Ahoy there me mateys!  This was a hard book to wrap me noggin around.  For one thing, I thought it was a standalone.  It is, apparently, the first in the series with two other books currently listed.  It felt like a book two.  I felt like I was dumped into the world and was missing a ton of backstory and world building that I should already know.  The buildup was meandering.  There were lots of introduced side characters that were not explored at all.  Also way too many descriptions of clothes, objects, etc.  The book was better than okay but less than good.

The main character, Emiko, is given a quest with a tight deadline but the pacing and plot lead to very little suspense.  Forty-eight hours seemed to take several weeks.  Emiko is also in the dark about her own talents and, given the non-subtle hints everywhere, she should not be so obtuse.  The cover-ups are blatant and the overall feeling when I finished was that the plot was a tease and rather dissatisfying.  The ending was drawn out unnecessarily.  And there is a love-triangle being set-up.  It felt like this book could have used a lot of trimming.

That said, I did like Emiko and enjoyed her character overall.  I also liked the death god.  The magic was fun and I would like to see more of sentient San Francisco.  And the foo lion was awesome and could have been used at lot more.  I also loved the librarian and the library itself.  I do want more answers about Emiko's talents and about her mother.  I am not adverse to reading the next book.  I just hope it has better editing.  Arrrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review,