Charming (Pax Arcana) is a refreshing take on the fantasy theme of a secret society that protects the world from bugaboos, vampires, werewolves and things that are out to kill us. The difference is that this secret society, the Knights Templar, isn’t trying to rid the world of dangerous supernatural predators; it is charged with keeping the rest of humanity oblivious to the creatures. The rule is called the Pax Arcana and it is a geas that compels the society to rid the bad guys that get too obvious, such as vampires that start serial killing young women in a rural town. They are obsessive about maintaining secrecy – and the purity of their group.
The hero is John Charming. By birth he is a member of the secret society, but he has one big problem. A werewolf bit his mom when she was 9 months pregnant with John. She died the first full moon but John was infected. The society tolerated him until a few years before the story opens when apparently they decided he was too much at risk to turn wolf. Now John watches his back while he lives in a small rural college town, tending bar under a different name.
World Building
Charming is Elliott James’s first novel and the first in the Pax Arcana series. The book is set in our world, rural America, so the primary world building is the background for the Pax Arcana, the menagerie of supernatural folk, and making it clear that John Charming is not a supernatural cop nor a Harry Dresden type with plenty of magic power at his disposal.
James dis a great job laying out his world by showing it, with no long explanations. John Charming narrates the book in the first person, so we see everything through his eyes, which must be a challenging way to describe a whole magic system. I was impressed with how natural the flow was in the story. The only part that was challenging to follow was the knights from whom John Charming is hiding; we learned little about how they operated or were organized.
Besides the usual vampires and werewolves we have Naga and Valkeries with other creatures suggested. It was great to see that the vampires were sexy only if you liked corpse-dead looks and bad breath and that werewolves feel great pain when they transform and that Naga like heat but can burn if you work at it. These were refreshing, and even better, gave the book depth and authenticity.
Characters
Some fantasy novels are all action and setting and unpronouncable words with clip art characters who have zero personality. Charming delivers real people who suffer and feel and rejoice and fear. Besides John Charming we have Sig, a Valkerie, Molly the Episcopal priest, Ted Cahill the snarky cop, Chauncey Choo, a pot smoking semi-normal guy who got into monster hunting doing his day job of professional exterminator, and Dvornik the Eastern European kresnik, similar to the Knights that John came from.
Let’s look at Choo. A professional exterminator who got a few houses with more than mundane pests, he teamed up with Molly and Sig to hunt a vampire nest operating in John’s peaceful college town. If you think about it, who better to see through the Pax Arcana illusion than a professional exterminator? If you’re killing roaches and rats, focusing on removing icky critters, you will be less susceptible to the Pax Arcana illusion. The novel is full of these innovative touches.
The villains are equally well done, from the nasty teen aged vampire Anne Marie working on developing a whole nest of vampires and vampire wannabes, to Ivan, to Dvornik and his nephews who played both sides.
Anne Marie has only a few lines but they are great: “Do you know what it’s like being me? I’m a damned corpse! I can’t feel anything except cold, and I’m cold all the time. Except when I’m drinking blood.”
Series Intro
Charming is the first in the series. Daring is book 2 followed by Fearless which is due out August 11. This was a series with rich characters and back story and strong foundation for follow up novels. I am off to reserve Daring now!
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