Review – Blackbirds

Title: Blackbirds

Author: Chuck Wendig

Genre: Paranormal

Publisher: Angry Robot

Publish Date: May 1, 2012

ISBN-10: 0857662295

Available at: Amazon – Barnes and Noble

Summary:

Miriam Black can see the last minutes and seconds of a person’s life, but she can’t do anything to stop their death. She lives on the fringes of society, robbing the dead. When she meets Louis, a truck driver, she sees him die a horrible death and she’s involved. If she’s to survive she needs to somehow find a way to stop Fate and save Louis and in so doing, save herself.

Review:

Miriam is a damaged soul. Whenever she touches someone skin on skin, she sees their last moments on Earth. This drives her a little crazy. She somehow ends up in Louis’ truck and he’s not like most of the road scum she meets. He’s decent and kind. She doesn’t expect that, but when she sees his death she catapults out of his truck and into the arms of Ashley.

Ashley turns out to be a con-artist who has been on her trail for months. He found out about her and he manipulates her into a partnership. Unfortunately he has bad guys after him.

Just the interplay between Ashley, Louis, and Miriam could have withstood a book on its own. Ashley is a conniving, manipulative, opportunistic character. Miriam is still attracted to him because he’s charming, but at the same time she’s repulsed by him. Especially when she finds out what he’s really all about.

Whereas Louis is the epitome of the knight in shining armor. He’s a hulk of man yet he’s gentle and kind. He treats Miriam with nothing but respect and she’s not used to that. I think that throws her for a loop. She’s used to be treated like garbage yet here she is being treated like a lady. Add to that the fact that she thinks he’s going to die in a horrible fashion in about a month. She ends up rejecting him.

Miriam is a complex character. She’s tortured by the death scenes she sees every time she touches someone. She drowns them out with alcohol and she smokes too much. But she’s a survivor. Miriam manages to get out of one tough situation after another. She also feels terrible guilt for what she’s doing, but she manages to talk herself out of it time and again. That’s another reason why she keeps drinking.

The story was a bang bang action packed adventure. Between Miriam’s penchant for trouble and the torturing bad guys there was never a dull moment. Miriam was always on the run. From her visions, from the bad guys, from her past. The only question was when was everything going to catch up with her.

This story was dark and thrilling. A thoroughly enjoyable ride!

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