Alright, I started this book with much excitement, a new author for me and what sounded like a great premise…I mean just read this outline from the website:

“Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.”

A 1920’s supernatural story with a little of the occult thrown in I thought it was going to be great!  Sadly I was mistaken.  It took too long to get the story rolling to keep my interest.  I tracked the point where it started to get really interesting and that ended up being about page 300.  Now don’t get me wrong I liked the characters a lot. Evie was interesting, if a little single minded but that is appropriate for her age.  Her Uncle Will was great in his quirkiness, not too much but just enough to make him fun to read about, and the other supporting cast members all had great back stories but it just took too long to get them out into the open.  The atmosphere was fun, I loved the ’20s feel but the bad guy was lacking something.  I didn’t care or know much about him, so I didn’t care about the story line much.  The book totals 578 pages and when I was finished I felt like the story was just beginning.  It is obviously the beginning of a series that has the potential to include countless books but I don’t know if I will be reading any more of them.