Rachel (Kalanadi)'s Reviews > The Ghost Train to New Orleans

I greatly enjoyed The Shambling Guide to New York City, and Ghost Train to New Orleans is its sequel. I looked forward to this with anticipation and bought copies of both books.

What did I like? The worldbuilding, the concept of the "coterie" and "Public Works" and so on, was great. I have little experience with the genre, so what other people might have found to be done-to-death didn't bother me. I also love the framework of this series - that the main character, Zoe Norris, works in a coterie (supernatural) publishing company, writing travel guides to cities for supernatural folk with special interests and special accommodation needs. Each book in the series then becomes an installment in the fictional set of guides; there are excerpts from the finished guides in both books.

In Ghost Train, Zoe Norris has discovered (spoilers for the first book) that she's a citytalkere. She's survived the battle in the previous book, lost her best friend at work, and now has to deal with her motley team of supernatural writers when they take a research trip to New Orleans. Opal and Kevin are vampires, Gwen is a death goddess, Eir is a Norse healing goddess, Bertie is a baby dragon...and if I forgot anyone else, then they were really forgettable. Oh, and her sort-of boyfriend who sort-of is a zombie-in-the-making tags along to try to find a cure to his almost-zombiness. Things go wrong. People get attacked. Ghosts try to rob a ghost train.

The plot was fun, but I started to have real problems with the main character about 2/3 of the way through the book. I don't want to be too harsh because I think the problem was me being overly critical. But a certain detail about the history and nature of citytalkers was revealed, and I set the book down and said to my dog, "I cannot believe this. That is just so ridiculous. Why did it have to be that?"

I could not figure out how the main character could believably be given that "destiny". She's barely hung on through run-of-the-mill supernatural adventures! She doesn't seem to have the strength of character, or will, or personality to accept this as being part of her heritage, nor to emphatically reject it and go do her own thing. (I'd prefer to read about the latter.) She doesn't even have enough back bone to verbally dress-down her vampire employee! So mostly she's going to worry, make snarky comments to herself, and be a doormat for coterie. Yay for our heroine.

I loved the first book in this series and gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I only gave Ghost Train three stars. While it was funny and entertaining and like popcorn, the total mental whiplash I got 2/3 of the way through made it very difficult to keep enjoying it. I do want a third book in the series. But if it happens, I really, really, really hope that Zoe undergoes more character development and deals better with the violence that inevitably follows her around.