Review: Wrong Ways Down (Downside Ghosts #1.5) – Stacia Kane

Terrible is Bump's right-hand man, and Downside's enforcer. He is tough, looks scary and is always ready to get respect by using his fists. Nobody tries to get Terrible or Bump and get away with it. When some of Bump's girls are being attacked and nobody can find out what is happening, Terrible needs to find out who is doing this, and get the ones responsible out in the open to make them pay.

For a while, Terrible has been falling for Chess, the Churchwitch, and he hasn't even realized it himself. But nobody but Chess can make him feel good - even about himself. And as he tries to come to terms with his new feelings, he is trying to stay her friend, because he thinks that's the only thing he deserves from a dame like her.

Wrong Ways Down is a novella in the Downside Ghosts series, and it’s all in Terrible’s point of view, third person present tense. It is really great to get some more insight into Terrible’s psyche to see the way he sees himself and the world around him. And if you’re a fan of Stacia Kane’s dark and gritty series, with imperfect main characters, drugs, violence and mystery, Wrong Ways Down is a must-read!

To see what Terrible think about Chess, how he sees her as so smart and beautiful, but too far above himself is really heart-warming, and a little heart-wrenching as well. Terrible is a thug, an enforcer, and he’s not afraid to use his fist and size to get the point across when someone in Downside dares to go against Bump. He sees himself as a little too stupid to be able to do something else with his life, but Chess makes him feel better – always.

It’s actually very sweet to see how self-depreciating Terrible is in Wrong Ways Down, because everybody who sees him is a little afraid of him, and he oozes self-confidence and is always strong and knows how to protect himself and those he loves. To see that he has doubts about a lot of things makes him even more human in my eyes, and even in other books in the series, it never really mattered to me that Terrible is a criminal.

I love the writing, it is written in Downside slang, and I am always amazed when I see one of Ms. Kane’s blog-posts where she shows that she knows how to write ‘normal’ English as well. To write a whole book in Downside-speak must be pretty hard, but I really love that these stories have that authentic feel to them, in part thanks to the language. It makes them stand out form other books, and even if it was a little bit hard for me to get everything in the first ever book I read in the series, I think I’ve become more or less fluent now.

Reading Wrong Ways Down in Terribles point of view also gives the readers a more intimate knowledge of Terrilbe. He used to be a lost, insecure boy who never had enough to eat, and didn’t always have a place to sleep. It has made him very loyal, but at the same time – even if he is the one beating up those who can’t pay their debts, and he’s not afraid to kill for Bump – he has a pretty strong moral compass.

It is pretty amazing when a writer can make me completely and truly love a guy like Terrible, to root for him and not mind that he does bad things, because in a way, he does those things for the right reasons. The growth of the characters through the series is really well done as well, and the fact that they are so broken and imperfect makes them even more endearing to me.

If you aren’t familiar with Downside Ghosts yet, but you love a good mystery with a paranormal twist, you should totally check out Unholy Ghosts and go from there. It is dark and gritty, with bad language an all, so it is definitely for a mature audience, but it shows that beauty can be found in unlikely places, and that sometimes, you have to grab happiness – with both hands – wherever you can find it.

That ain’t seemed to fit right, though. Somebody killing to steal ain’t usually spent time there slashing up their victims.

Red Berta had she some definite ideas on how shit should be, and she ain’t liked it much when things didn’t follow them ideas.

Except this. This was the one thing he did better than anybody else, leastaways better ‘n anybody else he’d ever met. He’d never lost a fight.

Maybe just from knowing where he was and that in a second she’d open the door. He didn’t know. Just like a lot of other shit.

And there she stood, smiling at him like she meant it, in faded black jeans and a t-shirt the same color that showed all those magic tattoos she had on her arms, her pretty little feet with red toenails bare. It was like… like something inside him got cheered up, just seeing her smile at him.

Just like Felice’s fucking husband with he bank job. Only difference between he and Bump was his kind of stealing and lying were legal.

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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