The Night Raven by Sarah Painter

This book just didn't seem to ever really settle in to any sort of flow; even when it ended I still felt like I was settling in to the locations and the characters and getting my head around the overall premise.  The central disappearance of a Crow family member merely serves to introduce us to Lydia's family and, by extension, some of the other London powerful 4 and never really acts as more than a manipulation of the reader to introduce us to Crow family lore and the Fox clan.  It provides the opportunity to reveal the historical "facts" of the Crows but never really works as its own situation.  There is no jeopardy associated with Madeleine's disappearance at all and, as a reader, I never really much cared about the whys, wherefores or if she was living or dead.

Then again, I found that I wasn't really invested in any of the characters.  Lydia is pretty much meh on the page and I still don't feel that I know much about her other than she is easily manipulated, can communicate with willing spirits, has been kept on the outskirts of the Family and wants to be a Private Investigator.  Sounds like a lot I suppose but these are all superficial things in getting to know a character, as to her personality and what drives her I have no real idea - apart from caffeine, she does like her caffeinated beverages.

I found it frustrating to read as the bare bones of a good tale are all there, they just never really get fleshed out in this first book; so much so that I do wonder if the 2 books in this series were intended to be one longer work and the publishing house hacked them in to 2 or the author was failing to meet deadline so it was forced as a compromise.  This is a shame as an Urban Fantasy there is so much potential here and I would happily read the second book in the hope that the world is expanded more and that I actually start getting to know Lydia.