Redonk Nutshell: Woman w/ unknown legacy realizes her superpowers can change lives for the good and the bad

Tina Clancy is trying to finish law school and stay out from underfoot at her job in The Zone, the radioactive area of Baltimore where things…aren’t always what they seem. When her boyfriend of several months nearly runs her down, she curses him to hell while diving out of his path. She didn’t mean it literally, but it seems she apparently has the power to do that. To curse people to hell. This is news to her. It’s also news that each time she commits an act using her “power,” she has a physical transformation. First it’s her hair – it goes from mousy to glorious. Then it’s other things, like her prominently messed up leg that suddenly, one morning, has healed back to its original shape. If that weren’t weird enough, Tina is haunted by images of her deceased boyfriend, and he’s claiming that he ws set up. So what’s a girl to do? Investigate, of course. She dives into getting information on corporate honchos her honey used to rub elbows with (unbeknownst to her), and in the process invites unwarranted attention to herself and the people she works with. Her boss, a sexy yet secretive wall of a man, is concerned both for her and for his business. Tina, meanwhile, just wants to finish her degree, yet the crazy shit-storm she’s gotten herself into won’t abate.

This was a strange book. Strange in that it had a lot of interesting potential, but it played out in a way that wasn’t bad, per se, but wasn’t quite what I expected either. The tone was a plateau to me; there weren’t many twists and turns that kept me engaged or at the edge of my seat. I wasn’t really sure what, exactly, the relationship was between Tina and 1) her boyfriend and 2) her boss. It was clear that she hadn’t been with her boyfriend all that long, yet she felt seriously obligated to him in a way that seemed to go beyond what we had been told. And her boss? Yeah. Not sure what’s going on there, either.

Boyfriend just isn’t quite all there. At least not yet. The foundation of the first book leaves a bit to be desired (or defined), though hopefully with future installments we’ll get a bit more clarification.

Boyfriend from Hell by Jamie Quaid

Rating: C-

Romance: 1/5             Raunch: 1/5