Review: Eyes to See

Eyes to See
Jeremiah Hunt, Book 1

Author: Joseph Nassise
Pages: 320
Publisher: Tor
Source: Publisher for review

Description from Goodreads:
In an urban fantasy that charts daring new territory in the field, Jeremiah Hunt has been broken by a malevolent force that has taken his young daughter and everything else of value in his life: his marriage, his career, his reputation. Desperate to reclaim what he has lost, Hunt finally turns to the supernatural for justice.

Abandoning all hope for a normal life, he enters the world of ghosts and even more dangerous entities from beyond the grave. Sacrificing his normal sight so that he can see the souls of the dead and the powers that stalk his worst nightmares, Hunt embarks upon a strange new career—a pariah among the living; a scourge among the dead; doomed to walk between the light of day and the deepest darkness beyond night.

His love for his departed daughter sustains him when all is most hopeless, but Hunt is cursed by something more evil than he can possibly imagine. As he descends into the maelstrom of his terrifying quest, he discovers that even his deepest fears are but prelude to yet darker deeds by a powerful entity from beyond the grave…that will not let him go until it has used him for its own nefarious purposes.

First Sentence: "I gave up my eyes in order to see more clearly."

Review:

Receiving an unsolicited review copy generally feels a bit terrifying, because there are a couple different ways that it can play out, several of them unfortunate. When I received King of the Dead, an unsolicited copy of the second book in a series I'd never even heard of, I was a bit concerned to say the least, as one of the issues with unsolicited books is squeezing them into an already fairly tight review schedule. Well, the publisher did contact me and offer me book one as well, if I didn't already have a copy, and, after looking at reviews, I accepted. Luckily, I enjoyed Eyes to See, and will not have to force myself through the sequel.

The opening chapters really snared me. Hunt lost his daughter Elizabeth, kidnapped away from him while she was playing the floor above. He never stopped searching for her or believing that she was still out there somewhere, waiting for him to find her. The experience completely changes him, taking him from some man that the reader only gets hints of into the man in this series. He now has the much more world-weary attitude that I've seen in other male-targeted paranormals.

So desperate was Jeremiah Hunt to locate his daughter that when he had a chance, however slim, that he might be able to locate her, he took it. As such, he sacrificed his eyesight, gaining instead a new kind of sight. He can no longer see anything in the light anymore, but has vision in the darkness, which is why he lives in a house with every window boarded up. With his new eyes, he can also see ghosts, and other paranormal creatures. Pretty much everything with his eyes was seriously fascinating to me, and, I thought, quite well thought out.

At the outset of the novel, Hunt has taken a job as an exorcist, something he does whenever he needs more money. He faces down a creepy poltergeist and establishes his snarky, people-hating tone here. I really like Jeremiah. He's sort of a mild guy, but still not a good person to mess with, mostly because he's resourceful and not quite as blind as everyone seems to think. Unlike most male protagonists in paranormal fantasy, he isn't much of a fighter; in physical confrontations, he generally comes off the worse for wear, which made him a much more unique character, I felt.

Of course, he quickly gets entangled into a murder investigation which ties in to Elizabeth's disappearance. Eyes to See clearly feels like the set up to a series, though it does wrap up nicely. I'll be really curious to see what direction Jeremiah goes in from here, as to whether the plot arc from this one will continue or if he will now wander around solving individual paranormal cases from book to book. Either could be great, I think, given Nassise's delightful writing style and strong characters.

For the most part, the narrative style worked quite well. The reader mostly gets Hunt's first person perspective. I found my attention waning a bit when the perspective shifted from him, however. Much as I might like Denise, I didn't feel that the one or two brief chapters from her third person limited perspective were entirely necessary. I felt that way even more so about the chapters from the killer's perspective, as well as from Stanton's. Has Nassise stuck to Hunt's past and present perspectives, I feel this might have been a stronger whole.

Fans of paranormal fantasy who don't want a focus on romance will delight in Nassise's Eyes to See. Though I haven't read them, so take this with a grain or cellar of salt, I suspect these might be a good read-a-like for The Dresden Files series. I shall be happily embarking on King of the Dead sometime within the next week.

Rating: 3.5/5

Favorite Quote:

"He was clearly nervous; his palm was damp with sweat, and it didn't take a genius to recognize that I unnerved him almost as much as did the events that had forced him to seek me out in the first place.
   Frankly, I didn't give a shit. Miss Congeniality, I was not."