Book Review: The Line

TITLE: The Line
Book 1 in the Witching Savannah series
AUTHOR: J. D. Horn
PUBLISHED: January 2014
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Witches
PREMISE: In the deep south a woman with a powerful magic family finds out her family is hiding dark secrets...
MY REVIEW: When this came out, it was quickly billed as the perfect replacement for Sookie Stackhouse lovers which is why I took notice of it because I am in mourning for the fabulous character that is Sookie (book!Sookie, TV!Sookie...I'm not going to miss as much). Now...I definitely see why this is recommended for Sookie fans. It's got the same sort of dark urban fantasy deep south feel that Sookie has and it's got mystery wrapped up in the fantasy part.
However, it doesn't have what Sookie had, which is likable characters who you actually want to spend time with. I'm sorry, but practically all these characters in here, I wanted to smack at some point. That includes the main character who was just as insufferable as her family. If not more so, because the author kept trying to get me to sympathize with her by pulling the pity card, but all I felt towards her was annoyance. Then there was the random plotting at the end which kind of evolved into a really messy ending that made even the worst season of True Blood look good. Also some of the stereotypes in here bothered me to no end such as the entire character of Mother Jilo. She may have been an interesting character, but she was horribly stereotyped in a way that came across as borderline racist. I say borderline because I have a feeling that the author, a white guy, probably didn't realize his portrayal came across as a racist stereotype.
So...I'm torn to be honest. On one hand: it entertains, the world building is interesting, the writing is solid. On the other hand: characters were vastly annoying, the ending was messy, and there were problematic things all over the place in it. So...I say check this out of the library first to see if it's for you.
WHO SHOULD READ: True Blood fans, Urban Fantasy fans
MY RATING: Three out of Five shrugs