Redemption by C. J. Barry

Thane Driscoll is a good cop who’s seen too many bad guys get away, including the man who murdered his father. He exacts his own style of justice, even if it costs him his humanity. A string of mysterious deaths leads him to a woman who’s not quite human and might hold the key to finding his father’s killer.

When death and shadows descend, New York City becomes a battleground for the forces of light and dark. As the body count rises and sparks fly between them, Reya and Thane race to uncover a terrible truth. Can one man hell-bent on revenge and one woman determined to save her eternal soul be enough to keep the planet from spiraling into darkness?

Cool beans

Ah, fun, fun, fun. I really liked this one and am glad I picked it up. It was well-written, amusing, different, complex. All good stuff like that. Reya, our main character, is a Redeemer. A supernatural occupation I found most fascinating. It literally means that she gives people - usually murdering, raping, thieving scumbag-type people - a chance to redeem themselves before death. Or, to at least acknowledge their sins and ask for forgiveness - whether they deserve it or not. I LOVED (yes, capitals) this concept! What's more, I loved Reya's method of delivery. And, well, just about everything else about Reya.

Have you ever come across one of those characters where you just think, "Man, she's cool! I wish I had that much sass and swagger!"? Well, Reya was one such character. She filled every scene - most especially in the first half of the book before things got all serious - with this amazing devil-may-care attitude. It was slightly inappropriate, her glib casualness, considering the macabre nature of her job, but that just made it even funnier somehow.

Sadly, it's not all that much fun for Reya herself; dealing with this level of lowlife day in day out; having to see, feel, taste every sin they've ever committed before she goes after them? Not pleasant. But, of course, the plot eventually had to move away from this aspect and develop on a wider scale. And to kick that off, in steps slightly shady detective Thane Driscoll. Now Thane, quite cleverly, I thought, was very similar to Reya, in that he liked to carry out his own brand of vigilante justice on suspects who might otherwise get away with murder - literally and figuratively- under today's laws. Of course, you're not actually allowed to do that, as an officer of the law, and this brought his own soul's "goodness" into question. Something that Reya, as a Redeemer, knows a little something about.

From Thane's point of view, he senses there's something a little more going on than mere coincidence when every accidental death he's seen in the line of duty lately has featured a sighting or video surveillance capture of a mysterious but smoking hot black-haired female. When he finally tracks down said female to question her on it, her infuriating, non-committal answers, usually finished off with a big, fat, shit-eating grin, drive him to distraction. Or maybe it's just the "smoking hot" part that does that...

There was a lot of focus in the rest of the book on good and evil, dark and light, right and wrong. Some nice brain food. And the various different dimensions the human soul can exist in in its many incarnations was fascinating stuff. There was a bit of romance in there as well as you savvy readers may have guessed. When a guy's name is mentioned in the book description, it means there's a romance, right? Even if it's only a teensy one. And here, the romance was pretty good, but the sex scenes? Eh, I wanted more in that area. It felt too much like they were just meeting each other's bodily needs, whereas I need more emotional connection. I know, I'm a marshmallow. So that, and a couple of other small issues make this a 4 star read for me, but one that I still highly recommend paranormal readers add to their list!

4 Stars ★★★★
ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.