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Wraith (Zoe Martinique, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Phaedra Weldon
Publisher: Ace Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $0.32
You Save: $13.68 (98%)
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 282219
Media: Paperback
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0441014976
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780441014972
ASIN: 0441014976
Publication Date: June 5, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new, factory sealed, in our warehouse, and ships right now.
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Product Description
First in an excitingly different and new paranormal series.
Zo Martinique has turned her unusual ability into a career. When she's traveling, she can't be seen which makes her an ideal professional snoop. Industrial espionage, surveillance, whatever. But one night things get out of hand while she's outof- body. She witnesses a murder and a soul stealing, and discovers she has unwelcome company: Trench- Coat, a ghostly killer who can see and hurt her.
Teaming up with a blue-eyed police detective, she tries to solve the case and improve her love life. She also enlists the support of her psychic mother and the ghostly couple who haunt her house. And with murderers, kidnappers, and a desperate ex-porn star involved, Zo needs all the help she can get.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 A cool fast read! September 30, 2008
L. Poulides (dallas)
This is definitly not your average chick "romance" book. It is fun, exciting, suspensful, and a super fast read! Great to take on vacation!
 Could be so much better September 13, 2008
K. Baines (El Segundo, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very good premise but unfortunately the author creates a character that is too immature to be believable.
A unique approach July 20, 2008
Nancy S. Hemmingson
Wraith is an enjoyable, creative approach to the science fiction genre. Who ever heard of gay ghosts or different degrees of contact with the other world? If I have one criticism it is that at times there are too many ideas. It is hard to follow WHAT exactly is occuring and the ending leaves one confused until the second book, which continues the story.
Enjoyed it, but not blind to its flaws June 5, 2008
Robin C. (Claremont, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had a ton of fun reading this book, but I can see where others have noticed that it's somewhat uneven. Personality-wise, main character Zoe is your everyday, run-of-the mill cool-but-a-little impulsive paranormal heroine. But her ability - to leave her body at will, and travel on the "astral plane" - leads to a very interesting, and very original story.
The author's worldbuilding is very thorough and very spectacular. However it's also quite involved. It's clearly meant to unfold over several books, and can be confusing when Zoe has to rely on less-than-reliable sources for her information (which she often does). That said, it's still a very promising setup, and one that's fun to learn along with Zoe. You've just got to be prepared for some pretty big 'gotchas,' and surprises.
Zoe is a fun character in her own right, but does very little to distinguish herself from other paranormal heroines. Her supporting cast is endearing though, and I though her relationship with her eccentric mother was a particular bright spot. She's also less romantic and more openly hormonal that your average female in literature; and on the one hand she's brash and impulsive, but on the other she tends to own up to her mistakes, and certainly places blame squarely (but not obnoxiously) on herself when she fails to learn from them. Her mistakes tend to stem more from her impulsive nature than any outright stupidity.
The plot is intriguing, and tests Zoe's mettle in situations heroines in other books usually manage to luck out of. But it does get more complicated as things go on, and at the end I felt sad the book was over, but also like I kind of needed a flow chart and maybe a diagram to fully understand the setup for the next book. Or at least a reread with notes.
Which I might go ahead and do. I'm definitely interested enough to pick up the next book. Weldon does a lot of things right, and there's just plain enough fun to keep me interested. Your Mileage May Vary.
 This Is Just Baaaad April 24, 2008
L. J Lewis (Collierville, TN United States)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
People, there are bad books and then there are BAD books. BAD books leave you with your jaw hanging open and you dumbfounded that an editor found it publication-worthy.
I could only make it to the one hundred and thirtieth page, but it I had my way, I would have quit after page ten if I hadn't been trapped in an airport with only one book to read. Let me list the ways Wraith is just plain awful:
1) Zoe Martinique- Do you like your heroines stupid? Like, really stupid? Dumb as kid sticking a fork in an electric outlet? Do you like them utterly tactless and with the maturity of a twelve year old squealing over Justin Timberlake? Do you like them to discuss everything in a "flippant, off-beat tone" that's supposed to be funny but isn't and gives the impression that they are too dumb to take anything seriously? Well, then you will love Zoe! The rest us will just want to smack her across the face and tell her shut up with her endless annoying jibbering.
2) Rape as character growth- The mistake that a lot of new authors make is that they give their characters some huge trauma instead a sympathetic personality in a misguided notion that say... being being raped by a knife-wielding maniac who just slit your boyfriend's throat... is supposed to endow them instant depth. In describing this incident Zoe never abandons her "cutesy, sassy" narration style. Now a character talking about something like this should convey a sense of horror, and it does her, my friends, it does. BUT it stems from the fact that Zoe talks about it so flippantly that it seems like she has all the emotional depth of a gnat! I felt like throwing up because rarely has this plot device been used in as an emotionally tone-deaf way as it is in Wraith!
3) The first five pages- Our story begins with Zoe doing something and then the action is derailed for five pages so Zoe can yammer on, in her irritating way, about random subjects. Seriously, the first five pages is like a laundry list of what not to do from those How to Write and Get Published books.
4) The characters are expository devices- A main character naturally has to interact with other people. It's not good when the side characters are all expository devices that seem to exist only to provide info-dumping sessions for the reader and conveniently find information for the main character. Considering that Wraith wants to be a supernatural mystery, it all but eliminates Zoe's need to investigate anything!
5) It's not funny because it's true!- In one scene, Zoe comments that everyone is talking like a badly dubbed kung-fu movie. No chuckles here because that's how most of the dialogue is written.
Wraith sure is something else. A lot of the problems stem from just utterly astoundingly bad editing, but I'm not sure another six months of polishing could have saved Wraith when it's got a main character as unpleasant and daft as Zoe.
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