To Kill a Unicorn

I'm coming back to write a review for the first book after making it to book 10 I think? Sure, I rated this one pretty well, but if I were to rate the series in totality it would maaaaaybe be a 2 star.

Avoid this series. If you need reasons why, first and foremost, the author basically just took a bunch of other ideas and characters and threw them together into his story. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stuff is all public domain now, so he's free to use that, but the main character (Cain) even uses Lovecraft's works as reference material in the book, so not a lot new is being created in that corner. Toss in a bunch of Greek and Norse gods that are also free to use, along with a big chunk of fae stuff that we've all seen in dozens of series, and now you have almost the entirety of the background for the series.

For that last little smattering of unoriginality, now toss in blatant but “names are changed so I don't get sued” references to Dresden, Iron Druid, a couple other series I'm not familiar with (Nate Temple or Church or something?), which are literally implying that they all exist in the same world despite those other authors likely never intending anything of the sort, then literally steal a character from Iron Druid for an entire book (name changed again, you can't prove anything!!!) and THEN make one of the books literally a blatant ripoff of Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse, right down to the horse being named Mortis, and you'll quickly see how there is very little originality in this series at all. Reading the real source material for all of this, including Lovecraft, would be a better use of your time.

And that little bit of originality? A dickhead main character who is also somehow a whiny little bitch, and a bratty young girl that apparently thinks being a bitch is endearing. My biggest gripe is that one character “betrays” Cain (not really, it is like your co-worker not telling you he's also your boss) and up through book ten or whatever I got to, neither Cain nor Hannah (the whiny little bitch) can let it go or trust this other character, despite them doing everything they can to help since then and putting up with being treated like shit. This character should have told them where to go long ago and never spoken to them again.

So yeah, I'm very sorry I read as much of this series as I did. I'm angry at myself for continuing as long as I did, but I guess I wanted to keep giving it a chance. Don't be like me, avoid at all costs. Read those other series instead. This guy is nothing but a hack and a plagiarist.