Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Six months ago, life on Earth radically altered. After a massive solar flare, a portion of the world’s population found suddenly found themselves with superpowers. Many are merely Enhanced, meaning their new powers are minimal and rather innocuous. But a handful of humans became Sups, with much stronger and seemingly unstoppable powers. Most of those Sups have turned to crime and it’s left the rest of humanity defenseless. Ben Krane is Powerless and has spent the last six months designing gear to give the police an edge. His best friend is captain of the local police force, so finding a way to protect the men and women on the front lines against Sups is a personal matter for Ben. But when Ben rashly decides to field test a new invention, it brings him face to face with Grey Miller, aka The Streak.
Grey is relatively new to crime. In fact, he’s relatively new to quite a few things, but unlike other Sups, he has no interest in violence. Grey’s not a Boy Scout, either, and he meets Ben while in the midst of a robbery. Grey finds the socially awkward, but clever, Ben to be utterly captivating and agrees to help Ben test his experiments. Grey is a brazen flirt and it’s hard to see him as one of the bad guys, especially when dealing with killers like Vortex and Talon. But as Ben and Grey begin to dig deeper, they realize that the Sups are organizing and not for anything good. It will be up to Ben and Grey to stop the unstoppable, even if it means risking everything.
After Vertigo offers an interesting twist on the superhero story, while providing a sweet romance between two compelling MCs. Ben and Grey are a rather charming couple and Grey’s shameless flirting makes him as charismatic as he is incorrigible. It would have nice to know a bit more about Grey’s past, just to give his character a more well-rounded history. They work well as a couple and their romance is endearing without being silly or feeling overly saccharine. The plot is fairly intriguing and there is “gotcha” moment that I thought was pretty obvious, but enjoyable despite that.
The only real issues with After Vertigo are in the writing and pacing. Now the writing isn’t bad, but there is chaos to the overall plot that the writing tends to magnify. It didn’t always read as clearly as it should and there were times I had to go back and re-read sections to make sense of what was happening. This doesn’t occur all the time, but it happens enough that it was noticeable. The pacing is also awkward. At times, it’s perfect and then at others it feels choppy and uneven. It actually seems smoother during the quiet troughs between the action sequences and that was unusual. Again, this doesn’t make After Vertigo unreadable by any stretch; instead, it just has a few quirks that caught my eye as a reader.
After Vertigo was quite enjoyable and I admit to being a fan of the superhero genre in nearly every form, so this book was right up my alley. With its endearing main characters and a story that held my attention, After Vertigo was a fun read and perfect to unwind with at the end of long day.
