Well, I haven't read the first book in this series, so was a little leery of reading this one, but my worries were all for nothing. This is more of a companion novel I guess, so I wasn't missing any knowledge that would keep me from enjoying this one.

For me, the story started out a little weird. I was unsure just how I would feel about the characters, if I would be able to get into the story if they were too way out there. But it didn't take long before I was sucked into the story, needing to figure out just what was going on, who all these paranormal characters were, and just what exactly their role in the story was going to be.

Dresden of course sounded pretty creepy at first, as a Beekeeper, having bees that came out of his mouth, as well as the fact that he could change from a human form into a swarm of bees to travel. The Harbingers seemed not quite so creepy, I mean, crows could be a little bit, but nothing like bees would be in my opinion. And then there was the Strawman. Yeah, that would definitely be creepy.

While up until now, and most of the time still, for Essie, all of these people didn't seem that far out of the normal compared to things she saw all the time. You see her family suffered from a curse that caused them to all kind of go a little crazy. And as the story goes along, it seems that maybe not only does someone want to kill off the rest of the family members to end the long line of the curse, but at first to even try to blame it on Essie.

There were a lot of twists and turns, some things I kind of had an inkling about as I read, and was pleased to see that I had kind of guessed correctly. Other things were total surprises, and I enjoyed being entertained with a new detail I couldn't come up with on my own. I'll have to find time to go back and read the first book, as well as the e-novella that is now available. This is a series that I feel would be good to have available in my school library, and the copy I got to read for this tour is one that I will donate to my school library for sure.