Liu, Marjorie M. - Soul Song

[oyceter]

Kitala Bell, famous violinist, has always been able to foresee deaths -- but only violent murders. Also, her music is magic. M'Cal is a Krackeni (merman) who has been enslaved to a witch; she forces him to use his music to sing out people's souls for her consumption. He's eventually sent out to steal Kit's soul, but they end up falling in love instead.

First, yay multiracial heroine and her black grandma! I don't know enough about Voodoo to know if the depictions are accurate or not, but for what it's worth, I didn't get the feeling of "Look at this primitive religion! They use bird parts!" or other such nonsense. Er, I don't think using bird parts equates primitive, but that tends to be the feeling I get from other people writing about it. I am still liking the number of powerful older women in this series, good, evil, and in between.

I was a little less into the romance this time around, which made me sad, because I'd been looking forward to Kit's story. I think Kit and M'Cal ended up falling in love too quickly for me to fully believe, particularly given Liu's set up of Kit's deliberate isolation and M'Cal's trust issues. I do like that they trust and like each other, but it just went too quickly for me.

On the other hand, the plot was immensely entertaining and insane!

Spoilers

M'Cal bites off the witch's nose! It bounces! Kit's gris-gris blasts Edith's hand off and leaves exposed bone!

This is excellent. I have high hopes that Liu will start hitting manga levels of body part loss.

I also ended up liking the witch a lot. She is creepy and evil but also fiercely protective of her family, and I found her interesting.

Possibly I am too easily entertained and/or amused, but hey, I need light fluffy reading right now.

Comments

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

i started reading that book and had to put it down by the time her granny starts explaining her voodoopowahs. but i know ladyjax has liked some of her stuff too. maybe i'll give it another shot, but the magical fiddle powahs made me nervous.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

If my memory isn't going fuzzy on this one (I read a bunch of Liu last year but didn't keep any of them), it eventually turns out that Granny's voodoopowahs aren't really voodoo -- she's just using rootwork and such to give her own magic some external structure and focus. There's a bunch of white witch characters, good and bad, who seem to have the same sort of innate powers, even though they pick different forms to ritualize it.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I can definitely see that. I ... am still wary on some bits with Liu on race and gender, but overall, I've been inclined to give her a lot of leeway for the multicultural-ness.