Tags
The Neon Graveyard by Vicki Pettersson is book six in the Zodic series. It’s also the last in the series, Pettersson is ready to move on but she didn’t leave her readers wanting as she closed out this chapter. The Neon Graveyard is filled with the information we’ve been dying to know, but I’m not going to give anything important away. This book closes the series the way I hoped the series would close and like all the other books in the series it is action packed. (I’ll hit the high points of those first.)
As we learned from book one The Scent of Shadows the heroine Joanna Archer is both light and shadow, she’s the daughter of Zoe Archer, who represented the Sagittarius sign for the Light Troop of the Zodiac. Zoe was one of the best Superhero’s of her day before she disappeared without a trace, not even the comic books could tell what had happened to her. As it turned out she used all her powers to hide her daughters scent so her father couldn’t find and kill her before she disappeared. After that it’s not until Joanna turns twenty-five that her powers and her world turn upside down and she gets thrown into a world she has never known. She knew the streets of Las Vegas we ugly but not like this. She is forced into a fate and position she’s not ready for and it puts the weight of the world on her shoulders. For Joanna is said to be the “Kairos” the first sign that change will come to the Zodiac, and everyone wants a piece of her. In book two The Taste of Night we learn that Joanna’s father, is the master of evil, the Tulpa himself, a creation from someone else mind who leads the Shadows or the Dark side of the Zodiac, he wants his daughter to either join him or die. Taste of Night is Joanna’s internal battle to come to terms with whom and what she is, especially since she fulfills the second sign that she is the “Kairos.” As she struggles with her changing world, her troop and herself she is also learning what her powers are and that she has both her mother’s powers and her father’s. Then we come to book three, The Touch of Twilight, where we find Joanna working more with her troop, but still getting into trouble as one of the Shadow agents try to take over her life and her doppelgänger shows up to eat her heart. As the mess unfolds Jo kinds she still loves her long lost love Ben but she is falling whether she wants to or not for Hunter, the Light Aries. While the third sign of the “Kairos” does come to pass and Jo does bring it, this book is all about the art of war and how women battle it. The fourth book in the series is City of Souls. Here Vicki takes Jo to a world were women are goddesses and Hunter’s ex is queen. Not only does Jo have to save her soul in this world but she has to save her skin in Vegas as well from her father. In two worlds she’s wanted. But to fix what she broke Jo is willing to lose her soul and find the answers that she needs. She does fix the girl and becomes mortal just as her mother did when she was a teen and for that Jo loses her troop and her life or at least the life she had. She becomes an outcast betrayed by her troop and asked to leave Vegas or they will hunter just like the Shadow does. This brings to pass the fourth sign of the “Kairos.” Cheat the Grave book five in the series has Jo weak and in a mortal state where she can die if something happens to her. On the positive side she can still touch and wield other Zodiac conduits that are not created just for her, which no one else has the ability to do. She’s still fighting her father, she’s fighting to save Hunter from Midheaven and she has turned gray. Jo does everything she can to stay away from a killer sent from Midheaven to murder her, she still does what she can to piss off the Tulpa and Warren just so they know she’s there. She makes friends with the outcast the grays and becomes part of that group which is a mix of both light and shadow.
That brings us to book six The Neon Graveyard, Jo is still with the gray troop. They work against the Tulpa even the Shadow and they are trying to bring change to Vegas. They to believe Jo to be the “Kairos” even in her state, yet Warren and the Tulpa think there is another. However there are some things at start to unfold in this last installment. One of the best agents of Light has been taken by the Shadow. One Agent has gone rogue and to find both agents, an unlikely Agent of Light will go to Jo for help. As Jo fights to destroy her father, bring down Warren and save as many agents in Midheaven as possible it becomes harder for her to do so in her mortal body, yet as she finds ways to get into Midheaven without giving up her soul she pisses off Hunter’s ex. I can’t tell you how she finds the ways into Midheaven. I can’t tell you how Jo pisses off Hunter’s ex but I can tell you it’s worth finding out. Jo does find out what happened to her friend and the best Agent of Light and she does help the Agent that went Rogue do the other Agent like what happens, not really and I’m not going to give you the spoiler for that, either it was sad and not what I would have wanted for those Agents. They had been friends with Jo and even though she tried to forget them she couldn’t and she wanted to help them, both of them the best way she could. I know that’s not a spoiler, well it is but it just makes you want to know what the h*** I’m talking about. 😉 The other is what happens to Hunter does Jo save him. We do find out but again I can’t tell you it’s to give of a spoiler. Also we find out what happens to Warren and the Tulpa. To they win or does good prevail. Big spoilers that I can’t answer in a review all I can say is you won’t be disappointed if you read the series. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry and at times it may make you want to pick up a comic book and read it. I will tell you that Jo does bring all of the sign of the “Kairos” that she is willing to at the close of the series. So is she the “Kairos” you find that out as well, but you have to read the book to find out.
Enjoy!
Teresa
