Singer of Souls, by Adam Stemple

I tjought Singer of Souls was a decent book. I had some problems with it--especially the ending--but I thought that overall it was ok.

It's an urban fantasy that is certainly reminiscent of de Lint's work. The protagonist is an underdog--in this case a busker and a recovering drug addict. He moves in with his grandmother in Scotland to get cleaned up. He ends up gaining the Sight, and gets into all sorts of trouble with fairies and a crazy priest. It makes for an exciting plot, and interesting characters.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the ending (and if you want to avoid spoilers, you should skip this paragraph). The protagonist goes insane and turns into a villain. That's annoying, unexpected, and entirely unjustified. Then there's the "epilogue," it makes for one of those god damned annoying, cliffhanger-type endings that serve no purpose except to make the reader want to read any possible sequel. In this case it didn't work, because I ain't gonna read any sequel.

Because of the ending, I can only view Singer of Souls as mediocre, so it only gets three yo-yos.