I vascillated back and forth on how I felt about this book throughout reading. On the one hand, I liked the premise and the Celtic edge. I liked Logan (although she was a bit of a special snowflake, I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, and I think Killough-Walden worked hard to make Logan a believable character). I liked the spooky Halloween atmosphere. So all that was great.
On the other hand, I was less keen on other aspects. Take the love interest, Dominic Moldovan (who was nearly always referred to as Dominic Moldovan, as if there might be several other Dominics coming along any minute and we'd get confused). He and Logan have a small handful of encounters throughout the book, most of which involve fighting the villain. So I didn't really buy their "connection" or feel their chemistry. If I were Logan, I'd be slightly perturbed that this boy I've never really spoken to before knows my birthday. It might sound like a small thing, but think about it. Logan's life is one of constant hardship due to her dysfunctional family. She's a loner and something of a misfit at school. It seems odd to me, given her self-doubt and self-imposed isolation, that she'd fall so quickly into any kind of bond with Dominic, who's supposedly a lust object for every female student at school. Why would she trust him so fast? I wanted a little more depth and exploration here, I suppose. I thought Logan had better chemistry with Sam, the bad guy.
Speak of which, I liked the idea of Sam Hain (even if the name was a little too corny), but again I felt more depth was needed to flesh the idea out. I suppose this being the first part of a trilogy, that will come. It would have been nice to get a deeper insight into who and what he was, however, as he spends the whole book just thinking about Logan. I don't really know what his role is in a wider sense, why he actually wants Logan, or why it's really that a big a deal that he's walking the mortal world.
Overall this is a good YA read. It's well-written with some interesting ideas, but it's also underdeveloped, particularly as far as the romance subplots went. It would also have been good to get a better look at Logan's homelife, given the impact it has on her. We know her older brother is ill, but we don't know what the problem is. We know her mother has a drinking problem, but it's something we're told rather than shown. More detail here would give the reader a better understanding of Logan and her reactions to the events unfolding around her. Hopefully the sequels will expand on the world touched upon here.
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