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The Taste of Night, The Second Sign of the Zodiac
Vicki Pettersson
ISBN: 978-0-06-089892-2
2007
Avon Books

With a title like The Taste of Night, you think you're going to read a vampire novel, right? Wrong. Far from it. I was hoping by the time this book was released in March, they woud change the title. Not only does it give you an inaccurate impression of the book, but it's just an awful title. Smacks of 80s bad horror. And it really has nothing to do with the book. (Except for the subtitle part.)

So it's not a vampire novel, I was pleased to discover. Nor is it a Laurel K. Hamilton knock-off like I suspected from reading the first few pages. (First person point of view, female protagonist with an attitude, etc.) It's about superheroes. Superheroes! Not having read the first in the series ( a series of, presumably, twelve) I was unenlightened. But I soon figured it out, as the author gets right to the point. And I liked it.

I'm one of those readers who, if not sufficiently intrigued by the end of chapter one, will put a book down. (Or, if sufficiently turned off by page two because of bad grammar, general bad writing whatever.) This one took a little longer than usual, but I gave it a chance because I knew I needed extra time to get to know the characters, having not read the first book, and because the writing was great. Vicki Petterson has a smooth, very readable style, and at no point did I feel like I was being talked down to something I appreciate in any book, particularly books published by big New York publishers. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough to suit me.

The book centers around superhero Joanna Archer, who has taken over her dead sister's identity in order to find her sister's killer. At the same time, she must find a way to stop the Shadow Agents, who have released a mysterious plague. Joanna, called The Archer, is also meant to fulfill the second sign of the zodiac (hence the reference in the book's title.) What's wonderful about this book (among many other things) is how easily we're drawn into the story, not having any knowledge of what happened to these characters previously. And it's pulled off without page after page after page of "refresher" background information. We're given just what we need to know for this story to make sense, and it's mixed in well with the current action.

The Taste of Night is a first person novel done well. We get completely inside The Archer's head all the while knowing plenty about the other characters.

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