Connor's police detective friend, Leonard Murdock, calls him in to assist on a murder case. It seems that a dead Dead guy (that is NOT a typo) has been found headless in the sewers. Now as odd as this may seem, this is the neighborhood of The Weird we're talking about, so naturally things end up getting progressively worse. Loved it. I couldnt put it down and am anxious to see what next adventure of Connor Gray is all about. ( )

Nice reveal near the end of the book! ( )

The politics of this world get more and more interesting...the plot's still basically the same - something weird is found, it turns out to be linked to something much bigger, giant cataclysmic ending. ( )

I started Unperfect Souls with that happy, satisfied feeling of a reader who knows she won't be disappointed. Every book in the Connor Grey series has been better than the last, and Unperfect Souls is no exception. It is less cataclysmic than books #2 and #3 - and it's a good thing, too, because the city of Boston was falling apart at the end of book 3. Don't get me wrong - Unperfect Souls is packed with a lot of very, very interesting revelations and some pretty major political shake-ups. And some big explosions. And battles in the streets. And attempted murder at the Guildmaster's Yule Ball, leading to the ruination of several costly fairy gowns. Hmm. I guess it's pretty cataclysmic.

So what's in store for us in Unperfect Souls? We learn a lot about the dark mass inside Connor's head. He finally meets someone who knows what it is, who takes the time to explain how it works. Connor doesn't get all the answers, but it's a lot more progress than we've seen in any earlier book. We get a confrontation with Bergen Vize. And we find out why Murdock's father, the police commissioner, hates Connor so much.

But while the last couple of books in this series have been about watching things fall apart - the appearance of the Taint, the destruction of TirNaNog - this one is about putting things back together again. The problems that have plagued earlier books - like Guild mismanagement and broken human-fey relations - reach a crisis point. Lines are drawn in the sand. And it's about Connor feeling comfortable with the person he's becoming, accepting that his central role in recent earth-shattering events is no fluke. He thinks to himself, at one point, how funny it is that it wasn't until he lost all his powers that the fey elite started paying attention to him - and boy, have they. Queen Maeve and King Donor both have spies watching his every move. Security doubles every time he makes a visit to the Guildhouse.

The only bad thing about reading a new book from a series I really love is knowing how long it will be until I can get my hands on the next one. The Connor Grey series is one of those for me - I clap my hands when the release date comes, and then I'm grumpy when I tear through the book and realize how long it will be till I get another fix. ( )

Mark Del Franco has quickly become one of my must-read authors. His Boston is so interesting and frankly dangerous. Previous installments in this series have always delighted me and so I was happy to pick up Unperfect Souls. It’s actually been sitting on my shelf for a little while now, as my TBR pile has grown to epic proportion. (This is definitely not a complaint, by the way, more a statement of fact. However, as this is the summer of poverty, as I forgo work to finish my dissertation, I’m forced to delve into the mountain to find things to read, though I am still ordering books by my favourite authors since there’s no way I can resist (and I have budgeted for them). It’s actually for the best that I get to whittle down the pile, though, since all the books I’ve been holding off on are books I really do want to try.)

In Unperfect Souls, there’s even more going on than in Connor Grey’s last adventure, if you can believe that. In the aftermath of Unfallen Dead, and the closing of the pathways between our world and Tir Na Nog, the Dead who crossed over are trapped in Boston, in the mortal world. They continue to operate under their Tir Na Nog rules, which causes problems with the locals and makes the Weird an even stranger and more tension-filled part of town than usual. What I like about this is that Mark Del Franco uses events from previous novels, continuing the storyline and showing us the ramifications of Connor’s actions. Even though he saved the world, he caused some problems, and something’s got to be done, particularly when there’s a war brewing between the solitary fae and the Dead.

I was also really pleased with the exploration of the dark mass in Connor’s head and what powers and dangers it holds. His encounters with the leanansidhe are some of the best parts of the book because he’s forced to consider what using the dark mass means. As a reader, I was excited to find out more about Connor’s problem and what it might mean for him, both personally and politically. The information revealed in Unperfect Souls is so unexpected but it makes a lot of sense.

We also get to see more developments with Connor’s friends and allies. In fact, in some ways the secondary plots were almost more interesting to me, particularly the Keeva subplot, even though I was pretty sure what was going on there before it was actually explained. But that was the only plot point in Unperfect Souls that I came close to figuring out. Everything else, particularly in the final chapters, was such a wonderful, game-changing surprise that I’m going to have to run out and get Uncertain Allies just as soon as I finish writing this post, so that I can find out what’s going to happen next.

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