The Spirit Chaser (Spirit Chasers Book 1)
Author: Kat Mayor
4 out of 5 stars
Austin Cole is the leader of Spirit Chaser Investigations, a paranormal TV show. While filming the season finale, the team’s lead psychic, Barrett, is possessed and afterwards quits the team. Now Austin has to grapple with potentially losing one of his best friends and find a new psychic. Barrett recommend Casey Lawson, his childhood friend and a gifted medium, to take his place. Although Austin and Casey clash at first, they eventually learn to work together. And as time passes, they eventually start to date. However, a demon is targeting Austin. As she begins to manipulate the team, things begin to unravel until everyone is in danger.
I liked Casey. She has trust issues due to events in her past, but she slowly begins to trust the SCI team and Austin. Austin is a very complex character, at one point Casey even thinks about the contradictions of Austin’s personality. He’s a devout Catholic that investigates the paranormal and the occult. He never drinks alcohol, but he has sex outside of marriage. Honestly though, at times it was hard for me to like Austin. He does come across as self-centered at times and far too focused on maintaining the TV show and uncaring of the danger he and others are in. I did begin to like him more later. When Austin and Casey start dating, they have a good relationship. And I liked the side characters. The whole team seems to get along well and care about each other.
Overall, the writing was really good. The first half was an easy read, and the pages flew by. The only issues was that the pacing was a bit off sometimes, and at times I lost track of how much time was passing and how far apart some events were from each other.
The main thing that bugged me throughout the story was how important things often weren’t shared with the other characters. For example, during a case, the team are able to get rid of a dark spirit attacking the homeowners. As the spirit leaves, he gives a threatening message about the demon that is targeting Austin. The lead tech, Josie, and the cameraman, Gary are apparently the only ones who hear it on the recording, but they aren’t shown telling anyone else. And that’s just one of many times where things weren’t shared with the rest of the team. Sure it might not have changed anything later given how Austin is characterized, but the other characters might have been more prepared, so it just annoyed me.
As a warning, there are some sexual scenes, and some scenes are just disturbing. For instance, a possessed character eats a live cockroach.
Overall, this was a good story that was well written. Due to the few issues I had with it, I’m rating it 4 out of 5 stars.
Current price through Amazon Kindle: $0
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Chaser-Chasers-Book-ebook/dp/B01JFAF74O
(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)