Crimson Wind: A heck of a ride!

Crimson Wind by Diana Pharaoh Francis

Reading a Horngate Witches book is a bit like watching a big summer movie. Action! Explosions! Impossibly tough characters doing awesome things! It’s a heck of a ride. Crimson Wind, the second installment in the series, is better than the first and quite enjoyable.

Crimson Wind benefits, in part, from my having read Bitter Night and gotten an idea of what to expect from the series. These really aren’t much like the usual urban fantasies. Some of Diana Pharaoh Francis’s changes to the formula are excellent, but they can be jarring if you go in with the wrong expectations. The primary setting is neither a gritty city nor a quaint small town but an isolated mountain stronghold; the supernatural beings are unusual for the genre; Max is abrasive even by urban fantasy standards; and the story is told in third person through the eyes of two narrators. In addition, Crimson Wind proves Francis is not creating a world perennially on the verge of apocalypse but never quite getting there, nor is she creating a post-apocalyptic world. This is a during-the-apocalypse world. I think I gasped aloud when a well-known landmark went kaboom partway through the book. Francis is not afraid to blow up the scenery and change the world right before our eyes.

Familiarity with the series’ unique setting isn’t the only reason I liked this one better, though. The main issues I had with Bitter Night were that I couldn’t connect to Max and didn’t find the romantic subplot convincing. Here, Francis fleshes out Max further, showcasing both of the central facets of her personality — her reflexive anger and her selfless heroism — and making her likable despite her razor-sharp tongue. Her nascent relationship with Alexander feels more fully drawn too, and this time around the physical attraction and the hint of a deeper connection really come through the pages.

The impetus for the plot is that Max learns her mortal family in California is in danger. She takes Alexander with her and travels there, both of them dogged by dire visions and prophecies. Along the way they encounter some of the chaos kicked up by the Guardians and try to save people whenever they can. These adventures are suspenseful and reveal aspects of Max’s personality, and her eventual reunion with her family is deeply emotional for Max and for the reader.

Francis keeps the focus squarely on what Max and Alexander personally witness. On the one hand, I like this. It adds to the immediacy of their mission and helps keep the story personal rather than making it a big-picture story. On the other hand, once in a while I wished Max would turn on the car radio and at least give us a brief hint of what is happening in the rest of the world as the Guardians rise.

Crimson Wind ends on a cliffhanger and will leave readers wanting more and wondering how Max will get herself out of her current pickle. If anyone can do it, it’s Max…