#Blog Tour (Excerpt/Review/Giveaway) - Curse on the Land by Faith Hunter (Urban Fantasy) @HunterFaith @AceRocBooks

Series: Soulwood/Nell Ingram # 2
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: November 1, 2016
Publisher: ROC
Source: Publisher
Genre: Urban Fantasy
ISBN: 970451473325

Before Nell Ingram met skinwalker Jane Yellowrock, she had no one to rely on, finding strength only in her arcane connection to the dark woods around her. But now she has friends in the newly formed PsyLED team to keep her grounded — even if being part of the agency responsible for policing paranormals comes with dangers of its own…

After training at the PsyLED academy, Nell returns home to her woods to find the land feeling sick and restless. And that sickness is spreading. With the help of her team, under the leadership of agent Rick LaFleur, Nell tries to determine the cause. But nothing can prepare them for the evil that awaits: an entity that feeds on death itself. And it wants more….

Curse on the Land is the second installment in author Faith Hunter's Soulwood series. Nell Ingram returns to her Soulwood home having completed much of her training and earning a special circumstances waiver. As a newly minted Psychometry Law Enforcement Agent in probationary status, Nell has little time to relax and catch up with her family, before she is pulled back to work dealing with several different issues in and around her hometown. 

At home, Nell has issues with her land thanks to her previous encounter with members of God's Cloud of Glory Church who she broke away from. Nell's magical connection to the earth really is something and unexplainable. She can tell where the darkness is, and where she can recharge. We know that her lands gives her powers of healing and she knows that something needs to be done to cleanse her land. But, with a full time job now in front of her, she will need to address things as she is able. Nell also has a chance to actually be around her family without feeling guilty about past transgressions against her. 

As a newly minted "probie" agent, who now belongs to PsyLED Unit 18 along with Rick, Jojo, T. Laine, Tandy, and Occam, Nell has to deal with a possible radioactive accident that has affected a local Knoxville pond and as well as a local neighborhood. As a new agent, Nell has to learn the insides and outs of working with local police, and other federal agencies who are called in when things go sideways. After being attacked, Nell knows that there is something in the earth that not only likes her, but doesn't belong there. As a probie, even though she is ready to carry the brunt of the grunt work, she's become an important part of the team.

As Nell and teammates scurries like bunny rabbits trying to figure out the cause of the magical exposure incident, there are multiple incidents where wildlife and humans are being affected. Humans become violent, Animals, like geese and deer tend to walk around in circles before dying. I dare say that there is a whole lot of information provided by the author. I could say there is a bit too much, but this is Nell's new world now. She needs to be able to understand the acronyms while also dealing with others in her new capacity.

What is intriguing to me is how Hunter is dealing with the whole Nell and Occam issue. Will Nell and Occam be a couple, or are they just closer than teammates should be? Have to say that he is a typical southern man who isn't afraid to protect Nell from harm even when she puts herself in harm's way and doesn't feel like she needs anyone to save her. I am kind of curious to the entire Rick episode, and really I should say I am happy to see his previous exploits come back to bite him in the ass.

As a reader of both Soulwood and Jane Yellowrock, I am happy that the series cross but don't necessarily become a crossover episode like Supergirl and Flash. I like having certain characters from Jane's inner circle intermingle with Nell who always has some very interesting questions for Jane. I also am curious as to what Nell really is. Officially, she's being called non-human, paranormal, undifferentiated, but what exactly does that mean? I have to agree with other readers in saying that this series feels like an X-files episode, crossed with maybe Ghostbusters, which really doesn't bother me all that much.

“If it is a working, which I strongly question,” T. Laine went on, “it’s something new.” The moon witch was rubbing her upper arms, the skin of her palms dry and rasping on her jacket, the gesture a worried tic. One-handed, she tucked her too-long black bangs behind an ear. “If this is some magical attack, it’ll be a homegrown terrorist group, one utilizing witches. Maybe witches being used against their wills.”

I had read about that at Spook School. A full coven in Natchez, Mississippi, had been forced into a working that kept them trapped and slowly killed them as they were forced to keep the magical working going. I put that together with the fact that congress had still not made a determination about how paranormal beings would be viewed under the law, as equal citizens or something else entirely. If witches had launched some kind of magical weapon, or were even taking part unwillingly, that would likely increase the chance of the government forcing registration of all witches. Throughout history, registration of the populace, or part of the populace, had been a prelude to extermination. Step one of a pogrom.

“We need to report in,” she said, “and get Rick involved. Why don’t you send him the preliminary psymeter recording results and I’ll have a chat with him. While we talk, I need you to collect the geese and then find a comfortable spot to take readings of your own kind.”

Collect the geese. Ick. But I had killed my first chicken for the pot before I was ten, so dead birds weren’t particularly horrible. Still. Ick. 

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Faith Hunter, fantasy writer, was born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. She writes three Urban Fantasy series: the Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock, a Cherokee skinwalker who hunts rogue vampires. The Soulwood series, featuring earth magic user Nell Ingram. And the Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban, post-apocalyptic, fantasy series featuring Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage. (There is a role playing game based on the series, ROGUE MAGE.)

Under the pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action-adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has 30+ books in print in 29 countries.

Hunter writes full-time, tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, white-water kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their rescued Pomeranians to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

Find Faith online at her website FaithHunter.net, her blog, on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

There is a tour-wide giveaway for 5 copies of CURSE ON THE LAND, 2 sets of the Soulwood novels (BLOOD OF THE EARTH & CURSE ON THE LAND), and a $25 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Giveaway runs October 17th to November 12th. If you’d like to share, the Rafflecopter code is below.

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TOUR STOPS

10/17: Tome Tender (review), Bad Bird Reads (review + giveaway)
10/18: Gizmo’s Reviews (review + excerpt), Vampire Book Club (review + Q&A)
10/19: Book Junkiez (review + excerpt)
10/20: The Book Nympho (review + Q&A)
10/21: Urban Fantasy Investigations (Q&A + giveaway), The Genre Minx Book Reviews (review + excerpt)
10/22: Literary Treasure Chest (review + giveaway), Angel’s Guilty Pleasures (excerpt + giveaway)
10/23: Mother Morgan, May I? (review + excerpt)
10/24: The Reading Addict (review + excerpt)
10/25: Romance Junkies (review)
10/26: The Irresponsible Reader (review + Q&A)
10/27: The Book Crumb Trail (review + Q&A)
10/28: One Book Two (review + giveaway)
10/29: drey’s library (review + Q&A + giveaway)
10/31: The Urban Paranormal Book Blog (Q&A + excerpt)
11/1: Bambi Unbridled (review + Q&A), Slippery Words (review + Q&A + excerpt)
11/2: Will Read for Feels (review + giveaway)
11/3: I Smell Sheep (review)
11/4: Books That Hook (review + excerpt)