Book Review – Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre

Author: Ann Aguirre
Publisher: ROC
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: April 2009

Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre is an urban fantasy with enough uniqueness to make it quite interesting. Corine Solomon thought she could run from her past—and her ability to touch something and know its history to some degree. Her ability causes her hands to suffer burns, which is particularly bad for someone who has good reason to fear fire. In addition, her past contains a man she is convinced doesn’t love her. Still, every now and then, there is someone she cares enough about…that she has to help.

So begins a page-turning story as she tries to locate her ex-lover’s mother by objects left behind. The story has a bit too much emotional ex-boyfriend angst for my taste, but it rallied through. Some of the plot was a little uneven as well—at times everything snapped, other times, it felt patch-worked. The action would be going along nicely, setting up the perfect tension, perhaps a battle scene…and then it would fizzle, solved so quickly it read like an outline. Just when I got used to this rather strange pacing, there were a couple of much longer battles that had a bizarre Rambo feeling; impossible odds yet everyone walked away with scant bruises. In one case the solution came a bit out of thin air after a setup that…well, the setup was wasted…it worked, but barely. Barely.

There were sections where I was turning the pages fast enough to start them on fire—sections that were just wonderfully rendered, but the occasional misstep threw me out of the book.

The strongest part of the storytelling was probably that of the various gifts and paranormal powers and how those were handled. Unlike the plot and the emotions, I don’t think the gifts strayed once from firm rules. This provided the book with some stability; none of the characters suddenly had extra powers and they stayed within reasonable limitations.

This book is a good start to a series. The main mystery was solved, but there were enough other subplots unsolved to leave intrigue. If you like urban fantasy, I think this book is a good read, and it has potential to turn into a very good series.

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