Maybe New To You: Vicki Pettersson

I've been reading indie books lately, not posting because I wanted to re-read one or two before commenting.  In the mean time, I dusted off my copy of Vicki Pettersson's The Scent of Shadows.  I loved this book, and quickly bought the second, but during the wait for the third to be released, I got distracted.  Now five years later, the series is complete.  The question isn't if I'll devour them, but if wait the time it takes to get hard copies of the last four to make the first two, or if I'll get them all instantly by e-reader.

When she was sixteen, Joanna Archer was brutally assaulted and left to die in the Nevada desert.  By rights, she should be dead....

After what she survived, Joanna had a right to become a snarky, kick-ass heroine.  This could have easily been another wounded heroine more obnoxious than the last, but the situation was managed beautifully with great writing, clear-eyed secondary characters, and character growth.

By her birth, Joanna is destined to become an Agent of the Light--a superhero.  Both times I read it, I loved this urban fantasy departure from vampires, were-whatevers, and fairies.  (Don't get me wrong, I love the others, too, or I wouldn't be such a fan of genre; but it's nice to have something different from time to time.)  If I have any complaint about the book, it's that like many superheroes, Joanna has a secret identity.  The good guys are curious about it, the bad guys want to uncover it and use it to destroy her.  With surgery involved, it's just a little less painfully obvious than Superman-with-the-glasses-off and Clark-with-the-glasses-on.  Since I've lived my whole life with Superman movies, TV shows, and animation without rejected it, I say that's a small complaint.