Fawnskin

Title: Fawnskin
Author: A.J. Llewellyn & D.J. Manly
Publisher: Amber Allure
Genre: Contemporary Paranormal Suspense Romance
Length: Novel (166 pages)
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by Aunt Lynn

One Sentence Review: An unusual book that left me somewhat confused, but since it’s part of a series, I’ll let it slide.

THE BLURB

When Rallus quits his FBI job and moves to the mountain town of Fawnskin, California, to get away from it all, he has no clue that rural life will mean falling in love with another mysterious newcomer. He falls hard and fast for Knox Baylor, who’s taken an unusual job as a shommerin, a corpse watcher at a funeral home.

For Knox, the job should be easy money, even if the hours are long…except that he falls asleep on the job and accidentally releases Mr. Harold Hoxheimer’s angry spirit, or dybbuk, which starts creating unholy havoc in Fawnskin.

Harold opens all the secret wounds festering under Fawnskin’s pretty, postcard exterior. Fawnskin is home to a fake fortune teller who blackmails residents but hides an even more sinister secret. And why do individuals keep dying in the old people’s home? Rallus barely has time to deal with these problems when a grizzly murder takes place and a small boy is abducted.

As they investigate, Rallus and Knox find that nothing is what it seems in this once-quiet town with the warm and fuzzy name…everybody has a secret, and some are willing to go to deadly lengths to keep them.

How can they keep Mr. Hoxheimer’s vengeful dybbuk from jumping from one host body to the next? What exactly does he want? And can Rallus and Knox defeat the growing evil with true love?

THE REVIEW

Knox has left LA and taken on a job as a shomerim, a guardian of the dead in the Jewish faith, in a funeral home in Fawnskin, California. He has taken the position out of desperation and doesn’t want to screw up the opportunity to make enough money to at least be able to feed himself and stop living out of his car. Though he doesn’t believe in the myth of what the Jews believe, an uncontrollable desire to pee takes him away from watching deceased Harold, unleashing the vengeful spirit of the dead man who begins to cause all sorts of problems in the sleepy community. Knox now believes. Also new to town is Rallus, an ex-FBI agent who is looking for some peace and quiet and as much sex as he can get. Having problems of his own, he’s definitely not looking for love, but falls hard for Knox anyway. In the meantime, there is a blackmailing and psychic fortune telling extortionist, a missing boy, a bank robbery and insurance fraud mystery, affairs, and lots of dead people all swirling around them.

Fawnskin was a difficult book for me to review for a number of reasons. While I wouldn’t say that I disliked the unusual tale that ultimately is about hope — in personal lives and in business/economy — I am not ashamed to admit that it confused the crap out of me, especially at the beginning, and I didn’t know what to think. There are several sub-plots for which we are not given all of the information even at the end and numerous colorful and odd characters all interacting in some way or another via six POVs, and I had a little trouble keeping them all straight. Also, the tale jumps around in short chunks at times keeping tabs with all of what is going on and I found the format somewhat disjointed and distracting. As such, I had some difficulty immersing myself in the story. I even read it three times in hopes of catching things I missed or it all making more sense, but no luck. I considered giving it a lower rating than 4, but with it being decently written and a cliffhanger ending — there is obviously going to be at least a sequel — I cut it some slack in hopes that I’ll get some answers, for the characters to develop more and for it to come together in the next book(s).

I thought the idea for the story — shommerin and dybbuk — was a really unique and interesting thing to build a story around (I understand that the idea came from a real friend of Llewellyn’s who has/had the job), and that part held my interest. I found Harold, the wandering spirit, hilarious at times and wonder what the deal is with him. I am curious to see, among other parts of the plot, where Knox and Rallus’ relationship goes considering where this book ended.

To the negative, because there are so many characters, I felt none of them were really well-developed or three-dimensional. Again, since this is the beginning of at least a two-book series, I am hoping that we get to know the remaining cast better in future installments. Out of all of them, I thought that perhaps Knox was the only one I got to know decently well. His previous life — one that he’s not proud of that includes tricking to feed himself — was mentioned enough for me to get the picture. I thought it was sweet, in a sad way, how much he appreciates the food that Mrs. King, the funeral home owner, makes.  I wanted to feed him as well! But Rallus was an enigma to me, a beautiful man with what seems to be a good heart and giant schlong (and who spent much of the book using it).

Also, there is an element of Insta-Love for two of the couples: Rallus and Knox have known each other for three of the four days the story spans before their declarations even though they have spent little quality time together between Knox’s dead watch, the large amount of smexxin that they have and the craziness of what is going on around them. Likewise, the characters of Adrian and Mel seem ready to move to the next level in an even shorter timeframe considering Adrian had spent at least the first day or two of the story hung up on the hot-in-the-sack-and-hung Rallus.

OVERALL

Regardless of my issues with the book, I am eager for the next one to see if it helps make some more sense of the story and to see where it all goes. I recommend it to those looking for an unusual, at times suspenseful tale with paranormal overtones.