Review – Owl and the Japanese Circus (The Adventures of Owl, Book 1) by Kristi Charish (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 432 pages
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: January 13, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1476794990
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Adventures of Owl series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 5/5 stars

I got a copy of this book through NetGalley to review. This is the first book in a new series called The Adventures of Owl. This book is packed with adventure, action, tomb raiding, archaeological puzzles and tons of supernatural creatures. It’s an incredibly fun read and very hard to put down.

The book features Owl, an archaeologist who acquires ancient artifacts for the highest bidders (think Indiana Jones but female and with more swearing). Owl has recently had a job go bad which resulted in some supernatural dealings with some vampires…which she totally wasn’t bargaining for.

Enter the Dragon…literally. A honest to goodness Dragon wants to hire Owl to find an artifact for him, to sweeten the pot he’s willing to take care of all her vampire problems. Little does Owl know things are going to get so, so much worse before they get better.

This was an incredibly entertaining book and I really enjoyed reading it. It features a heroine that is sassy, gutsy, a little rash, and totally determined to get what she came for. Owl acts first and thinks later. She also has a vampire attacking cat, a penchant for swearing, a love of Corona beer, and a serious addiction to MMORPGs.

The story is a mix of tomb raider with a heavy dose of the supernatural/paranormal thrown in. This is definitely more of an urban fantasy in tone than a romance, although Owl does have a romantic interest.

The supporting characters are just as awesome as Owl. Owl’s love interest is a kick-butt mercenary with pretty big secrets of his own. Her best friend is a Russian archaeologist with an amazing ability to crack codes and unravel ancient languages. Then there is Owl’s mysterious online hacker friend…

I loved that there was a lot of action but that it was balanced with a lot of code cracking and mystery solving. I also really enjoyed all the gaming references too.

There were a couple problems with the story. Although I adored Owl’s cat Captain, I thought that some of the scenes featuring him and how he was transported around were really unrealistic. I am willing to overlook that though since Captain was so much fun to have in the story. Also Owl repeats the same mistakes a lot throughout the story…I am hoping she will learn from her mistakes and grow as a character in future books.

Overall I thoroughly loved this book. The characters are awesome, the action and tomb raiding is just so much fun. This was a very engaging read packed with action and puzzles. Highly recommended to urban fantasy fans. This is urban fantasy but done in a very different way. It features a tomb-raiding sassy archaeologist who has the uncanny ability of running into supernaturals she can’t identify…seriously it is just so much fun!

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Ebook Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge