Margaret Ronald – Spiral Hunt

The first book in the Evie Scelan series, published January 7, 2009.
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: different, intriguing if you look longer



Some people have the Sight. Genevieve Scelan has the Scent.
They call her "Hound," and with her unique supernatural sense Evie can track nearly anything - lost keys, vanished family heirlooms . . . even missing people. And though she knows to stay out of the magical undercurrent that runs beneath Boston's historic streets, a midnight phone call from a long-vanished lover will destroy the careful boundaries she has drawn. Now, to pay a years-old debt, Evie must venture into the shadowy world that lies between myth and reality, where she will find betrayal, conspiracies, and revelations that will shatter all she believes about herself and the city she claims as home.
When the Hunt is on, the Hound must run . . .


Genevieve “Evie” Scelan is a bike messenger for her daily job and a private investigator using her nose to find lost things or people on the side. Her world is a dangerous world, where using magic will get you the attention of the Fiana, and that is not something you want. They are like a magical mafia, and they control everyone who uses magic.

When Evie gets a phone call in the middle of the night, from an almost forgotten ex-boyfriend, the trouble starts. Somehow, Frank is not the only one talking to her, and while he seems determined to get out of Boston, she needs to find out if he succeeded. But following Frank’s scent is bringing back more memories than she cares for, and gets her into contact with some old classmates.
While visiting Frank’s parents, to see if they know anything, she walks into Brendan Corrigan, who seems to be clueless about the magic regime in Boston, and who saves her life when one of her informants tries to pull a gun on her. She doesn’t understand how he can be so powerful, without using the normal loci.

When her best friend Rena, who is a police officer, asks her to come and look at something, that something is Frank’s corpse, completely covered in blue runes. His head had aged way beyond normal, while his body was still young and strong. They have no idea what to make of that, but when Rena digs into the police archives; she stumbles upon some similar cold cases from 30 years ago.

Evies other good friend Sarah hires her to find some chainstones, and it all gets more complicated when Evie smells them in the nursing home she and Rena are visiting, to get some more information from the previous coroner of the cases.

Mrs. Crowe, the old woman who smells like the chainstones, goes missing from the nursing home the next day, and when Evie smells Sarah, she feels betrayed by her friend. Why would she do something like that? And is that old lady really the Goddess Brigid?

Evie stumbles upon the horrible truth when she gets caught by the Fiana herself, but she also learns more about her own past and her ancestors. What should she believe, what should she do? Who can she trust?


I have to admit, I had a very hard time finishing this book. If not Melissa from My World in Words and Pages had told me to continue reading, as the next two books will be very good and unique, this would have become a DNF. But I finished the book, and I really did not like it very much. There is just too little explained about the world, the bad guys and what is really happening. It is all very sparsely discovered by Evie and to me; it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even though I really like Celtic mythology, it is just too unreal, to0 difficult/strange to believe in.

I do have the rest of the series, so I will probably read them, but that won’t be soon.

I did like Evie for her perseverance, but there is so little background on her, I don’t know enough about her to really like her and root for her. She cared for her mother, who made her promise again and again to be careful, and when she became mortally ill, she helped her terminate herself, if we have to believe Evie’s nightmares. It all gets mixed up with her dreams of the old Mrs. Crowe, who is more than she seems to be.

There are some guys in the book, Nate, a friend who is acting like a father to his much younger sister now their mother is dead. Will, another friend who gets under the spell of the Fiana and suffers for it. Brendan, who was posing as a possible love interest and who was anything but. And her two female friends, a police officer and the owner of a magic shop who wants to be more than a hedge witch.
And lots of scary powerful bad people.

If I did make you curious, you should try this book. If you can’t make head or tails from my review, I don’t blame you. It is not an easy book to read. Here is the interview that convinced me to keep on reading:
Melissa's blog


6 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian