Book Review

The Veil by Chloe Neill

B

Genre: Urban Fantasy

It’s been three months and I’m still talking about RT Booklover’s Convention. While there, I attended a panel on paranormal romance. It had the Ilona Andrews writing team, Kresley Cole, and some other really amazing authors. Chloe Neill was also there and she talked a little bit about her upcoming Devil’s Isle series. This is my first book by Neill, but gauging the reactions from the audience when she talked about her Chicagoland Vampire series, it was obvious that she was much loved. And honestly, after this book, I may have to start that series as well.

This is an urban fantasy book with some definite hints at a future romance. Maybe a possible love triangle? Or perhaps that was just me reading too much into things. Anyway! Set in New Orleans, paranormal and supernatural creatures are a real thing and they have always existed in a place called the Beyond, separated by the Veil.

Seven years previously, the Veil opened and a battle between humans and Paranormals began. The Veil was finally sealed, but anyone displaying magical abilities was rounded up and quarantined in a place called Devil’s Isle. Humans can develop a sensitivity to magic (they’re aptly named Sensitives in the book), and if they’re discovered, they’re interned at Devil’s Isle. If a human takes in too much magic, they become wraiths. I’d liken them to zombies, if I had to make any comparisons.

Our heroine, Claire, runs a local mercantile shop. The war kind of screwed up everything. The electricity flickers in and out. Cheese is a thing of the past. For the last eight months, Claire has been hiding the fact that she’s a Sensitive, with the ability to move objects. A local bounty hunter, Liam, in charge of sending Sensitives to Devil’s Isle, witnesses Claire using magic to save a girl from being attacked by wraiths. Instead of taking her in, Liam offers to help her learn how to use her magic. Something is afoot with all the increases in wraith attacks and Liam thinks Claire can give him a hand.

And there’s the basis of the story. Add in some shady government organizations paroling the streets of New Orleans to keep the peace, a band of hired mercenaries, and a few saucy magical characters and you have The Veil.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I liked the heroine a lot – she was competent and I understood her actions and motivations. She’s the only surviving member of her family, running a store that’s been in her family for generations. She fought in a way where magic-users were the enemy and now she’s part of them. There’s shame for what she could become and fear that she could be sent to Devil’s Isle. There’s a really heartbreaking scene where Containment agents (the agency in charge of running the city after the war) destroy her shop as they search for magical artifacts.

The cast is diverse and I appreciated that they were real people with real issues and not caricatures. Admittedly though, I found it a little on the large size. Maybe my memory isn’t that great or that some names sounded too similar, but it was hard to keep the characters and all of their family relations in order.

Truly, I loved the world that Neill has built and the grey area questions posed by the plot – who is the real enemy here? However, the story does suffer from what I’d like to call “first book syndrome,” which tends to happen in a lot of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. The author spends a lot of time explaining how the world works and setting things up and, at some points, my eyes glazed over.

The book has a rather clean ending. There are still lingering bigger questions, but the main conflict of the book is resolved. Honestly, I think it could even serve as a stand alone, but obviously it’d be more satisfying to have all the answers and see Claire get herself a piece of bounty hunter goodness (or that other love interest in question, which may totally be all in my head).

If you read it and want to talk about the potential love triangle with me

Show Spoiler
Seriously, that Malachi scene. Was something going on? PLEASE TELL ME THERE WAS SOME SHARED MOMENT!

I’m extremely interested in what the second book has to offer, especially since Neill won’t have to spend as much time explaining the history and world-building. There’s no real cliffhanger, so sky’s the limit as far as what’s in store! I want more of Claire turning into a badass. I want more of nosy Mrs. Proctor ogling Liam’s bum. I want more of Liam’s grandmother, Eleanor, being a saucy, aristocratic broad.

And anytime I want more of a series, that’s always a good sign, regardless of the first book’s shortcomings.

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The Veil by Chloe Neill

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  1. Amanda says:

    Oh I’m excited about this! Setting up a series must be so hard so I’m happy to see a solid B for the Veil, Chicagoland Vampires is a fun series with a pretty ass kicking heroine, worth a read for sure.

  2. DANG! Sure wish I had seen this review when this book was on sale yesterday!!

  3. jw says:

    Ohh noo, the Chicagoland Vampire series features one of the worst cases of “I’m not like the other girls” in my recent memory (by recent memory I mean since January). I wanted to like it really badly, but there were way too many incidences of her fighting other girls who are depicted as shallow and catty.

  4. Lada says:

    I couldn’t get past 1-1/2 books of the Chicagoland Vampire series despite loving Neill’s writing and mostly liking her characters. I didn’t look at the

    Show Spoiler
    but the way she dealt with the romance was so heavy-handed that I lost interest. Merit refuses to get involved with Ethan early because she knows it would be a terrible idea given the circumstances but then feels betrayed – like they were already in love – when he pushes her toward someone else.

    It felt like Neill wanted to make sure readers understood they were going to be a couple eventually instead of letting it unfold naturally.

    I’m hoping this new series is better because I really did enjoy Neill’s writing and world-building. You’ve convinced me to at least give it a try.

  5. Lada says:

    Sorry…tried to use a spoiler tag in my previous post but it didn’t work!

  6. Amanda says:

    @Lada: Fixed for you! You have to enclose the spoiler tags in brackets with the asterisks. So [*spoiler here*]text[/*spoiler].

  7. Elle says:

    You know, if supernatural beings were responsible for taking away cheese, I would probably start exiling them too. Loss of cheese is DEFINITELY worth a blood feud.

  8. Handyortung says:

    But then strange things start happening to the Veil, which has remained closed for many years now, and Claire and Liam stumble upon a plot to plunge what is left of NOLA back into conflict with the Paranormals, a threat they and their friends must stop in order to prevent more death and destruction on all sides. Not the book you’re looking for?

  9. […] VEIL by Chloe Neill received great reviews from several blogs, including Smart Bitches, Harlequin Junkie, and Gone With the […]

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