The Fetch - Laura Whitcomb

[goodreads]

Title: The Fetch
Author: Laura Whitcomb
Genre: Fantasy, paranormal, historical fiction
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 378
Date read: May, 2009

Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth. The first to fall in love with a mortal girl.

But when he climbs backward out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.

My expectations of "The Fetch" were very, very low - practically non-existent in fact... Which is probably why I couldn't help but be positively surprised. I was fascinated by the story and had a really hard time putting it down, although now that I'm looking back at it, I'm hard pressed to say why. It was definitely more the writing style and the atmosphere than the people and the plot that caught my attention.

The book does have its problems though. It can't seem to decide on a genre and keeps switching back and forth between fantasy, historical fiction and paranormal fiction; the plot is very flimsy and the characters 2-dimensional at best. It's marketed as YA but will probably be more likely to appeal to an older audience.

The basic premise was enjoyable, but the execution could definitely have been improved.

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