"A fast paced and fun romantic fantasy read"
As if finding her fiancé and her best friend in bed together
on her wedding day was not enough, Carmen Cole had
discovered their secret identities as well. Beneath their
shredded clothes are the spandex suits that reveal that Matt
is the superhero known as the Machinator and Karen is his
nemesis, the ubervillain, Crusher. From that moment on
Carmen had made it her mission rid the world of all the
lying superheroes and ubervillians by using her reporter's
instincts and deductive reasoning to expose them to the
public. Carmen had traveled from town to town, newspaper to
newspaper doing just that. It had finally landed her a job
at the Exposẻ in Bigtime, NY where she had unmasked the
identity of Tornado a member of the elite superhero team
known as the Fearless Five. Unfortunately the popular superhero had committed suicide as
result of her feature and Carmen had gone from hero to zero
overnight. Talk about bad Karma. Busted down to doing fluff
pieces for the society column, Carmen's sleuthing days are
over, or they were until she was kidnapped off the street by
the Terrible Triad, the F5's archnemesises. Faced with a fate worse than death for failure Carmen is
released with a mission, to discover the secret identity of
F5's leader, Striker, and report back to Malefica. Carmen's
hopes to umask the ubervillians instead using her usual
method of finding their connection to the superheroes. To do
so she must first discover the identities of the Fearless 5.
Ironically Carmen has grown close to Striker, who had
recently saved her from a near rape. She fantasizes about
him, and when she discovers his true identity she finds she
cares about him even more. Once she identifies his alter-ego
the rest of the pieces fall easily into place. Unfortunately the identity of Malefica comes as a complete
shock and more shocking still is how Carmen has played right
into her hands. Now the Fearless 5 are facing extinction and
the only way Carmen can redeem her Karma is to rescue them
herself ... or die trying. Quite different from the numerous dark urban fantasies that
have taken the genre by storm, this story has a genuine
comic book quality, sure to please the younger reader and
fans of lighter paranormal fare. The characters are larger
than life, but also very human. The members of the F5 are
still reeling from the death of their comrade and each deals
with it in a different way, which also affects the way they
deal with Carmen. Carmen learns a valuable lesson, that
exacting revenge doesn't make things better but only causes
more pain. Luckily the Fearless 5 are big enough to give her
a second chance and one of them will give her his heart.
KARMA GIRL is a fast paced and fun romantic fantasy read.
Reviewed by Leslie Tramposch
Posted June 23, 2008
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