Title: Seasons
Series: PsyCop Briefs: Volume Two
Author: Jordan Castillo Price
Publisher: JCP Books LLC
Length: 309 Pages
Category: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: There is a certain sentimentality to reading these PsyCop vignettes. They’re set at various points throughout the history of the series, which means traveling back in time to recall the many things Vic and Jacob have been through over the course of their thirteen years together. There are some characters and series it becomes evident it’s time say goodbye to. Then there are some characters and series that should stick around for a long, long while yet. Vic and Jacob and the world of PsyCops will always be welcome in my world.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…will keep a PsyCop from his duty. Because ghosts don’t take snow days.
Seasons: PsyCop Briefs, Volume 2 contains four novelettes and fourteen short stories. This all-new, novel length collection begins right where PsyCop 12, Other Half, left off, with Vic and Jacob’s honeymoon. It then cycles through each season, highlighting various moments in the series with laughs, scares, tender domestic scenes, and of course, ghosts—then circles around to Other Half again.
Stories include:
Summer – Last Resort, Potato Potahto, To the Letter, The Perfect Storm, The Grass is Always Greener
Fall – On the Ball, Treat Me Right, Sticker Shock, One Bad Apple
Winter – Roadside Resistance, Don’t Sweat It, Cold Case, Can’t Take It With You, Holiday Cheer
Spring – Dead Zone, Honey Do, Impostor Syndrome, Tie the Knot
Review: The sheer volume of words Jordan Castillo Price has dedicated to the PsyCop series over the years is incredible, impressive, always nothing less than impeccable, not to mention much appreciated by readers who love the series and its characters. That between novels, Castillo Price has also managed to compose numerous short stories and novellas that give readers a glimpse into the more, shall we say, mundane goings-on in Victor Bayne’s and Jacob Marks’ otherwise esoteric lives is nothing less than a gift to those of us who anticipate every moment we’re given with these characters. Never fear, though, there’s still plenty of death and ghosts in these pages because, after all, this is the life and times of a powerful medium and his partner, now husband, who is so much more than just a Stiff.
There are moments when it’s good to be reminded that maybe Vic is like us. He just so happens to see ghosts too. Whether he’s sharing some of the banalities of his former job as a detective with the CPD, or worrying about homeownership, or trying to figure out how best to tidy up the cannery, we’re given the chance to commiserate with him in a way we’re incapable of doing when he takes us along on a ghost encounter and exorcism. That’s when we are confident he’s something more than we can or will ever be. Vic stashes Florida water and salt in the glove box of his car like my mother used to hoard fast food napkins, and then Vic mentions his stash of fast food napkins, and it solidifies his regular-guy status again. That this bit of communion happens when he runs across a ghost walking on the shoulder of an abandoned country road is merely the reminder we get that his life is anything but boring.
There is a certain sentimentality to reading these PsyCop vignettes. They’re set at various points throughout the history of the series, which means traveling back in time to recall the many things Vic and Jacob have been through over the course of their thirteen years together. Seeing characters from the more distant past to the present offers up a little sentimentality when thinking about everything we readers have gone through with Vic and Jacob only to now see them happily married. Where most stories would end there, however, Vic and especially Jacob are still evolving, and where their story will eventually, inevitably, end is something I don’t want to think on too hard. There are some characters and series it becomes evident it’s time say goodbye to. Then there are some characters and series that should stick around for a long, long while yet. Vic and Jacob and the world of PsyCops will always be welcome in my world.
You can buy Seasons – PsyCops Briefs: Volume Two here:
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