Genre: Lesbian Paranormal Mystery/Thriller
Length: Novel
MINNESOTAN POLICE officer, Erin Ericsson, travels to Canada to catch a criminal that fell through US cracks. Lily is a killer who is just getting started in her killing career—she’s only a teenager. Besides her trusty knife, the same one she stole from her dead mother who died of suspicious circumstances, Lily uses fire to wreck havoc, and instill terror in her victims. No one is safe. Not Erin or Erin’s loved ones. Not her own family. Not even her friends, including the girl she meets in school, and her family. She’s a killer, and unless she’s stopped, she’s going to keep killing.
This was a great mystery/thriller. Though Erin uses all her skills to apprehend Lily, her girlfriend, Allie, is the gifted one. Allie receives visions while she’s awake and asleep, emotions from people and objects, and bits of information that she shouldn’t be privy to. Erin knows it’s something more than Allie simply having a heightened awareness, but Allie treats her power as if it’s a fluke, or simple case of intuition. I labeled this work as paranormal, but I suppose it’s more magical realism, in that the world is exactly like our world, and Allie’s intuition is certainly paranormal, but could possibly be true, maybe, if the laws of the universe were given just a bit of a nudge.
The plot was thrilling and interesting. This wasn’t a traditional mystery, in that we already know who the bad guy is, in fact, we get Lily’s viewpoint throughout roughly half the novel, which is actually one of the main reasons why I love this book. Some mysteries do have point of view shifts to their antagonists, but few make the antagonist one of the main characters. Look at the potential flaws with that: we hate Lily, we want her to get caught, and we despise all her choices. And yet, the viewpoint was especially fascinating to me, and at times touching. Of course Lily’s a train wreck, and nothing good is going to come from bonding with her, but her story was still incredible. And wow, the writing from her viewpoint was authentic and raw, and so different than the writing from Erin’s. I’d recommend the novel based on this aspect of the story alone, but there were many other great traits.
I labeled this work as lesbian, but only because I want to help call attention to wonderful LGBT literature. There was no sex. There was no romance. The protagonist, Erin, just happened to be lesbian and have a girlfriend. If I were going to give this work a more true label, according to my own philosophies on genres, I would label it as Mystery/Thriller, and I’d expect to see it on the self at any bookstore in the Mystery section.
This is the second book in a series, and so far it’s three books long. I haven’t read the first, but I plan to. I’m the type of reader that feels comfortable being plunked in the middle of a story. I can go back, forward, whatever, and be just fine. I missed an entire book, and I still enjoyed myself thoroughly. But if you’re not that type of reader, even though I haven’t read the first yet, I’d still absolutely recommend reading it. It was Fisk’s debut novel, so there’s a sort of charm to that as well.
Check out Fisk’s website for more information on her and the Intuition series. http://www.makenzifisk.com/index.html
B. A. Brock is a reviewer for DSP and QSF. He enjoys reading, writing, running, family and food, and fills his life with bent bunk. He especially loves to discuss LGBTQ+ literature. His website is http://www.babrockbooks.com. You can find him on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/BABrockBooks.