Promise - Debt Collector 7

Promise by Susan Kaye Quinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Following "Fallen's" five star performance, this book, or episode is mild. It is still interesting and Susan Kaye Quinn doesn't let Lirium change out of his still bloody clothes before he's on to the next adventure in this "season".

May not belong in a review but I'm growing less disapproving of this new literature nomenclature of a "season" filled with books. Still better that I don't get chatty about it though. I remain a fan of Susan, her story ideas, and how she presents them. I don't think about authors as much as I used to, but Susan is interesting on multiple levels.

Sadly, Lirium, our protagonist isn't terribly complex. I believe that this Debt Collector season is far more plot driven than character driven, not that characters are all cardboard cut-outs.

Lirium makes it to a safe house so exhausted he has passed out on the floor short of the bed. He is awakened by one of Madam Anastazja's girls. There's no time to breathe in this season, there's at least a few things Madam Anastazja wants from Lirium, and Lirium has at least two things at the top of his exhausting agenda, including finding his mother before those who want Lirium dead locate her.


Lirium seems to have the inner emotional life of a lion that regrets it has to eat meat while wishing he could just be a lamb or maybe a service dog, doing good: or at least doing something that will change him from the death monster that debt collectors are.

While I may not care for Mrs. Quinn's characterization of Lirium, I do think she bravely attempts to sort out what might be going on with a person who sucks the life out of people until they are dead, as a debt collector, and then pays out the life collected to "more worthy" souls. Brave or not, Mrs. Quinn does set her characters in a plot that is similar to a 45 degree downward slope, and the characters seem barely able to keep their feet under them as they plunge onward to the next very urgent thing to do.

You might want to pick up this season and explore Mrs. Quinn's fast pace adventures.

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