With so many urban fantasy series to choose from, it takes a lot for one to stand out like The Dark Choir series. With unique characters, a solid underlying plot, and consistently engrossing stories, JP Sloan is a master. Each new book in this series is a must read, something to look forward to. This installment was no different. Nearly impossible to put down, and disappointing only when it's over. I continue to be a fan.

I would like to thank Curiosity Quills for approaching me to review this book for them. I was sent a free electronic copy and was not paid to review, it was a totally volunteer basis thingy. I feel I was approached as I have thoroughly enjoyed the other books in this series - ‘The Dark Choir’.

However, I don’t know if they will approach me again after the constructive criticism I am about to give. I don’t think Mr Sloan is going to have me marked as a favourite reviewer any more either. ;-)

But please, please, please realise I am just trying to be honest about how I feel this book matches up to the rest of the series. If you can’t tell by my rating, I didn’t think it matched that well at all. To put it bluntly, I didn’t feel the story actually truly got started or got to the point set up by the previous books until I was about 75% through it. Everything that came before that came across as world building… which isn’t usually so complex when you’re reading the 4th book in a series. Pretty much all of the world building should be done by then.

I have really been dragging my heels on posting this review - I finished the book back in November last year and have been using the messed up sad chaos that has been my life these past eight or so months as an excuse not to publish a review. But, I want to get a clean slate for my reviewing this year and so have put on my big girl pants and here it is.

I am really hoping this is just one of those “mid-series slumps” as I honestly found this a watered down version of Dorian and really more a fluff piece to remind us all about the series, than something that truly added to the series as a whole. Well, except for the last 25% of the book - that was an addictive read like the previous books and the clanger dropped at the end of it… I think I may just have groaned out loud it was such an epic “oh my god no!” It almost beat my reaction to what happened to Julian in earlier books in this series.

So, if I was to base my opinion on the last part of the book alone then I would definitely say Mr Sloan was still on winner as DAMN that was good.

But the rest of it? Yeah, it really came across as padding and world building as if the story needed to turn and start down a new path, but that new path or reason for it wasn’t truly explained. I mean, the writing was still good and if I hadn’t had such high expectations based on the first three books in ‘The Dark Choir’ series, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot better and given it a higher rating. Seriously, this book had a “put on the back burner” feel to it and was then served up half cooked when it should have stayed on that creative cooking stove a little longer. Sorry Mr Sloan, I love your work and you are a fantastic writer… I just didn’t gel with ‘The Dark Interest’.

Would I recommend this book to others?

I would, but only if they had read the first three books in ‘The Dark Choir’ series. This isn’t a stand-alone book and anyone trying to read it as such is doing their imagination - and Mr Sloan - a great injustice.

Would I warn them about how I felt about it? Well, they are going to read that here… but if just asked I would say “it’s alright but not the best book in the series”. I can’t offer more than that.

Would I buy this book for myself?

Of course I would and simply because ‘The Dark Choir’ series is one of the best supernatural series I’ve read in a long time. And while I may have found the majority of this book was pretty “meh” I would still own it to ensure I have the whole series. I am just hoping the next book is better.

In summary - not the best book in the series, but ended with a brilliant cliff hanger.

~2.5

I've been procrastinating on this review for months, to the point that I've even been avoiding all of Goodreads. No matter how it looks, I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, particularly of series that I previously enjoyed. I really wanted to like The Dark Interest. I've relished the rest of the series: I like the magic system that Sloan sets up, the affectionate familiarity with the city of Baltimore, and I even enjoy disliking jerkish antiheroic protagonist, Dorian. The series has routinely gone in directions I didn't experience, often leading to the tarnishing and darkening of Dorian's character. I've found it fun because it's so unexpected.

Sure, there were some rough elements, some moments that made me wince, particularly in the first book. But this book took it to a whole new level, and in ways that can't simply be dismissed as a jerkish protagonist's warped perspective. Fair warning: because some of my issues with the book are major aspects of the plot, there may be spoilers from here on out.

In recent years, Baltimore has been central in a nationwide struggle over race, police brutality, and equal justice. In 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the city erupted into mass protests that led to a declaration of emergency, enforced curfew, deployment of the National Guard, dozens of fires, and hundreds of arrests. For years afterwards, national news was riddled with stories of mass demonstration, civil unrest, and arrests of protesters. Despite it all, all six police officers associated with the tragedy were acquitted or had charges dropped against them. More recently, Baltimore police have been arrested for racketeering and caught on the bodycams they thought were turned off planting evidence to incriminate Black suspects. Long story short, like many cities in the US, a conversation on equal justice is an inescapable part of the reality of the city.

In The Dark Interest, Sloan brings up that conversation, but in the most tonedeaf way imaginable. A riot erupts when the story starts, and Dorian being Dorian, his major concern is whether his restaurant will be destroyed or whether the riots will generate "a vibrant dinner rush." . Much of the subsequent plot involves the Baltimore riots, without ever quite saying as much. More specifically, he appropriates them as a plot point and attributes the anger to supernatural forces:
"Even though all of this was very real, this uprising wasn't a natural process. Long in coming though it may have been, this violence was engineered. Angry, ancient forces were pushing this city over a tipping point it might not pull back from."
"That's what this Summer of Blood is all about. Don't you see it? They're cranking up the heat."
I'm generally uncomfortable with this sort of twisting and belittling of history, but when the wounds are still so raw and the struggle is still ongoing? There are tragedies it is utterly unacceptable to appropriate, conflicts that it is repugnant to twist and debase and minimize and devalue. America's current conversation about race and justice is one of them.

The problems with this book don't stop there. Much of the story involves the "Jokomo Gang," a Black gang from New Orleans "displaced by Hurricane Katrina" . The members are described as "into drugs and guns" . Their brand of magic is described by Dorian as follows:
"It's not African voudou. It's Louisiana flavor, which blends lots of horrible shit from the Catholic Church, Santeria, and basically anything else the Dark Choir decided to toss into that gumbo pot."
The practitioners are termed
"Reckless dabblers. They stir up primal beings that rage unrestrained and unstewarded into our world."
The leader, Lasalle, is called a "wannabe crime lord" , "a hoodlum" , "an outright criminal" , and the "lead thug" . Lasalle is portrayed as a slow-witted, surly, angry, immature Black man who Dorian actually castigates a "acting like a child." Just in case you're in any doubt about the dog whistles going on here, Dorian later casually accuses the gang of "Get[ting] their free ride in Baltimore."

When the gang confronts Dorian, questioning him about his recent actions, the "good cop" protagonist appears to "save" Dorian by harassing and belittling them without apparent cause, going so far as to refer to them as "boys": "You boys raising a ruckus out here?" If you don't understand why referring to African-American men as "boys" is toothclenchingly offensive, I'm happy to point you to some references. But in the book, this is portrayed as a heroic rescue against a gang of "your basic street thug[s]" . At another point, Dorian ends up in a police station and assumes that everyone else behind bars-- all African-American-- are "probably wondering what a man like me was up to in a police station." (emphasis mine). [Things began less than optimally when Dorian stops a kid--poor and African-American, naturally-- from committing a theft, and they have a conversation in the author's attempt at dialect. It went downhill from there. I was mystified when Dorian jumped to the conclusion that the kid from the intro was running with the Jokomos-- the only thing I can imagine is he assumes all Black kids are muggers and gang members and all of "them" stick together. There is absolutely no other reason to think that. And of course, naturally, a Black kid is the mugger. Of course, there were other things that pissed me off about the book. Dorian has always been a jerk, and his level of jerkhood in this book is over the top. He decides he deserves to run the city because he can trust no one else. He has no principles other than self-preservation. He decides that he "had to betray Choi" to save himself. Why not just take consequences for his own actions rather than destroying someone else's life? At the very least, he shouldn't pretend he was forced into that choice-- he could have chosen to accept responsibility. (hide spoiler)]

I wanted to like this book. I really did. And actually, even though it infuriated me, I found it interesting to explore the perspective of a character so imbued with white privilege that his only thought during a mass protest against police brutality is whether he'll get a dinner rush. But what I have real trouble with is the unexamined nature of much of the prejudice; the thoughtless, caustic nature of the white privilege that imbues it.

Maybe if you understand what this book is going in, you can get past all this, but I couldn't. That doesn't mean I won't give the next book a try; I'm constantly fascinated by how far down Dorian can be dragged, and the ending is a zinger.

Okay, that's all from me. At least now you know why I've been procrastinating and avoiding Goodreads for these last few months.

The Dark Interest ,(The Dark Choir 4), Book FOUR of The Dark Choir, J.P. Sloan

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:general fiction (adult), sci-fy and fantasy

I've been with this since book one, and TBH its such a complex series you need to do that. It's full of difficult characters, real world and Old World, and demons of course, charms, hexes, curses, murders, mayhem and magic and without knowing the backstory you'll get lost. I do know the events that have passed and yet at times I'm lost ;-), but always manage to work it out somehow.  It's a sereis outside my comfort zone, that I fell into by accident but that I've come to love.

What I love is that the author mixes up fiction with Fact, with magics that had a real following at one time - probably still do in certain circles. So each time I see an unusual word I think - aha, this time he's made this up - and then check and find its some ancient language, or shade of magic, or a weapon that's used for certain purposes or something like that. I've learned so much about magic since starting this, that its not a one-size-fits-all, but that in the past (and present) it took many different shapes, evolved through some very different practices.
And I'm talking as if it's all real, but reading this it feels real. There are some well respected people in the world who still believe in these practices, and then I think - how come, all over the world each different group through the ages had had the same belief, but taken different routes to it? Or maybe its just human need to believe in something greater than us, something beyond this world..
It's not really a big stretch considering billions believe in a book written centuries ago, believe in a God who's really only a word of mouth figure.We don't have empirical proof, we  can't Know for certain he exists, that Heaven is real, but yet billions believe it.

Well, I guess that's why I enjoy these books, they're complex and yet readable, they have a solid story-line, some very real characters, both pleasant and horribly dangerous, those who just want to live and love their families and get on with life, and those hungry for power, magical, political, they don't care. In the middle is Dorian.

I've always felt he's on the side of good, not a particular do-gooder, but someone with his own morals and beliefs that he lives by, who tries to do the Right thing, not just the easy thing.  
Along the way he's had so many issues, starting with his lost soul, and its taken him on a very strange and complex journey.
He's always worked alone, had his few good friends, been respected and never sought Power for its own sake, and yet he's become embroiled in some dodgy and dark magical practices, got involved in politics against his wishes, gets pulled into different groups and is still searching for his soul. 

Its another deep and dark, and at times complex read. Dorian is tempted hard in this story, confused, trying in his usual way to protect humanity and his friends, but all the while his soul is missing and he's struggling to get it back. 
I love that his magic isn't a wave of a hand and a few muttered words, quick fix solution, but takes work, real work, if he wants to avoid the Dark side, the world of sacrifices. Yet his new lady, Annarose does just that, and how is he to mix her and how he feels about her, with his morals and how he feels about that?
Is the Utilitarian excuse, for the Greater Good, sacrifice one for many really a good reason, or a cop out? 

Its a novel full of danger for Dorian, more than we've seen so far, and he's had some tight escapes. Once more he's in the centre of some dark forces but who or what is pushing them?
It takes time before he can see the bigger picture and he makes some very dangerous enemies along the way. And that ending....I hate it when that happens ;-)

Stars: five, classic Dorian, anther rivetting adventure and complicated read. A real change from so much Light and Twee Magic reads. 

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

This is book 4 in the Dark Choir series and it's the first by J.P. Sloan I've read. I think it would be beneficial to read the previous books to gain insight into the many characters and paranormal groups.
Set in Baltimore, Dorian has a nice business selling hex's and charms to stay afloat. He senses that dark magic is taking over the city and he's right. I'm going to read the earlier book and reread this story.

I was so excited when I read the first book in this series by Mr. Sloan, and here it is the fourth book in the series. At this point, I go into the next book hoping it is just as good as the first, and this book in no way disappoints. Dorian is at a stand-still in parts of his life, and he is losing jobs to someone new in town. But, just like always, events and people conspire against him, and he has to delve into the darker side to get ahead of the Dark Choir and to make a living. I just love how well-written the series is. In this book, we go back to events from another book, and I feel that shows how well an author has plotted out a story arc. I also feel that Mr. Sloan does an excellent job with the characters, making them feel so real. To that end, I must admit I’m not sure how I feel about Dorian’s love interest, but we will see in the future how everything plays out. And, I just have to take a minute to address the ending. What an ending! I had an inkling right before the big reveal, and I was right! I’m sorry for being so cryptic, but I definitely don’t want to give away any spoilers. Dorian is in the middle of a mess, and this time it’s really personal. How will he get out of this? I am so eager to read the next one, I don’t know if I can stand the wait. If you are a fan of this series, you will love this latest installment. If you haven’t started it yet, do so now; it’s a great series! Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley and Curiosity Quills Press for the e-copy of the book which I voluntarily reviewed.