REPOST--Everybody's Got a Dark Side

Downside Ghosts by Stacia Kane: The Best Series You're Not Reading

The best books are not easy.  They make you think, they shove you out of your comfort zone, they challenge your preconceived notions, they burrow under your skin, and they make you see the world around you differently. Downside Ghosts by Stacia Kane does all of these things.  I love this gritty, raw, emotional, heart-wrenching, dark, and disturbing series. I love a book that can make me cry, and I finished each of the first three books with tears streaming down my face. I know I'm hooked when I think about a book all day long, and hear the story in songs I hear; I did both of those things with Chess and Terrible.

Read on for a look at some of the reasons why you should try Downside Ghosts, and let Chess and Terrible burrow under your skin....

Gritty, Raw, Frightening Setting and Stories

From the very first scene of Unholy Ghosts, the stories are frightening.  Not only is the Downside world one in which ghosts are an everyday occurrence, but the methods for capturing those ghosts (which is Chess's job) are every bit as dangerous and harrowing as actually living with them. Each book follows a main storyline that is a mystery to solve with frights to encounter along the way. Many things can be said about this series, but that it is boring is not one of them. Stacia Kane keeps us guessing, keeps us on our toes, and writes riveting stories in all of the books. I've not been able to guess the bad guy in one book, and I've been surprised at the end of each one.

By the second scene of UG we begin to see Downside for what it is: dark, depressing, and impoverished. But it is written in amazing detail that makes the reader almost able to smell the smoke from the firecans, to see the ruined buildings, to feel the desperation of the Downsiders.  We sometimes get to travel to other parts of Triumph City and learn that it’s not all so dark and broken, but Downside is the perfect place for Chess. It is a reflection of her inner darkness, and we come to understand why she calls Downside home. I don’t read a lot of dystopian fantasy, so this gritty, filthy world is different from what I usually read, and I love that. I also love that the descriptions are truly a sensory experience. Stacia Kane builds a hideous world, beautifully.

And speaking of hideous, Ms. Kane writes disgusting in a way I've never read before. There are moments in the books that I have not read a second time. I just skip over those parts. Whatever your personal gag reflex, she'll most likely hit it somewhere in the course of the series. But I love that she is not afraid to go there. Life is messy and disgusting sometimes, and we just have to suck it up and deal with it.

 

Great Side Characters

You can’t have a great series without interesting side characters, and Downside has them. We meet Bump, Terrible’s drug kingpin boss, and Lex, their rival’s enforcer, in Unholy Ghosts. Bump is such a creep, but I love it whenever he is on page. He does not fit the description, at all, but every single time Bump opens his mouth I see Mr. Chow from the Hangover movies. His version of Downspeech just sounds like that to me. It’s probably just me; my mind is ridiculous.

Then there’s Lex. I should hate Lex, because I love Terrible. But I don’t hate him. I see him as a perfect foil for Terrible, and I love that in a story. Lex is handsome, laid-back, powerful in a much more slick way, has this playboy vibe about him, and is completely wrong for Chess. I actually really like Lex, and I am holding my breath to find out if we are going to get more books, so that we can see how the Lex developments in the last two books will play out.

There are also great side characters in SloBag, Bump and Terrible’s rival kingpin, Blue, Lex’s sister, Elder Griffin, Chess’s mentor, and Edsel, Chess’s only real Downside friend. The characters are interesting, and their development in Chess’s life is fascinating to watch. I want to continue getting to know these people, and you will, too. I love that most of our protagonists are anti-heroes. They are people who do really awful things every single day; but they have a code of honor and they look out for who, and what, is theirs. I don't live that way, but I totally respect it.

The Fucked-Up Heroine

Chess is an incredibly difficult character to read.  There’s no way to sugar-coat it: Chess is a drug addict. Her life revolves around addiction, and her sole focus is maintaining her high, while also maintaining the façade that she is a functional, “normal” Churchwitch.  It is difficult to relate to such a character, if you haven’t lived addiction yourself.  I don’t relate.  I don’t understand where she is coming from, and it gets very frustrating.  But as frustrating as she is, I have much more sympathy for her than most other heroines, because she has actually been through hell and back. She has genuine, deeply rooted reasons for her idiotic, self-preserving actions, which we discover more and more with each book.

                                                                           

Her past is completely unfathomable to me, and it allows the reader to understand why Chess is so damaged, to appreciate why she has the lowest self-esteem of any character I’ve ever read, and to comprehend why she sabotages everything good in her life.  I have never wanted to fix a character so badly in my life. I want to hug her, and keep her safe and warm, and introduce her to my parents so that they can love her, the way they loved me. I just want to wave a magic wand and fix her.

But what is amazing about Chess is that, in spite of her inconceivable hardships and issues, she is brave and smart, resourceful and talented.  When given an opportunity to improve her lot in life, she grabbed that chance with both hands, and became one of the best Churchwitches around. She faces terror every time she goes to do her job, but she does it with skill and aplomb, protecting others in the process.  Our Wench, Zee, had this to say about Chess:

And Chess, is SO fucked up, but...I get it. My heart goes out to someone who has had SUCH a fucked up life, and I'm rooting for her to somehow get better. When she {snip}...I cringed...but her being so screwed up doesn't piss me off shockingly...it just makes me feel worse for her and want her to work her way out of this mess.

Chess is going to frustrate and confound you—I guarantee.  You are going to want to shake her, yell at her, and sit her down for a nice long lecture about making good choices.  But she is also going to awe you with her bravery, her loyalty, and her vulnerability. Take this journey with Chess, and she’ll make it worth the price of admission. Unholy Magic is tough reading.  I thought I was going to give up, as did many of the Wenches, but we persevered. And I am so glad that I did, that WE did. The emotional journey that Chess is on is amazing!  But remember that it is a journey. We see her lowest lows, but we also get to see her hope and her growth. Be patient with her; she needs it.

The Unlikely Hero

For many, many readers, though, Terrible will keep you coming back for more. He is the unlikeliest of heroes. He is not handsome. In fact, he’s often described as ugly, which is not your typical romantic-lead fare. He is a drug kingpin’s enforcer, which means that he scares, beats, and sometimes kills people for a living. He’s uneducated and he has no family, or history, to speak of. I know that does not sound like a character you are going to want to read about, let alone fall in love with, but trust me, you will.

Terrible is the kind of character whose quiet strength radiates off the page, and you just know that there is a current of power beneath the silence that you don’t ever want directed at you. He is a human, but is scary enough to be included in the same discussion with our favorite supernatural heroes. Scary only goes so far though, and that is where loyalty, respect, and care take over. Terrible protects his own with a code of honor that only someone surviving in the world of Downside could understand. 

But what sets Terrible apart, keeps me coming back for more, and has reduced me to tears more times than I care to admit, are the simple, beautiful expressions of his feelings. His words are not eloquent or flowery, which makes them all the more powerful in their simplicity. There are so many moments in the five Downside books that stole my breath because Terrible said the perfect thing. By the end of Unholy Ghosts I already knew that he was unlike any hero I had read, and that I needed to read more, but this line from the end of that book ensured that I was fully consumed by “Terrible Fever”:

 “Some dames I let do whatany they want.”

This is what our own Amanda had to say about Terrible, and it is exactly how we all feel about him:

Terrible is not only an unlikely hero, but who could ever expect to hear the emotion that comes out of him? Not in the most eloquent way, but it is the only way he knows how. His lack of eloquence only makes my heart melt more. At one point, he says, while trying to talk about their relationship, "I'm not good at this shit..." I would beg to differ!! He is excellent at that shit. TBH, it's becoming more clear to me, he is reminding me of Bones for depth and honesty of emotion. Difference being that Bones is smooth, Terrible is not, but it's all there between the lines in that Downspeech of his.

Bottom Line

I hope I’ve convinced you to give Downside Ghosts a try. I’m going to be totally honest: they are not for everyone. They are scary in places, there are some disgusting things, the drug theme is difficult (but fascinating, really), there is coarse language, and they are graphic. But if you are open-minded, patient, have a strong stomach, and are able to see beauty and hope within the most difficult situations, you just might love Chess, Terrible, and Downside as much as we do.

What do you think? Have you read Downside Ghosts? Do you love them as much as we do? Are you ready to give them a try now? Share your thoughts below!