Tread Lightly by Catherine Lane

Tread Lightly
by Catherine Lane
Pages: ?
Date: February 15 2017
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
Series:

Review
Rating: 4.21
Read: Feb 9 - Feb 10 2017

*I received this book from NetGalley, and Ylva Publishing in return for a fair review.*

Firstly – I do not know how long this story is, though I believe it’s in the ‘short story’ category.

Secondly – this story will be published February 15 2017.

And now on with the review.

This story stars two fantasy characters, though only one has a point of view. First up is Claire (we’ll get to Tamiel, the guardian angel, a little later). Claire is the point of view character in the story, and is a ‘fairy godmother level one plus’. The fairy part? Repeatedly mentioned in the story that, whatever she is (she’s uncertain, though knows she’s half-human and half something else) she isn’t a fairy. As in, Faerie creatures. That ‘level one plus’ has to do with her rank in the organization. She’s on the top tier of agents sent out into the field, though she has a boss, and then there are the unnamed ‘upper management’ people.

Several things to know about both Claire and what she does. Claire is roughly 400 years old and very very experienced in her profession. She’s like the gold standard, what with having such critters as Cinderella and Grace Kelly as successful clients (that’s what they call them, clients). In ‘modern times’ the ‘clients’ are a little less excited to meet their fairy godmother than they were in the past – what with having to break through the ‘not believing’ part. As noted, 400 years, much experience, and . . . . somewhat very naïve and inexperienced in certain matters. For example – until this specific story here, despite having lived and worked for 400 years, she wasn’t actually sure demons were real until this story. And, while she knew guardian angels were real (and that there’s a conflict between godmothers and angels), she’s never actually meet one before this story. That naivety and inexperience in certain matters (somewhat unbelievable inexperience), plus long age and deep experience in other matters, was beginning to irritate me. It seemed as if the author wanted the best of both worlds – someone super good, bright, experienced, but they also wanted to have them encounter new things, however unbelievable it would be for them to only know encounter them. Beginning, but then it started to become apparent why there would be this naivety – it gets indirectly explained in the story and becomes a lot more believable.

Tamiel is a guardian angel who Claire encounters while on a case. Being a character without a point of view, there is a lot less known about her than about Claire. Though certain things are known. Just like Claire, in her natural form she’s drop dead gorgeous (though Claire tends to use her powers to morph herself as needed, like into plump little old ladies, or as small children). The kind who wears silvery barely there clingy outfits. And has fire for eyes. Yeah that one threw me. Fire? Ah, hmm.

Story: The story follows Claire as she tries to help two ‘clients’, a Frankie and an Abby. One comes with tattoos, piercings, and a certain reluctance to believe; other is quite eager to believe a fairy godmother has turned up to help them. Both come with issues – Abby, the first meet, is disagreeable and seems determined to not help herself when help is offered; while Frankie has literal demons attacking her on and off.

While trying to meet Frankie for the first time, Claire teleports to her location. And finds herself in a dark dirty dingy alleyway. And the artist Frankie is ‘tagging’ a building. With graffiti. Then a voice begins screaming in Claire’s head, a demon appears, a guardian angel appears, and – well, hell breaks loose. And Claire has to overcome her prejudices against angels, and both the angel and the fairy need to try to help defeat the problems confronting them.

Overall - After I got past that issue of Claire being both experienced and inexperienced, I found her to be an interesting character. And Tamiel seemed interesting enough, though hard to ‘pin down’. I liked what occurred well enough, I might even have been a little tear-eyed at one specific moment (or two). I can’t say anything about the graphic sex scene, though, as that suddenly ‘attacked me’ while I was out and about in public so I mostly skimmed.

Rating: 4.21

February 10 2017