Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Release Date: January 8, 2019
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy / Urban
Kincaid Strange, not your average voodoo practitioner, is back in the freshly imagined and hugely entertaining second installment of Kristi Charish’s urban fantasy series.
Kincaid Strange cannot catch a break. After dealing with a spate of paranormal murders, there’s barely time to recuperate—let alone sleep in—before there’s a new problem in Kincaid’s world of paranormal activity. When her roommate, Nathan Cade—the ghost of a grunge-rocker with a pathological lack of self-control—comes home bound to a dead body, it’s up to Kincaid to figure out how to free him. Ideally before her new mentor, Gideon, a powerful sorcerer’s ghost, discovers that Nate is trapped in the body he’d coveted for himself.
When Aaron, a Seattle cop on the afterlife beat—and Kincaid’s ex—calls her in to help out with a cold case, she takes the chance to mend fences with the police department. The problem: they want to interview Nate’s ghost, which she can’t produce. Then people from Nate’s past start showing up dead, and what’s killing them doesn’t seem to be human. And the way it’s killing them is especially brutal.
Nate’s hiding something, but he’s Kincaid’s friend and she wants to help him. But she also wants to stay alive….
Story Locale: Seattle, WA
Hello!
Today, I am happy to announce that, after a brief discombobulation on my part,
author Kristi Charish is visiting Gizmo's Reviews! Kristi has provided us with a
guest post that I think you will love! Also attached below is my review for Lipstick
Voodoo, the second installment in Kristi's Kincaid Strange series. Yes,
Kristi is also the author of The Adventures of Owl series which has made it to
the top of my must read list! Thank you, Kristi!
The Evolution of She-Ra
I vaguely remember the day He-Man
arrived on my TV screen as a kid. It’s a little hazy, as most of my childhood
eighties memories are, but I remember devouring the show. My generation as a
collective whole devoured the show. Adventure, heroes with incredible power, a
mix of sci-fi and fantasy, a battle cat- what’s not to love for a seven year
old?
But there was something else
that made an impression as I watched the show.
There were a lot of men and a
handful of token women, the later of which occupied the roles of villain (Evil
Lyn with her 80s power hair), hero’s mother (the queen), an oracle (The
Sorceress, religious like guidance from afar), and captain of the guard
(Teela).
Now, if one of those seems
like it doesn’t belong, you’d be right. But Teela wasn’t your average 80s cartoon
fantasy character. Yes, she was dressed in a jump suit with a metal bra a-la Princess
Leia in Jabba the Hutt’s palace, but she wasn’t just eye candy. She was a
warrior. She wasn’t cute, she didn’t pine after cute boys or He-Man (much) and
wasn’t above shooting a few people. Though, like all 80s cartoon, despite being
a spectacularly strong female protagonist, Teela, being a woman, often had to
be rescued by He-Man because even though she was ridiculously competent,
independent, calculating woman, the thematic message peddled to young
impressionable children of the 80s was that no matter how f*&^ing competent
a woman you made yourself, you’d never be better than the strongest men.
It makes me a little sick
swallowing that load of garbage down as I write this.
But it was there. I grew up
through it.
But, despite the narrative and
the metal bikini top, Teela was pretty damn good. Teela might have had to
suffer the indignation of being a rescued a lot, but at least she got to be the
hero occasionally, if in a secondary capacity. She wasn’t perfect (neither was
Leia), but during the 80s she was about as good as things got.
Faced with few other options
and the optimistic enthusiasm only children have, I happily played with my
Teela action figure and my cringer/battle cat, knowing full well that the only
place she’d ever be the superhero was in my very own vignettes.
And then we were promised She-Ra.
She-Ra was going to be superhero,
He-Man’s sister in an action show designed especially for girls. To this day I
can remember my optimism as I waited for the show to preview. I didn’t know exactly what I was hoping for, but it
was for more than a token female character. I was hoping for a show full of
Teelas – warrior women in charge.
That wasn’t what we got.
First off, to put it bluntly, She-Ra
wasn’t portrayed as the brightest lightbulb in the field. What we later in the
90s would refer to in that toxic masculinity infused decade as a ‘dumb blond’. She
was nice enough, shaped more like a barbie than an action figure, with about as
many brain cells as the plastic could hold, a very high sing-songy voice, a
mini skirt with boots, and a penchant for exclamations. There was nothing wrong
with She-Ra, or any of the attributes I just listed off, but there was nothing
particularly right about them – and
certainly nothing useful in the realm of female role models for the
impressionable young girl I was at the time. She-Ra was somewhat independent
and somewhat feminist. It was a very lukewarm attempt at a positive female role
model, repackaged in feminine pastels reminiscent of My Little Pony and the cute-sy
heart-like symbology of Care Bears.
And, to top it all off, She-Ra
was the hero of Etheria, not Eternia. He-Man trumped She-Ra and occasionally
had to rescue her. In the cultural landscape that was the 80s, this translated
to impressionable young me that She-Ra was powerful but, like Teela, was still
not as good as the most powerful man. Looking back at a cartoon that might seem
like a jump, but consider the TV landscape. Wonder Woman is the first TV show I
remember, and Wonder Woman spent most of her time managing her boss’s ego and fielding
incredibly patronizing criticism thinly veiled as compliments or being saved by her male counterparts
on the Justice League cartoons after an admirable, but ultimately futile,
attempt to save the day. Barbie, My Little Pony, The Care Bears, Gem- girl toys and shows. Suffice to say the
80s were a very isolating cartoon landscape. Rather than open up those invisible
but well entrenched borders like Teela did, She-Ra helped shore up those gender
role divides.
That realization, though I
didn’t fully grasp or understand it at the time, diminished the entire show for
me. But, being under ten, I did what any other respectable kid faced with an
incredibly complex quagmire of a social quandary does. I played with my toys,
watched my TV shows and swallowed the paltry, canned attempt at feminism and
female role models I was given. I even played with She-Ra toys out of both a misplaced
sense of obligation and a genuine need to not want to hate one of the only female
super heroes I’d been given. “Well, you all wanted a superhero series for girls
so stop whining and play with your new toys” was the shrugging sentiment I got
from the 80s world at large.
Fast forward to today and we
have a very different landscape. I’m only a few episodes into the newly minted Netflix
She-Ra, but it’s healed some of my childhood wounds of disappointment. Gone is
the overly sexualized and hyper feminized barbie image that was presented to
young children of my generation. In its place is a very relatable and realistic
depiction of a young woman. Hell, the entire cast of She-Ra is diverse – in
body type and race. And, better yet, it is unapologetically feminine in a way that
can only be described as gender inclusive. This is not a show only for the
girls, yet in stark contrast to the 80s and many 90s shows that aimed for a
mixed demographic, the new She-Ra has an almost exclusively female cast. It was
such a shock I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it at first. But I’m still
watching it.
Only time will tell what kind
of story is under the hood of Netflix’s She-Ra and whether it has substance to
sustain a full kid’s cartoon series but I’m hopeful. It’s the kind of show that
I would let my daughter watch, proudly, and considering the 80s TV landscape I
grew up in I think that’s saying something. Finally, I feel as if I got the
She-Ra I wanted when I was a kid. And she’s not wearing a miniskirt. 
Lipstick Voodoo, by author Kristi Charish, is the second installment in the authors Kincaid Strange series. The story picks up shortly after the events of The Voodoo Killings. Kincaid is a kick-ass heroine who appeals to fans of Elena Michaels and Sookie Stackhouse. Lipstick Voodoo spends more time in the living world than The Voodoo Killings and captures the ’90s grunge vibe of Seattle, with forays into the beautifully crafted Underground City, the paranormal hub run by the mysterious Lee, who just happens to be the cities oldest living zombie.
As the story picks up, Kincaid has taken what was supposed to be an easy job, which ends up being a Lipstick seance. (Term refers to a seance where no one really wants to hear what the ghost, or zombie has to say.) Fortunately, Kincaid is the most experienced voodoo practitioner in the State of Washington, but that only goes so far when it come to getting the respect she deserves. Especially from Captain Marks of the Seattle Police who she just doesn't see eye to eye with, and who put a moratorium on her consulting contract with the department.
Kristi gives us a backstory for Kincaid’s charming sidekick, Nate, who appears in the first book as well as this one. If you have forgotten, Nathan Cade is a former grunge singer whose life ended way too soon. Nate, however, has other issues. The issue is that Kincaid must now find way to release Nate from his current body that was supposed to be for a very powerful sorcerer named Gideon Lawrence. A body that is slowly deteriorating. If that weren't enough, Kincaid made a deal with said sorcerer, and said sorcerer has come to collect on her promise to him.
But, the underlying story really begins when her former Ex and current Seattle PD Detective Aaron Beal asks her to help with a cold case. Back in 1995, it appears that a rash of unexplained deaths went unsolved. The family claims that Damian didn't use drugs, so, he wouldn't have killed himself. Kincaid finds herself deep in a mystery when all roads points back to Nate's former band mate, and lover. So, between finding out who is responsible for the strange deaths, and helping Nate find a way out of his circumstances, she must also face off with Gideon, who seems to be sending all sorts of messages to Kincaid.
Kincaid's
version of Seattle is one that is filled zombies, ghouls, ghosts, and
poltergeists. There is even an underground city where zombies go to get
drinks to sustain them. This is the same underground run by Lee Ling who Kincaid seeks out when she doesn't have the answers she needs to put the solution together. Since the first book, Kincaid and Gideon's relationship has been a bit on the twisted side. Will he kill her for what happened in the first book, or will he end up being her teacher since her former mentor is now gone?
The publisher stated that there's a third novel in the works, so, we haven’t seen the last of Kincaid Strange yet…Good thing to since the ending leaves readers with all sorts of feelings!
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