random time with no foreshadowing or allusion to it ahead of time.
However, it is more than an enjoyable experience and definitely worth taking a look at if you are interested in Urban Fantasy books at all. This book recently came out as of February and the second book, Shifting Selves, is set to hit the shelves in a couple of days from now. I do have the second book already, but I will likely not be getting to reading it before it comes out, unfortunately. Regardless, you can find more information about this book and other people’s reviews on Goodreads.
And without further ado, I give this book…
Four Little Imps out of Five, since the last one got lost on the way.
