Direct Descendent by Tanya Huff is set in a small, Canadian town, by an ancient lake. It’s a village filled with supernatural characters and the job of Cassidy Prewitt is to prevent the more horrific supernatural entities that live in and near the lake entering the rest of the world. This means that she deals with all sorts of minor issues between various creatures/people and has to tackle any problems that arise – this allows the author to add some humour to the story as the real world and the supernatural clash. A young man is drawn to the town and then disappears. Cassidy has to concoct a story to account for his actions but it soon becomes apparent that the man has created a serious problem for the town and that it won’t be easy for Cassidy to solve this problem.
This is very mild horror combined with a mystery story. It’s also a sort of urban fantasy which becomes a romance as Cassidy falls for the young woman who has been sent to uncover what has happened. I thought that it was a lovely mix of all these genres with the lighter side predominating. It’s written at a slow pace with plenty of incidents which build the atmosphere and the background for the reader but which aren’t actually part of the plot – I enjoyed inhabiting this world and am a bit surprised that the author hasn’t written more books based there.
I like the books of Tanya Huff, and I have read most of them – see reviews of two here and here. I enjoyed this story a lot.
