Book Review: No Humans Involved

Meet the smart, sexy — supernatural — women of the otherworld.

It's the most anticipated reality television event of the season: three spiritualists gathered together in one house to raise the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. For celebrity medium Jaime Vegas, it's her best shot at the celebrity holy grail: a TV show of her own. Because, unlike her colleagues, who are more style than substance, Jaime is the real thing.

Yet reluctant to upstage her fellow spiritualists, Jaime suppresses her talents, as she has always done. But something is lurking in the gardens behind the house: trapped spirits without a voice. And for the first time, Jaime understands what it means to be haunted. When events culminate in a psychic showdown, she must use her darkest power to defeat a shocking enemy-- one whose force comes from the last ream she expected.

No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong is book seven in The Women of the Otherworld series. I have to admit I was not looking forward to this book. Years before it was written I had read that Kelley was hoping to have Cassandra narrate seven. But Jaime got it. I loved Cass and hated Jaime. So, yeah... I was not looking forward to it. But it was written by the amazing Kelley Armstrong so I picked it up anyway. Jaime is the fourth narrator for this series, and each time we got a new one I had trouble getting into the book. But I had no trouble with this one.

Jaime O'Casey is a necromancer. She can speak to ghosts and raise and control zombies. She carries around a designer make-up bag... filled with hair, fingernails, teeth, cloth taken from a corpse, and even a finger or other small body part... which must be fresh. Ew, right? 

She's not just a necromancer; Jaime Vegas is a celebrity. Hence the name Vegas. She's a spiritualist. She contacts the dead to give their relatives peace of mind. Except that she's a con, like all the others. The messages real ghosts want to pass on won't sell tickets.

She's in California to film a television special in which three spiritualists are supposed to contact the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. Slightly inebriated she had invited her crush, smexy werewolf alpha, Jeremy Danvers, to join her. In the garden at the mansion where the spiritualists are staying, Jaime finds something she’s encountered only once before. Ghosts who she can’t see or hear, but who can touch her. With Jeremy’s help, Jaime’s going to solve the mystery of the trapped ghosts and set them free.

In previous novels, Jaime has basically been the comic relief. She's been kidnapped, possessed, and psychically attacked. She's clumsy and inarticulate when Jeremy's around, showing her to be a fool. She's flaky. The only thing I liked about her was that she always had the best lines. But here, where we get to read through her eyes, we find that there is much more to her.

We get to see what her life is really like. How hard it was growing up and learning to deal with ghosts. And, suddenly, she's not flaky. She's not a fool. She's strong, smart, caring... 

This book changed my opinion, a compete 180, on what I thought of her. She was my least favorite, and then she became my favorite character with this novel. The Women of the Otherworld is my favorite series. And No Humans Involved is my favorite book. I've read it over a dozen times. There is nothing I can say to express just how much I love it.

“I saw my true power. The darkest power. The greatest power.” 

Pick up this series, you won’t be disappointed.