Netherworld by Lisa Morton

Genre: Historical Fiction, Paranormal

Series: Book 1 of The Chronicles of Diana Furnaval

Publisher: JournalStone

Date of Publication: January 10, 2014

Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars – “Enjoyable, with moments of ingenuity; though overall the story’s pacing felt disorganized and inconsistent”

The fascinating concept behind this book was what first drew me in and made me decide to take a chance on it. Featuring a kickass nineteenth-century female demon hunter on a journey across the globe to track down and kill some very unconventional monsters, Netherworld appeared to have everything I was looking for and sounded very promising.

The book follows Lady Diana Furnaval, a young widow who has inherited much more than her husband’s estates after his death. Lord William Furnaval turns out to have been one of the last guardians of the mysterious gateways that lead into Netherworld, the place where demons and other malevolent spirits make their homes. With him gone, it is up to Diana to take up the mantle to secure these portals, though she is determined to take things one step further and close them forever.

Diana’s personal mission takes her to gateways located in faraway places. In China, she meets and befriends a young Cantonese sailor named Yi-kin, who accompanies her and her cat on their demon hunting adventures. Retracing her husband’s final journey, she also uncovers some disturbing information about his death which leads her to believe there is much more to the story.

After reading this book, my general impression is that Lisa Morton is definitely familiar with the ingredients which make up an effective and compelling tale. And yet, while all the elements were in place, the actual storytelling felt disorganized and inconsistent, with the pacing feeling very rushed in certain places. For instance, I had a hard time getting into this book because the several of the opening chapters felt so disconnected and unfeeling, especially with the quick play-by-play explanation of the circumstances behind Lord William Furnaval’s death, as well as the portion taken from his journal.

To its credit, the book falls back into an easier groove after this point, though the ending once again runs into issues with uneven pacing. The climax and conclusion felt glossed over, and overall the story had so many plot points and ideas that it was difficult not to wish for things to slow down a little, just to catch my breath and enjoy the different places and people Diana encounters. The book isn’t that long to begin with, and yet we go from Transylvania to India to China to America to England and to Ireland, and in each place we only get to stay long enough for the characters to kill a few demons and close a gateway.

There’s just so much more that could have been explored, and given how the author seems quite fond of providing historical details of the different locales Diana visits, I don’t know why she didn’t seize the opportunity to flesh them out. After all, I love how the story delves into legends and lore outside of the Western tradition. In particular, I enjoyed the inclusion of Chinese vampires or jiangshi (called goong-si in this novel because it uses the Cantonese dialect) and it’s clear Lisa Morton did a lot of research into them to ensure her descriptions and translations are as accurate as possible. It’s always interesting whenever I see an unconventional take on supernatural monsters, and in this case we’re looking at them through the lens of other cultures.

Overall, I think I expected more from this book. The story itself was admittedly quite enjoyable, though the haphazard pacing and execution of ideas took a lot of the fun out of it. Here and there, I have to give it major points for moments of ingenuity, but in the end this just wasn’t my cup of tea.

 2.5 of 5 stars

 A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher via LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.