Review: Imperative By P.A. Wilson

★★★☆☆ Imperative: Book One of the Quinn Larson Quests. By P.A. Wilson

 Urban Fantasy is another of my favorite genres to read, I love the idea of mythical, magical beings living and working side by side with us yet hidden from view of all but a few sensitives. 
Vampires seem to be the most frequently depicted of the UF creatures, and I'm not much of a vampire fan, so I was delighted and intrigued to see that Imperative focused on fairies, sidhe, and magic users rather than vampires or werewolves.

Set in Vancouver Canada, Imperative is told in from the point of view of Quinn Larson, a young wizard (young by wizarding standards at least) who inadvertently witnesses not only the murder of a human by a fairy, but also a strange transaction between the murderer and a hooded Sidhe.
In order to protect the humans from death by fae and to keep them from discovering and eradicating the Real Folk, Quinn takes it upon himself to find out just what's going on and stop it before its too late.
Quinn is aided in this quest, primarily by a pixie named Olan, who had been tasked centuries ago to protect the humans, and later a witch named Cate.

Aside from who I'd consider to be the main characters there is also is a colorful cast of secondary characters, all of which are of the magical persuasion, fairies and pixies, witches wizards, sidhe, spirits and even a goddess or two.  All of whom are well written and three dimensional.  The fairies are depicted well and the lore seems well researched, especially the demeanors and ethics of the sidhe.  That alone warranted a star in this review as I find very little as annoying as when lore is rewritten just to suit a story.

This was a very easy read, though it seemed to get a bit choppy through the last quarter of the book, and I didn't care at all for the way it ended, I would be interested in reading more of Quinn's adventures.

Quinn reminded me a bit of Harry Dresden, though he's doesn't have that accidental hero aspect that Harry does. I enjoyed Quinns quips and sarcasm, both internalized and vocalized.

One thing that I was taken aback by was the fact that Quinn is male, even though Quinn is repeatedly referred to as a wizard I spent almost half the book I was incredibly surprised when he made mention of going to the barber for a shave, Yes, Quinn is male, but because I'd read him as a female for so much of the book, it took a conscious effort for me to think of him as male through the rest of the book.  I'm not sure how I made the mistake, though I blame it partially on only ever knowing Quinns that were women, and that the previous book I read of Ms. Wilson's had a female protagonist.

I gave this book 3 stars instead of 5 for a number of reasons.  Though the characters were very well done and the book was easy to read I found it easy to put down as well.  It felt at times like I was missing something, and found myself having to go back to see if I really had missed a page.

Quinn referrers to himself as a Real Folk throughout the book and I was left confused as to what wizards and witches are in that world. Quinn is not a fairy or a Sidhe or anything else not human, yet he considers himself to be separate from humans.  I'm not sure if its just magical human vs. mundane human or if there is something intrinsically different between wizards/witches and humans in Quinn's world.  Hopefully this will be dealt with in later books, but I found it confusing.  More back history on Quinn would have been nice too, He seems reluctant to talk about himself and I felt like I never really got to know him on more than a surface level.  The ending seemed rushed, it left me hanging and not in an enjoyable way, more of a "that's it?" kind of way, but I will attribute that to the ongoing nature of these books.  They aren't so much separate stories featuring the same characters but more of a continuation of events from book to book.

I do plan on giving Compulsion a read at some point but I think I'm more interested in Ms. Wilson's mystery series than I am in the urban fantasy.


(DISCLOSURE: I received Imperative as a gift from Ms. Wilson in exchange for an honest review, the preceding review is just that, my honest opinion of the book. Also the cover image and link contains my Amazon Affiliate link, if you purchase the book via that link I make a small commission.)